IMPROVING STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ABILITY THROUGHCOOPERATIVE INTEGRATED READING AND COMPOSITION (A Classroom ActionResearch at Class VIIIA of SMP Negeri 1 Matesih in the Academic Year of 2009/2010)

Handini, S890908209, “Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension Ability Through Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition” (A Classroom Action Research at Class VIIIA of SMP Negeri 1 Matesih in the Academic Year of 2009/2010). The aims of this research are to improve the students’ reading comprehension ability using Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition technique and to know what happens when CIRC technique is used in the reading class. The problem revealed in this research was the low reading comprehension of Class VIIIA of SMP Negeri 1 Matesih that was caused by the internal factor that was from the students themselves and from the external factors such as, the teacher and teaching techniques that were used by the teacher. The teacher in SMP N 1 Matesih never used study groups or pairs in teaching reading. The writer found out that there were gaps among the students. Only some students had good achievements and were active to follow the teaching-learning process and the others were passive. Most of them were sleepy, bored, not enthusiastic to follow the teaching and learning process. So, the interaction in the class was low. The research was conducted from October 2009 to August 2010 in Class VIIIA of SMP Negeri 1 Matesih. The subject of the research was 31 students consisting of 16 male students and 15 female students. The procedure of the research consisting of planning the action, implementing the action, observing the action, and reflecting the action. In collecting the data, the researcher using observation, interview, questionnaire, and the test technique. In this research, the researcher using the objective test type for both pre-test and post-test. There were two techniques in analyzing the data, they were: quantitative and qualitative analysis. The quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistic analysis. The qualitative data were analyzed using the framework developed by Miles and Huberman (1984) consisting of the following steps: data reduction, data display, and data verification. The result of the research showed that Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition technique could improve students’ reading comprehension in terms of: the achievement in reading comprehension increased, and the students were able to comprehend a text well. The improvement of the students’ reading comprehension ability could be seen from the mean progress of pre-test and post-test. The mean score of pre-test was 54.54, the mean score of post- test 1 was 67.96, and the mean score of post-test 2 was 77.87. Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition technique can improve the teaching and learning process, such as: improving students’ motivation, increasing students’ participation to follow the teaching and learning process, and creating alive teaching atmosphere.