The Effects of Extensive Reading Strategy to Improve Students’ Reading Comprehension

The goal in this research were (1) to identify that the extensive reading strategy improve the students’ reading comprehension at English Education Program of Dayanu Ikhsanuddin University Baubau or not, (2) to find out the students’ perception toward the use of extensive reading strategy in teaching reading. This research used quasi-experiment. The English students of Dayanu Ikhsanuddin university Baubau in academic year 2015/2016 who take Reading III course at fourth semester was the population of the research. This research used cluster sampling which consist of experimental and control group. The experimental group used extensive reading in teaching, whereas the control group used usual method in teaching the data in this research was collected by using reading comprehension test as pretest and posttest and questionnaire. The data has obtained by questionnaires and reading comprehension test analyzed by using SPSS 20 version. Based on the data analysis, it appears that the use of extensive reading strategy has effect to improve the students’ reading comprehension. Besides, the students’ perception towards the extensive reading activity was positive. Therefore, it can be concluded that extensive reading strategy effective to be used in improving the reading comprehension of students in the term of literal, inferential, and critical comprehension.