The Applying of Asking Stage Strategy to Teach Reading Comprehension

The main problem of this study was: is it significantly effective to teach reading comprehension by applying of asking stage strategy. Therefore, the This study's primary goal was to determine whether teaching reading comprehension by using a variety of methods is considerably more effective than applying of asking stage strategy to the seventh grade students. The pre-experimental approach was utilized, and it had a one group, pre-test, post-test design. The total number of seventh graders at SMP Negeri 5 Lubuklinggau, which had 8 classes and 261 pupils, was the population. 35 students made up the sample for this study, which was gathered via cluster random sampling. 20 multiple-choice exam items were used to obtain the data. Three methods of analysis were used to examine the given data: the paired t-test, the conversion of score range, and the individual score. In this study, there were three main findings: (1) the mean pre-test score for students was (67.14); (2) the mean post-test score for students was (79.29); and (3) the matched t-test calculation showed that the t value obtained was (6.75), which is higher than the 1.697 critical value of the t table for degree of freedom 34 (35-1), with 95% significant level for one-tailed test. The conclusion is that the alternative hypothesis (Ha) was accepted and the null hypothesis (Ho) was rejected. The fact shows that it was significantly effective to apply asking stage strategy for teaching reading comprehension for the seventh grade students at SMP Negeri 5 Lubuklinggau.


INTRODUCTION
English has become a global language which is used in communication, technical and scientific journal and technology.In order to learn about the globe, science, and technology, English will be very helpful.Indonesia is notable for teaching English as a foreign language.It is viewed as a necessary subject in school, whether as an elective or as a compulsory subject starting from fourth grade to sixth grade of primary schools, Junior High School, and Senior High School.The fact that English is extensively used as the worldwide language means that Indonesians need to speak it in order to communicate with people from other countries, which is another major factor in the importance of English in Indonesia.
The ability of Indonesian students to communicate in English, both verbally and in writing, is another goal of teaching English to Indonesian students.The pupils should possess the four language abilities in order to accomplish the goal.Basically, in studying English there are four language skills that the students have to master.They are listening, speaking, writing, and reading.One of four skills that plays important role in mastering English is reading.By having reading skill, it is hoped that the students are able to absorb the information and expand their knowledge in science, technology, arts and cultures.
As a matter of fact, Indonesian students face a lot of problems and difficulties in learning English, including reading.People can expand their knowledge and widen their horizons with the aid of reading.The ability to read in a foreign language, specifically English, is a crucial one for SMP students in Indonesia to master.Winkel (1996:33) stated that there are three level of education, they are primary education (elementary school and junior high school), secondary school (senior high school), and higher education (institute, academy, and university).In this case, the writer was only focus on primary education especially at Junior High School.
Based on the interview result with the English teacher, data showed that most of the seventh grade students at SMP Negeri 5 Lubuklinggau were still poor in reading comprehension.In reading class, students were lack of the chance to voice their opinions and attempt to determine the best response to the question posed in light of the reading passage.Students found it challenging to comprehend word meanings when reading texts.Students then showed little interest in reading.In other words, students need to work on developing flexible reading habits, the capacity to discover and organize information effectively, and the ability to adopt a solid learning method that can help them master the material they read.
The writer encourages to improve this condition by applying a strategy in teaching reading comprehension by using asking stage strategy to help kids improve their reading comprehension.Asking stage approach, as defined by Albert and David (1980:11), is a technique in which a student and teacher read aloud portions of a selection before taking turns asking and responding to one another's questions about it.This method is effective for teaching reading comprehension.Based on the phenomenon explained above, the writer was totally interested to conduct a study about Teaching Reading Comprehension by Applying Asking Stage Strategy to the seventh grade students at SMP Negeri 5 Lubuklinggau.Was it considerably effective to teach reading comprehension by utilizing the asking stage strategy?.The problem was limited to the seventh graders at SMP Negeri 5 Lubuklinggau, the teaching technique was asking stage strategy, and the course material was reading descriptive texts.The goal of this study was to determine whether asking stage approach, which is used to teach reading comprehension, was significantly beneficial.

METHODOLOGY
This study used a pre-experimental method.Isaac and Michael (1985:54) state that preexperimental research often takes place in an applied situation in which only some of the pertinent factors may be controlled.The pre-test and post-test design was employed in this study with one group.This method was done to the one group of the students.It means that this study focused on the application of asking stage strategy in teaching reading comprehension.After the pretest, the group received a treatment to see if the stage technique for teaching reading comprehension to seventh-grade students at SMP Negeri 5 Lubuklinggau was successful or not.In this study, there are two variables: an independent variable and a dependent variable.According to Hatch and Farhady (1982:15), the main variable to look into is the independent variable.While the dependent variable is the one that is observed and quantified to ascertain the effect, it is the variable that the researcher chooses, manipulates, and measures.The independent variable of this research is request procedure strategy and dependent variable is the students' score in the test of teaching reading comprehension.The diagram is showed as follows.

Request Procedure Strategy
Reading Comprehension Independent Variable (X) Dependent Variable (Y) Figure 1

. Research Variables
The population in this study was taken from the seventh grade students of SMP Negeri 5 Lubuklinggau.The population was 261 students.The population of this study is presented in the table below: In choosing the sample, the writers used the cluster random sampling.It will be done by writing the name of seventh classes in small pieces of paper and then putting them in the glass then mixing first, the writer will take one class.The result is VIII.1 consisted of 35 students as the sample of this investigation.In obtaining the information, the authors tested the sample in writing.A test may be designed either as a means of evaluating the student's proficiency in the language or primarily as a means of reinforcing learning and motivating the pupils.The writers gave pre-test before doing the teaching experiment to the sample, and then the post-test was given after doing the experiment in order to know their progress in learning reading comprehension through request procedure strategy.The test is in the form of multiple choices with 20 items and with 80 minutes for the students to do the test.To have good test for the instrument of the investigation, it needs to measure the validity and realibility first.Before being tested, the validity and reliability were evaluated.
The data obtained was analyzed through three techniques, they were:1) Individual Score, 2) Conversion of Percentage Range, and 3) The Matched t-test Formula. 1. Individual Score.To find out the students' individuals scores.The following is the formula:

Score conversion based on the minimal mastery requirements (MMC)
A score's variability (or spread) is measured by conversion to minimal mastery criterion.It would be contrasted with the minimal mastery standards.The minimal mastery requirements for the curriculum to be taught are based on the requirements for the SMP Negeri 5 Lubuklinggau School.The students are classified as failing if their scores are less than 75.But pupils would be considered to have passed if their scores were equal to or higher than 75.The following is the table of the minimum mastery criteria of the school of the SMP Negeri 5 Lubuklinggau.The conversion of individual score is presented as follow: Before analyzing the data statistically, it is need to analyze the normality of the data.Investigation of internal consistency normal is estimated (Subana and Sudrajad, 2004:124).The Following is the formula of Normality test: The formula of matched t-Test as follow: obtained by using the following formula: The standard deviation (SD) obtained by using the following formula: (Arikunto, 2006:312) Based on the actual facts, the hypotheses were evaluated.The author utilized the t-table to test the hypotheses (t-tab).Considering that the one-tailed test's 95% (0.05) significance level.The crucial value of this study was based on the 35 students who made up the sample and the level of significance (1.697); a).If the t-obtained was less than t-table (1.697), acceptance of the null hypothesis and b).The null hypothesis was rejected and the alternative hypothesis was therefore accepted if the t-value produced was equal to or greater than the t-table (1.697).
To make a good instrument valid, the writer used content validity.Hatch and Farhady (1982:251), the degree to which a test evaluates a representative sample of the subject matter content is known as content validity.The items were examined for content validity to ensure that the test material had a high level of content validity and the writer consulted it to her two thesis advisors, to the English teacher at the school, and to the curriculum in constructing them.By doing this, the test's author sought to accurately assess the pupils' reading proficiency.(Arikunto, 2006:170).The following is the formula: The criteria that the author utilized to determine the outcome of empirical validity are shown below: According to Sudjana (2005:377), to find out the validity coefficient was used the following t-test formula: In testing the validity the writer used the t-table, the t-table with the degree of freedom 32 with 0.05 significance level for one-tailed test was 1.70.If the t-obtained was less than t table , so the item was not valid.On the other hand, if the t-obtained was equals or higher than t table , so the item was valid.Based on the result of validity testing on the table above, it could be concluded that there were 20 items valid (1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 29, and 30) and could be used as instrument test, and there were 10 items not valid (4, 6, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 26, 27, and 28) and could not be used as instrument test.
Dealing with the reliability coefficient, Fraenkel and Wallen (1993:149) write that for research purposes, a useful rule is that reliability should be at least 0.70 or preferable higher.It can be seen on the calculating above, the result of reliability coefficient was 0.81.It was higher than 0.70, so it could be concluded that the test could be considered as "reliable" and could be used as the instrument test of the research.
According to the computation of the items' discrimination indices, out of the 30 items, 1 item had a "very good" discrimination index, 16 items had a "good" discrimination index, 7 things had a "moderate" discrimination index, and 6 items had a "poor" discrimination index.Based on the items' discrimination index calculation, it could be foud that from 30 items, there were 14 items (1, 4, 5, 7, 10, 13, 15, 18, 19, 25, 26, 28, 29, and 30) categorized "easy" and there were 16 items (2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 27) categorized "medium".In addition, based on the item difficulty calculation, it could be concluded that from 20 items had been tried out, only 20 items were valid and could be used as instrument test and 10 items were not valid and could not be used as instrument test with reliability coefficient 0.81.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The test's results in this section take into account both the students' pre-test and post-test results.Before the treatment, the pre-test was administered.There were 20 multiple-choice questions on it, and you had 80 minutes to complete the exam.There were 35 students who participated in the pre-test.The greatest score, 90, was earned by three students, and the lowest score, 30, was earned by a single student, according to the writer's calculations.The pre-test students' average score was 67.14.This result was calculated by dividing the total number of student scores (2350) by the number of individual scores (35).There were 16 students or 46% in the "Mastered" qualification, there were 19 students or 54% in the "Failed" qualification.
After treatment, the post-test was administered.Thirty-five students participated in the post-test.The greatest score was 95, and the lowest was 55, according to the author.In the posttest, the students' average score was 79.29.This result was calculated by dividing the total number of student scores (2775) by the total number of individual scores (35).There were 25 students or 71% in the "Mastered" qualification, 10 students or 29% in the "failed" qualification.
The writer also calculated the normalcy in order to determine the normality of the pretest and post-test.In order to choose the kind of statistics that would be applied to analyze the following data, it was presumable that the data's normalcy would be a need.The writer discovered that based on data from the list of observation frequency and expectations for the students' performance on the pre-test obtained = 9.0762 with degree of freedom (df) = 5.Since significant level is 95% (0.05), and the table = 11.07 the data was normal, because obtained < table.Moreover, based on the list of observed students' frequency and projections for their post-test scores, the author discovers that obtained = 6.7218 with degree of freedom (df) = 5.Since level is 95% (0.05), and the table = 11.07.The data were consistent, because obtained < table.
The writer calculated the paired t-test based on the students' pre-test and post-test scores to determine whether or not it was effective to teach reading comprehension to the seventh graders at SMP Negeri 5 Lubuklinggau by using the questioning stage technique.According to the computation of the matched t-test, tobt was 6.75, which was significantly higher than 1.697, which was the crucial value of the t-table.It can be concluded that request procedure strategy is effective to be used in teaching reading comprehension to the seventh grade students of SMP Negeri 5 Lubuklinggau in the sub theme "descriptive text".

CONCLUSION
Some conclusion which the writer can give in this chapter are the pre-test average for the students was 67.14, while the post-test average for the students was 79.29.The average score of the students on the post-test was greater than their average on the pre-test.The subtheme "descriptive text" of the seventh grade curriculum at SMP Negeri 5 Lubuklinggau can be effectively taught to pupils using the request procedure technique.The pupils' proficiency in reading comprehension also improved from the pre-test to the post-test.It implies that the pupils' reading comprehension can be improved by using the asking stage method.The resultant T value, 6.75, was larger than the crucial threshold of 1.697.Therefore, the alternative hypotheses (Ha) was accepted and automatically the null hypotheses (Ho) was rejected.In order to effectively teach reading comprehension to seventh-grade students at SMP Negeri 5 Lubuklinggau, the asking stage technique must be used.

Table 1 .
One Group Pre-test and Post-test Design

Table 2
Shows The Study's Population.

Table 3 .
Sample of the Study

Table 4 .
Conversion of MMC

Table 5
To determine the empirical validity, the author employed Product Moment Pearson to know the statistical

Table 6 .
The Criterion of Validity