USING MAKING CONNECTIONS STRATEGY IN TEACHING READING COMPREHENSION AT SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

Abstract

Lack of the students’ reading comprehension ability toward English text that they read is commonly influenced by two main factors, they are come from students’ side and teacher’s side. First, the factors that come from the students’ itself such us lack of students’ reading motivation, it affects less of effort that they do in getting deeper comprehension. Besides, lack of exercise that students do also make them do not use to comprehend the text, most of students often cheat the others when they make reading exercise. As a result, they are unable to explain what exactly they read and write as answers from the question that are constructed based on the text. Next factor is teacher’s factor, the method  that teacher use still do not motivate students to interact actively with the text that they read. As the effect, students assume that reading is boring activity because it does not make sense for them. To solve those problems, the writer recommends a reading comprehension strategy called as making connections. This strategy guide students to connect the information that they find in the text with themselves, the other texts, and the world, so they can interact and involve actively with the text. The teacher can starts the lesson by activating students’ background knowledge and model how to apply this strategy.  The connections that students made will help students to comprehend the text and it is hoped that they reading comprehension ability increase as well