This research aimed to find out the reading comprehension skill of the seventh
graders of SMP/MTs in Purbalingga Regency on descriptive and fantasy story text.
This survey research was conducted in 18 State and Private SMP (Junior High
School)/MTsin Purbalingga consisting of 9 state schools and 9 private schools. The
respondents of this research included 540 students consisting of 270 state school
students and 270 private school students. There was only one class with 30 students
taken as the sample from each school. The instruments used in this research were test
instruments consisting of reading comprehension skill questions with 30 question
items including the material of descriptive and fantasy story text. The data were
analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis supported by SPSS program for
Windows. The results showed that the students reading comprehension skills were still
low that could be seen from the presentation result of the categorized score from all
SMP/MTs. There was 2.4% of very good reading comprehension skills, 17.8% good
reading comprehension skill, 37.4% fair reading comprehension skill, and 42.4% low
reading comprehension skill. The data showed that most of the seventh graders of
SMP/MTs in Purbalingga Regency were still in the fair and low category of reading
comprehension skills.