This research was aimed at improving students’ reading comprehension
through SQ3R technique. This research was a classroom action research. The
subject of this research was the students of VIII grade at SMP Gunungjati
Kembaran Purwokerto in academic year 2015/2016. The number of the students
was 30 students comprised of 18 females and 12 males. This research was done
on 12 November – 10 December 2015.
This research used Classroom Action Research ( CAR ) as the method of
the research. This research did collaboration with the English teacher. This
research took two cycles with two actions in each cycle. Each cycle consisted on
planning, acting, observing and reflecting. This research applied both quantitative
and qualitative data those were test, observation, questionnaire.
The result of the research showed that improvement of the students
reading test in cycle 1 was 8% and in cycle 2 was 29.55%. Therefore, the
improvement of students’ reading comprehension from cycle 1 to cycle 2 was
21.55%. The students’ who reached KKM with the score more than or equal to 65,
there were 8 students or 26.67% improvement of total students from pre test to
post test 1 in cycle 1 and there were 22 students or 73.34% improvement of total
students from pre test to post test 2 in cycle 2. It was supported by observation and
questionnaire result. The observation result showed that the improvement of the
students in reading activities in cycle 1 was 30.66% and in cycle 2 was 70.99%.
Therefore, the improvement from cycle 1 to cycle 2 was 50.82%. The data from
the questionnaire which consisted of 6 questions showed that more than 70% of
the students gave positive response to implementation of SQ3R technique. Based
on the data above, SQ3R Technique was able to improve the students’ reading
comprehension.