The aim of this research was to find out whether Small Group Discussion can
improve students’ reading comprehension to the XI IPS grade students of SMA Budi
Utomo Sokaraja in the academic year 2012/2013.
The method used a Classroom Action Research (CAR) which was designed by
Wiriaatmadja design. The writer took two cycles with two actions in each cycle. It started
from making planning, acting; observing and reflecting. There were two kinds of data that
were collected. There were qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative data were taken
from observation, questionnaire, interview and documentation. The quantitative data were
taken from test (pre-test and post-test). To perform this research, the writer worked
collaboratively with English teacher in that class.
Based on the data analysis, it can be concluded that Small Group Discussion could
improve students’ reading comprehension. It was proved by the result of students’ reading
comprehension improvement at the end of Cycle 2, and the improvement of students’
reading comprehension of test was 88% (15students), in which their score reached the
passing grade score of English lesson at SMA Budi Utomo Sokaraja in academic year
2012/2013 which was 75. There was an improvement of students’ reading comprehension
of post-test at the end of Cycle 1 and Cycle 2. In Cycle 1, the mean result of students’
reading comprehension was 69.12% and in Cycle 2 was 79.41%. Thus, the improvement of
students’ observation reached 17.64%, which meant that the students’ activeness improved
after the implementation of Small Group Discussion. Furthermore, most of students gave
their positive responses about the implementation of Small Group Discussion. It was
supported by 80% students who gave positive responses in the questionnaire, which meant
that the students felt happy having learning vocabulary using Small Group Discussion.
Moreover, the interview results also supported the students’ pleasure about their English
class especially in learning reading.