DIRECTED READING ACTIVITY (DRA) APPLICATION IN ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION CLASSROOM

: This research manages to analyze the effectiveness of DRA in enhancing students ‘skill in reading comprehension. The researchers carried out the research at SMP N 4 Takengon, in which they found that teachers faced some problems in teaching reading comprehension to students. To figure out the answer, the research applies quantitative research with experimental approach. After statistically obtaining and interpreting the data, the study concludes that Directed Reading Activity (DRA) method is able to increase students reading comprehension skill. This is because that Directed Reading Activity (DRA) is a teacher strategy in reading comprehension that emphasizes on instructional support before, during, and aftermath the reading. Meanwhile, the research found that this strategy is also able to increase and build stronger student vocabulary and reading skill. In conclusion, the DRA strategy is effective in improving students’ ability in reading comprehension, and also building their vocabulary.


INTRODUCTION
English is one of the important mandatory courses taught in elementary school to university level. English is the windows of the world. By mastering English, people can know all of information in the world. English language has broad meaning; it is used by everyone to express idea or to deliver knowledge and argument with other people. There are four skills which is intertwined each other and should be possessed by students, one of them is reading. Marsha (2015) describes that Reading is a process of interaction between the author and the reader involving of utterances and the ability to grasp the meaning. Reading is very strategic during which readers are continuously constructing meaning by utilizing a numerous ways, namely, to activate prior knowledge, to monitor and clarify, to predict, to infer, to inquire and to summarize (Marsha, 2015).
Through the researcher's experience in teaching learning reading comprehension activities at SMPN 4 Takengon, the researcher found teachers faced some problems like that the teacher had difficulty in controlling the situation when teaching reading and lack of students vocabularies made difficulty for teacher to explained by English, she or he Jurnal As-Salam, Vol. 5 No. 1 Januari -Juni 2021 (Print ISSN 2528-1402, Online ISSN 2549 Imam Munandar,Srimurni | 91 had to explain using Indonesian language. In addition when the teacher explained the material to the student, she or he could not once, the teacher had to re-explain several time, that it took many times. Moreover, the student also experienced difficulty in reading comprehension because they had less reading interest, loved to translate the text word by word, and had less of vocabularies. Therefore, it requires to be conducted in teaching English reading by using Directed Reading Activity (DRA) strategy. Its strategy has related, because the strategy used in reading comprehension. Moreover, it used to students with less comprehension on reading.
Directed reading activity (DRA) is a strategy aims at increasing and strengthens student vocabulary and reading ability (Nuha, 2015). According to Rudell, there are five stages of implementing directed reading activity (DRA) in teaching, which include: (1) Reading preparedness, (2) Controlled silent Reading, (3) Comprehension development as well as discussion, (4) Purposeful rereading and (5) Activities that follow up and skill enhancement (Nuh, 2015).
Drawing the description of the research above, the researcher draws the identification of this research as follows: the implementation of teaching reading comprehension still has limitation there are: a) Teacher had difficulty in controlling the situation in teaching reading because too many students in a class, b) Lack of students' vocabularies, made difficulty for teacher to explained by English, she or he must be repeated using Indonesian language. Meanwhile, students face numerous motivation related obstacles in learning English specifically in reading comprehension skill. There are: a) Students of Second grade of SMP N 4 Takengon had no passion to read, b) Students of Second grade of SMP N 4 Takengon were not interested in reading, c) Students of Second grade of SMP N 4 Takengon had less of vocabularies.

LITERATURE REVIEW Reading Ability
Reading is complex, meaningful, interactive, understanding, flexible activity which takes time and resources to develop. In addition, Reading is fast, which means that readers should keep information flowing at a sufficient level to connect and make inferences important to comprehension (Bojovic, 2014). In addition, according to Braughton (2004) reading refers to complex ability, which means that it includes a whole series of lesser ability. Moreover, Glenda and William (2004) state that Reading refers to recognition and interpretation in meaning of a printed word and of group of words or symbol (Maxom, 2009). He added that Reading is skill which may affect students' skills on writing, speaking and listening. In short, Reading refers to main and complex ability in language. Moreover reading is identification in meaning symbol of word.

Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is defined as the construction of the meaning of a written or spoken exchange through a reciprocal, holistic conversation of message between the interpreter and the message (Catchy, 2002). Healy (2002) agrees that reading comprehension is the understanding of the written word, the understanding of the content Jurnal As-Salam Vol. 5 No. 1 Januari -Juni 2021: 90 -100 Imam Munandar, Srimurni | 92 that is being read, and the construction meaning of the text. In addition, Profundization (2017) mentions that reading comprehension is constructed by stages and procedures that are given during the Reading. Comprehension is not a product but a process.
In reading comprehension there are some sub-skills that declare by some expert. However, according to Stein, Glenn and Downing, skilled readers often use particular sub-skill of their reading skill over the years and these sub-skills, originally distinct, become fused and no longer activated separately, Hughes refers to "macro skills" and "micro skill" of reading comprehension (Gahraki, Shafian, 2005). Ghahraki and Shafian (2005) states that the different these two levels of sub-skills is not made clear, but it appears that the term named macro skill is to understanding the common ideas in the text. While, micro skills is to knowing and analyzing the linguistic characters of the text. Brown (2005) state that some focused macro and micro abilities in reading comprehension as follow: 1. Macro skills Macro skills refer to: a. Identification of rhetorical forms of written texts and their significant for interpretation. b. Identification of communicative function of written discourse. c. The context is implicit by using prior knowledge. d. To describe events and idea to make connective inferences among events, deduce cause and effect. e. To differentiate between literal and conveyed meaning. f. Find culturally specific references and analyze them in a cultural context. g. Improve and use a set of reading method.

Micro skills
Micro skills refer to: a. Differentiate in particular graphemes and orthographic pattern of English. b. To master a form of language of various length in short term memory. c. Efficient rate of process writing to fulfill the goal. d. Identify a core of words, and analyze a word order pattern and their importance.

The purpose of Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension refers to comprehending written text, it is a complicated activity including perception and though. Reading consists of two related process there are word identification and understanding. 4. The purpose of reading comprehension they are: a. Reading for detail fact The students read to get or know the invention that have been done by the writer or solve the problem of the writer. b. Reading for main ideas The students read the text to know "why is the topic good or interesting, then the problems on the story and make summaries of the story''. c. Reading for sequences organization Jurnal As-Salam Vol. 5 No. 1 Januari -Juni 2021: 90 -100 Imam Munandar, Srimurni | 93 The students read the text to know what is happening in each part of the story in every episode and solve the problems of story. d. Reading to classify The students read the text to classify some information or actions of the writer or paragraph. e. Reading for inference The students read in order to find out the conclusion from the action or ideas in the text. f. Reading for comparison or contrast The students read to compare the plot of the story or content whether having similarity with even contrast (Savita, 2015). Reading comprehension means that the student knows how to understand the message that is extended by the writer in reading materials. The Efficient is to identifying the purpose of reading.
There exist two skills in reading, namely micro and macro skills, however as the explanation above, micro skills refer to linguistic aspect such grammatical form, word meaning and features of the text. While, macro skills refer to the ability in both getting the main ideas of the text and finding out the general information from the text.

Teaching Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is defined as multi-aspect, highly complex process involving various interactions between readers and what they bring to the discourse (priorunderstanding, strategy utilization) as well as variables relevant to the discourse itself (Janette, 2007). According to Miller, teaching reading in English to ESL, students typically includes anoption by the teacher as how to balance intensive and extensive reading methodologies (Miller, 2019). Besides, Muhammad (2015) mentions that in current times reading is a complex activity to which two approaches have been applied develop reading skills, identified as intensive and extensive reading. It is maintained that these two approaches can benefit in many ways, for improving students' reading comprehension skill.

Directed Reading Activity (DRA)
Directed reading activity (DRA) is a strategy which enables students with instructional support prior, during, and aftermath of reading. The teacher play an important role when he or she allows students to prepare to read the text by providing pre teaching relevant vocabulary, eliciting background knowledge, teaching students how to implement a specific reading skill, and eliciting a purpose for reading (Betts, 2017). Furthermore, Arlene (2017) pointed out that directed reading activity is implemented in commercial basal readers since the structured reading activity in order to develop concept, vocabulary and comprehension. DRA involves aspects for guided pre-reading, guided silent reading and oral reading, comprehension, and word recognition or skill practice.
Moreover, Tierney and Riddance in Guzzeti (2002) believe that directed reading activity is made to help teachers provide structured group-reading instruction, guide and engage students in reading test, and enable students with direct instruction in word Jurnal As-Salam Vol. 5 No. 1 Januari -Juni 2021: 90 -100 Imam Munandar, Srimurni | 94 recognition and comprehension. In short Directed Reading activity is teacher strategy by systematic group instruction in teaching reading. Directed reading activity involves aspects for guided pre-reading, guided silent reading and oral reading.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In research design, the researcher used quantitative research with experimental approach. According to Suharsimi, it is the research which many claimed to apply number, starts from data collecting, interpretation to the data, and appearance from its result (Arikunto, 2006). It means that a quantitative research is the process of collecting data using statistic formula and number of specific data. The experimental method is a research method that allows the researcher to manipulate variables and examine the consequence (Fathurrahman, 2011). It means that experimental research is an attempt to observe and measure the result of research on the situation and manipulation of the particular object. The research is conducted in SMP N 4 Takengon. The school address at JL. SPG, LutTawar, Takengon.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION The Teaching Activities in Experimental Class
At beginning of the teaching activity, the researcher gave the motivation and apperception to the student first. After that, the researcher did the teaching process based on directed reading activity (DRA) method, the researcher taught the student about the definition and generic structures of narrative text by asking which allowed them to share. Then, the researcher summarized all the words and them on the whiteboard while explaining verbally about definition, general structure and some examples of narrative discourse.
After students seem to understand, the researcher tried to explain about the utilization of directed reading activity (DRA) strategy in reading narrative text. The researcher divided students into small group and then the researcher gave the sheet which content is text of narrative. Next, the students were assigned to read the text silently after reading, the researcher requested students to discuss and summarize their text into some paragraphs. And the last the students must present the result of their discussion in front of class.

The Result of Teaching Activities in Control Class
At beginning of teaching activity, the researcher gave the motivation and apperception to the student. The researcher taught the student about the definition and generic structures of narrative text by asking which allowed them to share. Then the researcher summarized all the words and wrote them on the whiteboard while explaining verbally about definition, generic structure and some examples of narrative text.
After the student seem to understand, the researcher divided students into small group and explained the instruction of how to run the groups before the researcher gave the sheet. Imam Munandar, Srimurni | 95

The Result of Validity and Reliability Testing Validity result
As for the result of validity of the test can be seen in the appendix 1, summary is shown in the table below. From the table above, we can conclude that the test items posses high reliability because rcounted was higher than rtable..it shows the instrument is reliable. Normality and Homogeneity Result Normality testing a) Normality Test of pre-test data Testing normality test was carried out on two data, namely pre-test data and post test data in experimental and control class, in this research, did normality test in use to see if the data were normally distributed or not. Provided that the data were normally distributed when they met criteria tcount<ttablewith the standard of significant α =0.05  -0.7352 <0.190. While the control class for the pretest score shows that Lcountis smaller than Ltable, which was -2.9110 < 0.190. so the conclusion of this distribution is that the data of the pre-test in experimental and control class were normally distributed, because the specific level for the population α = 0.005  -0.2779 <0.190. While the control class for the pretest score shows that Lcountis smaller than Ltable, which is 0.1588< 0.190. so the conclusion of this distribution is that the data of the pre-test in experimental and control class are normally distributed, because the specific level for the population α = 0.005

Homogeneity testing
The value of homogeneity was obtained at Fscore< F table the homogeneous variant. If Fscore< F table then the variance in α = 0,05.
The level of significant α = 0.05, it was found that test result homogeneity of the pretest and post-test of experimental class were homogeneous with F score < f table that is 1.078<2.0930. Imam Munandar, Srimurni | 97

Data Analysis The Result of Test
The researcher conducted the research at SMP N 4 Takengon that was in class VIII 1 with using Directed Reading Activity (DRA) and strategy and VIII 3 without using strategy. The following table is the score of pre-test and post-test of student at VIII 1 and VIII 3 as experimental and control class.

a. The Differences Between Pre-Test And Post-Test Of Experimental Class
Chart 1 Pre-test

Post-tes
The chart shows that the minimum score of pre-test and post-test were 50 and 75. The highest score were 75 and 95. Meaning that student increased their score on posttest.From 20 students the most value obtained 70 in pre-test and 95 in post-test.

b. The Differences Between Pre-Test And Post-Test Of Experimental Class
Chart 2

The Result of Pre-test and Post-test of Experimental
Pre-test

Post-test
From the shows that the minimum score of pre-test and post-test were 50 and 75, the highest score were 75 and 90, meaning that students increased their score on post-test. From the pie shows the value 80-100% the grade is "A", 66-79% the grade is "B", 65-56% the grade is "C", 40-55% the grade is "D", and <39% the grade is "E".

d. The different score Between Post-test Experimental and Control Class
Chart 3. the result of post-test experimental and control class From the chart shows that there was no significant difference between post-test result of experimental and control class. The lowest score of post-test result of both classes were 75 in experimental and control class, while the highest score was 90 in experimental class and 95 in control class.

Discussion
From the result of research can be concluded that directed reading activity (DRA) is effective strategy in students' reading comprehension at class VIII 1 .In this research the researcher was implemented to the student at second grade SMP N 4 Takengon by using Directed Reading Activity (DRA) Strategy in class VIII 1 and class VIII 3 without used the strategy.
After the researcher implemented the DRA strategy and no used strategy in the different class, the researcher got the data. There were improvements from the student's understanding on reading comprehension in narrative text. Students were being Jurnal As-Salam Vol. 5 No. 1 Januari -Juni 2021: 90 -100 Imam Munandar, Srimurni | 99 enthusiastic in teaching and learning process by Directed Reading Activity (DRA) strategy than no strategy. More students were active in respond to students or teacher question, and student also to understand more narrative text.

CONCLUSIONS
After analyzing and interpreting the data statistically, the research draw conclusion that, Directed Reading Activity (DRA) strategy, is effective used in teaching reading comprehension narrative text. Directed Reading Activity (DRA) is a teacher strategy in reading comprehension with instructional support prior, during, and aftermath of reading and using for increase and strong student vocabulary and reading ability. The researcher conducted the research in SMP N 4 Takengon, the researcher found teachers faced some problems like that the teacher had difficulty in controlling the situation when teaching reading and lack of students vocabularies made difficulty for teacher to explained by English and found the difficulty in reading comprehension because they had less reading interest, loved to translate the text word by word, and had less of vocabularies. However, with existence of both strategies can improve students' ability in reading comprehension.
After researcher conducted the research used DRA and no used strategy in class VIII 1 and VIII3. The highest score in Anova obtained in control class were 65.000 in pretest and 89.444 in post-test. While the lower score achieved in experimental class were 60.000 in pre-test and 83.636 in post-test. The research shows that teaching reading through directed reading activity (DRA) strategy is more effective than no used strategy in reading comprehension. It supports the basic assumption that the students' are more interesting reading through DRA strategy. It can be seen from the fluency and comprehension of the students in reading.