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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the introduction of the research. It includes the
background of the problem, identification of the problem, formulation of the
research question, limitation of the problem, objective of the research, and
use of the research.

1.1 Background of the Problem

Reading is one of the essential language skills that must be
learned and developed by all language learners. By reading, students
will get much knowledge, information and new ideas. The students
can also improve their essential elements of English skills, such as
grammar and vocabulary. Moreover, the student can get knowledge
about how to know the main idea and other information in the text that
can help them in their task. In reading, basically there is a process of
interaction between the author with his language media and the reader
with his knowledge and knowledge of the world (Sutarsyah, 2015).
According to Nunan (2003), reading is a fluent process of
readers combining information from the text and their background
knowledge to build meaning. It means that in reading, the students
should connect the information in the text and background knowledge
to get the text's comprehension. Generally, reading is a process of
knowing about details in a text that includes readers' background
knowledge in analyzing the information to make the reader understand
what the writer wants the reader to know.
According to Sutarsyah (2015) reading is a cognitive process
where a reader engages in the mental process of knowing, learning,
and understanding things. Also, Grabe (2002) states that reading is the
ability to draw meaning from the printed page and interpret the
information. From the explanation above, reading means finding the
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message or information and understanding the writer's importance in

the text.
From the reading activity, the students are expected to be active
readers and understand the text easily. However, most of the students
have difficulty comprehending the reading text and get low scores in
reading items because students do not know the meaning of the words
or sentences provided in the reading text. In other words,
comprehension does not just happen but requires effort from the
reader. It depends upon successfully and appropriately using several
of strategies: accessing prior knowledge, creating mental images of
the information, making predictions and inferences, monitoring
understanding, and using "fix-up" strategies when necessary.
There are some reading difficulties that are in line with what the
researcher found in the preliminary research. Based on the preliminary
study among students in the eighth grade of SMP Negeri 08 Mulya
Kencana. Most students find it difficult to construct or comprehend an
English text's meaning. This can be known because the researcher
conducted preliminary research on the students of SMP N 08 Mulya
Kencana to see the problem of students in SMP N 08 Mulya Kencana.
The data were obtained by interviewing the English teacher of SMP N
08 Mulya Kencana, Mrs. Esti. It is found that the students have
problems in learning reading comprehension. The teacher said
students faced issues when they wanted to learn reading
comprehension. They seem to be not to be motivated to learn reading
comprehension. Mrs. Esti said that this could happen because of the
lack of school facilities, and because students do not have much
support from their environment. Furthermore, based on the reading
test with multiple choice conducted by researchers to students of SMP
N 8 Mulya Kencana, the average student’s score is below the
minimum standard of value (KKM). From this, we know that SMP N
08 Mulya Kencana Students’ have low reading skills.
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Jasmine (2020) said reading comprehension had been defined as

“the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning
through interaction and involvement with written language”.
Similarly, Hogan (2011) state that reading comprehension involves
two primary processes: (a) decoding printed text and (b)
understanding language accessed through the process of decoding.
Reading requires the reader to focus attention on the reading
materials and integrate previously acquired knowledge and skills to
comprehend what someone else has written (Maibodi, 2008: 42). In
brief, the reader is not only looking at texts but also presumably
thinking what he is reading, what it means to him, how it relates to
other things he has read, to things he knows, to what he expects to
come next in texts. This view implies that someone can be a
successful reader when they successfully involve and interact with the
text he reads. It means that he understands the actual meaning
intended by the writer. He can feel what the writer feels. Reading is an
important language skill; nevertheless, it is challenging to master.
Most students fail to learn to read any passages in English. The
students seem to read with less understanding.
Some factors contributed to having good reading
comprehension. One of them is reading strategies. According to Kuru-
Gonen (2015), reading strategies are very important to help the reader
comprehend the text in the act of reading. The implementation of
special reading strategies enables more efficient use of time.
Moreover, Lien (2011) added that it is an effective way to solve
reading problems encountered by students while reading academic
material. This is also supported by Brantmeier (2002) that reading
strategies are defined as the comprehension processes that readers use
to make sense of what they read, categorized as approaches, actions,
and, procedures used to improve reading comprehension.
The role of strategy use in reading comprehension has been a
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discussed in second/foreign reading literature. Lien (2011) implicate

that reading strategies are essential to assist learners to overcome
reading difficulties such as inferring the underlying messages in the
texts, dealing with unknown terms ,and unfamiliar cultural load. It
implies that being a strategic reader helps readers comprehend the text
and handle the reading problems. Practical strategies will produce an
effective result. Also, according to Chan and Lau (2003) skilled
readers know how to use effective strategies to facilitate the
functioning of various cognitive processes and construct a meaningful
understanding of the text, while poor readers read the text word by
word without using any strategies.
Most readers may face comprehension problems while reading a
text, but proficient readers would face the problems by consciously
applying effective reading strategies to solve the comprehension
challenges. Zhang (2008) reported that appropriately using reading
strategies may be of great help to non-native readers because it can
effectively overcome language deficiency and obtain better reading
achievement on alanguage proficiency tests. As an EFL educator, it is
essential to explore how students learn to read in English and
understand the problems they have encountered in reading strategy
use so that teachers can help them acquire better strategies.
Talking about reading comprehension according to Grabe and
Stoller (2011) reading comprehension is the ability to understand the
information in a text and interpret it appropriately what is meant by
the text. It means that reading comprehension is the ability to read
text, process, and comprehend its meaning. An individual’s ability to
understand text is influenced by their nature and skills, one of which is
the ability to make inferences.
Reading comprehension also can improve vocabulary and
writing skills. According to Nuttal (1982), there are five aspects of
reading comprehension that the students should understand in
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comprehending a text well, such as determining the main idea, finding

specific information, making inferences, identifying references, and
understanding the meaning of words or detailed information. These
aspects are regarded as difficulties the students encounter to
comprehend the text.
Also Hornby (2005) said that the difficulty was the state or
quality of being hard to do or to understand. The difficulty is the
mistakes that the students make in the teaching and learning process
face. It occurs because the students are confused or do not know or
understand the material the teacher has explained. In this case, the
difficulty is the state that the students cannot comprehend English
reading text.
To best gain access to a reader's sophisticated process of reading
strategy use and difficulties, thinking aloud provides a powerful
means to obtain this mental  and verbal data.. Protocol analysis can
lead to new insights into reading strategies, reader responses and
characteristics, as well as the influence of situational variables
(Afflerbach, 2000, Smith, 2006). The technique of thinking aloud
while reading requires readers to express their thoughts from their
short-term memory at specific intervals; this makes covert mental
processing overt and provides direct evidence of the internal reading
process performed by readers while engaged in the tusk of reading
(Gillam, Fargo, & Robertson, 2009, Kucan & Beck, 1997). In reading
research, although the use of think-aloud protocols as a source of data
and verbal protocol analysis as a research tool was ever criticized for
potential limitations related to the interference in the cognitive process
and challenges to the validity of verbal report data, researchers and
instructors who are interested in using the think-aloud technique for
examining and supporting learners' reading comprehension process
have now generally agreed that once care is taken and used
appropriately, the think-aloud method can be one of the best means to
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elicit sufficient and reliable data for studying readers' invisible

metacognitive awareness and mental strategy use (Zhang, 2008).
The use of sufficient reading strategies is considered an
important factor contributing to successful language learning. That
also includes the obstacle that students have to overcome. So in this
case, there have been many researchers that explore the differences in
students’ reading strategies based on their gender or their reading
comprehension. But researchers have still not found research that
explores reading strategies and difficulties at same time. Therefore,
the researcher conducted a study to identify both of them using
thinking aloud protocol analysis. So, based on the explanation above
the researcher is intended to research “Identifying The Student’s
Reading Difficulties And Strategies by Using Think Aloud Protocol
Analysis to The Eighth Grade Student of SMPN 08 Tulang Bawang
Barat”

1.2 Identification of the Problems

Based on the background of the problem the researcher found several
problems as:
a. Students are still lack reading ability
b. Students are still lack vocabulary
c. Students are still lack motivation in reading
d. Students are still lack reading practice
e. The Teacher does not use engaging media in teaching English to
improve student’s motivation
1.3 Limitation of the Problems
Based on the explanation of the identification of the problem above,
the limitation of this research is determined as follow:
a. The researcher focuses on students’ reading strategies
b. The researcher focuses on students’ reading ability
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c. The researcher focuses on students’ reading difficulty

d. The researcher focuses on students’ gender
1.4 Formulation of the Research Questions
Based on the background of the problem the researcher found several
research questions:
1. What is the difference of reading difficulites encountered by males
and females?
2. What is the difference of reading strategies used by males and
females?
1.5 Objectives of the Research
In relation to the statement of the research question above, the
objective of this research are determined as follow :
1. To investigate whether there is any difference of reading
difficulites encountered by males and females
2. To investigate whether there is any difference of reading strategies
used by males and females
1.6 Uses of the Research
This research be formulated as an effort of finding some uses. The
used of this research are:
1. Theoretically
The result of this study can contribute useful information about
reading difficulties and strategies in reading comprehension
2. Practically
a. Teacher
The result of this study is hoped to broaden the teacher’s horizon
about their knowledge in teaching English reading text. Both of
these two components are important to prepare especially for
reading comprehension as an essential component of second
language proficiency. It is also hoped that this study may
broaden the teachers‘ horizon about the students‘ individual
differences, especially in their reading strategies and the
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alternative to solve reading problems because each student has

different characteristics and problems.
b. Students
The result of this study will be able to inform the students about
the existence of reading strategies. The information is hoped to
help them understand themselves by being able to recognize and
develop their strategies in reading to improve their reading
comprehension achievement.
3. The researcher himself
The result of this study is hoped to give valuable information
and knowledge to the researcher himself in his capacity as an
English teacher, a student, and also a part of society. It is also
hoped that the results of this study's results may contribute to
other researchers as the basis for them to do further studies.
4. Future researcher
This study gives much information about the relationship
between reading strategies and reading proficiency, and how
much it influences learners‘ reading strategies. Therefore, this
study can be used a reference for future studies with similar
problems or variables.