THE EFFECT OF USING FABLE STORY TEXT TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’

READING COMPREHENSION

(An Experimental Study at 1th Semester of Grade X at SMAN 1 RAO in the Academic

Year of 2021/ 2022)

Submitted By:

NURMELA (19018034)

ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ARTS

PADANG STATE UNIVERSITY

2022
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................................. i

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1

A. Background of the Problem .................................................................................. 1

B. Identification of the Problem ................................................................................ 3

C. Limitation of the Problem ..................................................................................... 3

D. Research Questions .............................................................................................. 4

E. Purpose of the Research ....................................................................................... 4

F. Significance of the Research ................................................................................. 5

G. Definition of Key Term ........................................................................................ 5

CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE ............................................................... 7

A. Review of Related Theories .................................................................................. 7

1. Definition of Reading ....................................................................................... 7

2. Definition of Reading Comprehension .............................................................. 8

3. Definition of Fable Story Text .......................................................................... 9

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 B. Previous Research ................................................................................................ 10

C. Conceptual Framework ........................................................................................ 12

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD ...................................................................... 15

A. Research Design ................................................................................................... 15

B. Population and Sample ......................................................................................... 15

C. Instrumentation .................................................................................................... 16

D. Technique of Data Collection ............................................................................... 16

E. Validity and Reliability ........................................................................................ 17

F. Technique of data analysis .................................................................................... 18

REFERENCES ............................................................................................................. 20

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 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Problem

English has several fields that everyone should be proficient in. One of them

is reading skill. Without the ability to read people will not be able to understand

what is read, especially for students. Students need reading skills for many things,

especially for their educational purposes such as obtaining information from what

they read, understanding the material, doing assignments and so on. As Hayati

(2016) said that reading makes students knowledgeable, especially in the context of

understanding various types of text themes. Which in English lessons, students learn

various themes or types of texts that must be read and understood. One of them is

text of narrative, which is a kind of text that aims to entertain the reader. And in the

narrative text, there are fable stories whose characters are animals that contain

moral values.

The number of texts that students must learn in English lessons of course

requires a good reading comprehension for students in order to achieve the expected

learning objectives. So that later they can carry out these English learning activities

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well. However, most of the students find it not easy to understand a reading in

English and it makes their reading comprehension low. There are several factors for

that. The first is students are not interested in reading texts in English and it makes

them rarely read it. So that it makes students find it difficult to understand English

reading. In fact, many students confess that they always find that it is not easy to

complete reading comprehension section in an English proficiency test (Jayanti,

2016). Besides that, the lack of vocabulary mastery also has an impact on the

difficulty of students in understanding reading using English and it makes their

reading comprehension low.

Therefore, looking at the problems above, researcher is interested in trying

to use fable story text in learning English, especially in reading skills, where fables

are texts that are easily understood by readers. By using this fable story text, it is

hoped that students can be more motivated in reading English texts and can improve

their reading comprehension. The use of fable story text in learning gets a good

impression from students. This is because students find it not too difficult to

understand it when the teacher applies it in learning (Romdoni, 2020). In other

words, students are more enthusiastic to learn English, especially in reading skills

by reading stories that use language that is not too difficult to understand.

Therefore, the research entitled “The Effect of Using Fable Story Text to Improve

Student’s Reading Comprehension” should be conducted.

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B. Identification of the Problem

After looking at the problems described previously, it is concluded that

students’ reading comprehension of English text is still not high. It is caused by

several factors; first, they are not interested in reading English texts. The student

assumes that the English text is not easy to understand. So it resulted in their low

reading comprehension. Second, the lack of vocabulary mastery. They have little

mastery of vocabulary. So that when they read English texts, they just read without

knowing the meaning.

C. Limitation of the Problem

To make this study more specific, the researcher must limit the scope of the

discussion. The following are the limitations of the problem made by the

researcher.

1. This study focuses on the effect of using fable story text on students reading

comprehension. It is because the researcher is interested in examining the

effects of using fable story texts on students’ reading comprehension.

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 2. This study will be conducted in SMAN 1 Rao. The reason is SMAN 1 Rao is a

school with a supportive environment for this study.

3. The participant of this study is the students of X IPA 3 and X IPA 4 class in

the 1th semester of SMAN 1 RAO in the academic year 2021/ 2022. It is

because the classes have high interest in learning and great curiosity.

Finally, by determining those limitations, the study will be easier to know

the effect of using fable story text to improve student’s reading comprehension.

D. Research Questions

1. How is the students’ reading comprehension before and after being taught by

using fable story text?

2. How can fable story text improve students’ reading comprehension?

E. Purpose of the Research

1. To identify the students’ reading comprehension before and after being taught

by using fable story text.

2. To describe how fable story text can improve the students’reading

comprehension.

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F. Significance of the Research

The problems of the research are important to study because students'

reading comprehension is generally still low and it needs to be improved by using

an interesting teaching technique such as the use of fable story text. So, it aims to

prove the effect given in this field by identifying the students' reading

comprehension before and after being taught by using fable story text and how fable

story text can improve the students'reading comprehension. It is hoped that this

research can reveal both practical and theoretical significance.

Practically, the result of this study is expected can be beneficial for the

teachers, students and the next researchers. For teachers, it can inspire them to

create effective English teaching techniques, especially in reading skills. For

students, it can improve their reading comprehension. For other researchers, it can

give a picture of the researchers about the effect of using fable story text to improve

student's reading comprehension. Theoretically, this study can be used as a

reference to help the next researchers to perform their research on the same subject.

G. Definition of Key Term

1. Fable Story Text

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 The fable text according to Nurgiyantoro (2010: 22-23) has the character of

figures of animals who can speak, behave, and behave as humans. It means that

fables story text are stories that tell the lives of animals that behave like humans

which also contain a moral message to be conveyed to the reader.

2. Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension requires a deep understanding of what is read so that

the reader can get the meaning intended by the author (Healy, 2002). So, reading

comprehension is a process of understanding the meaning in the reading. In

other words, someone not only reads, but also finds the message the author

wants to convey in it.

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 CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

A. Review of Related Theories

1. Definition of Reading

Reading is a process carried out to obtain information from a text.

Romdoni (2020) mentioned that reading is an activity that involves many

elements such as the author, the reader and what is read. Hotimah &

Fachrurrozy (2020) mentioned that reading is defined as a process that

involves the writer and the reader so as to produce a common understanding

of a reading. According to Agustiani (2017) reading is interpreted as a

process that occurs to gain knowledge and also to find out the meaning of a

reading. Mogea (2019) mentioned that reading is not a difficult activity, but

reading requires understanding to know the meaning contained in it.

According to Rengur and Sugirin (2019) reading is called a receptive skill,

as one of the four language skills, It is very crucial to learn English.

Nurwanti et al., (2019) mentioned that reading is the easiest and the cheapest

way of getting information. Haerazi et al., (2019) states that reading is one

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 of the two receptive skills after listening. According to Sari et al., (2020)

reading is part of the educational process of developing self-potential.

Asrifan et al., (2018) declare that reading is a process carried out by the

reader by determining the meaning of a text made by the author.

We conclude that reading is an activity that requires a high

understanding of the reader in finding the meaning of a text.

2. Definition of Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is a complex activity in which the reader

does not just read a passage, but also must be able to derive meaning from

the text read. Reading comprehension is defined as a skill that functions to

understand the contents of a reading, identify existing knowledge and also

capture the meaning of what the author wrote in it (Nanda et al., 2020).

Dhillon et al., (2020) mentioned that reading comprehension is an activity

that involves behavioral and cognitive actions to make progress in

understanding what is read. Martina et al., (2020) mentioned that reading

comprehension is a strategy that readers do with the aim of being able to

understand the important content of a text. Marzona & Ikhsan (2019) states

that reading comprehension is defined as a way to find the meaning of a

reading done by the reader. Novia (2021) mentioned that reading

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 comprehension involves two activities that must be carried out by the reader,

namely understanding and redefining the content of a reading with the same

meaning as what the author intended.

We can conclude that reading comprehension is an activity carried

out by the reader in which the reader not only understands the content of the

text but is also able to analyze the content of the text.

3. Definition of Fable Story Text

Fables are stories that tell and describe animals acting like humans.

Indriyania & Ramadhan (2017) mentioned that the text fable stories is a type

of written text. Rozak et al., (2018) mentioned that fable is an old piece of

literature (tale) that is rarely found again in a lesson. Handayani (2020)

declares that fable is a type of short story which is not only contains

behavioral values that can be used as learning, but also aims to make the

reader feel happy. Hendrayani (2022) mentioned that fable is a type of story

about an animal that behaves not like an animal should. Kayhan et al.,

(2017) mentioned that fable is a kind of written work in which the characters

consist of animals and animals in which there are important values as

lessons that can be taken by the reader. Jufri (2018) states that fable is a type

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 of story that uses animal characters whose stories are not long and that is not

happening now.

Reading comprehension can be improved by applying text that is not

boring for students. The interesting story makes them enthusiastic to read it.

In addition, the language used is simple so it is not too difficult for students

to understand. So that students can improve their reading comprehension

through the fable text.

Fable as a type of narrative text is studied in schools, both junior

high and high school. In this fable there is character education. In which

character planting in children is the main goal of the 2013 curriculum.

We conclude that fable story text is a short story that contains stories

about animals that behave like humans and also teach moral values.

B. Previous Research

For the application of this fable in improving students’ reading comprehension,

two previous studies found by researchers who also applied the same technique. The

first is a study conducted by Novia (2021). She wrote the research with the title “

THE EFFECTIVENESS OF USING FABLE TEXT ON STUDENTS’ READING

COMPREHENSION IN NARRATIVE TEXT AT THE SECOND SEMESTER OF

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THE NINTH GRADE OF SMPN 07 BANDAR LAMPUNG IN THE ACADEMIC

YEAR OF 2020/2021”. She chose pre experimental as her research design. Which

she only uses one class that is her participant. The tests used are pretest and post-

test. For her research instrument, she applied fable text which is a type of narrative

text. After all the tests were carried out, data processing was carried out using a t-

test. The results of her research shows that the use of fable story text is effective to

be applied to students. It is known from the results of data processing calculated by

SPSS. The result is Sig = 0.00 and α = 0.05. Which is concludes Ha is not rejected

because Sig < α= 0.05. F.

Second, thesis written by Handayani (2020). The title of her research is

“IMPROVING THE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ON

NARRATIVE TEXT BY USING FABLE AT EIGHTH GRADE OF MTS AL –

MANAAR PTPN IV PULU RAJA. She tooks a class of 27 students as her research

participant. Research conducted using CAR. In her research, she uses two

techniques for data analysis, namely qualitative and quantitative. For the qualitative

technique, observation was chosen as a way to obtain the data. As for quantitative,

she used pretest and post-test. After the data was processed, the results of her

research shows about the effective application of fable to be applied to students. The

results of the average calculation obtained for the pre test are 33,51 or it was 0%

which shows the student’s score is below the assessment target. However, after the

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 post-test was carried out, the results showed that the students’ average scores had

increased. The resuIt was 55,74 or it was 22.22% for post-test I, and 80,74 or it was

85,18% for post-test II.

Seeing some of the previous studies above, the researcher motivated to conduct

a research with the title “The Effect of Using Fable Story Text to Improve Student’s

Reading Comprehension”. The reason of the researcher conducted this research is

because not too much research has been done on this topic.

C. Conceptual Framework

Reading is a skill that must be mastered. By reading, people can find many

knowledge from what they read. However, reading becomes a problem for most

students, especially in reading comprehension. They just read without

understanding the contents of the text. This phenomenon needs to be considered and

given a solution. Therefore, a strategy is needed to solve this phenomenon. By

using fable story text, the researcher tries to solve this problem. Fable is a tool that

is used as an intermediary to teach reading. Fables are included in the type of

narrative text. Narrative text itself is a type of text that tells the events in sequence

and are connected to each other. The nature of narrative text is imaginative or in the

form of a written story that has the aim of entertaining the reader. The same is true

for the stories in fables. Which in it tells about animals that behave like humans and

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usually contain moral values that can be used as learning by the reader. Fables are

also light stories that can make students feel relaxed in reading them. Fables are also

interesting stories. Therefore, students can easily understand the contents of the text

they read.

After seeing the description above, the writer concludes that fable story text is

able to help reduce students’ problems in reading, especially in the context of

understanding a reading.

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 CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHOD

A. Research Design

This research method is quantitative which consists of two variables, namely

fable story text (x) and students’ reading comprehension (y). The author chose

experimental research as the design. Which involves two classes as experiments,

namely the experimental class and the controlled class. Experimental class as a class

that will be tested using fable story text in the learning process. While the controlled

class does not use fable story text in the learning process. The data from the two

classes will be known from the results of the pretest and post-test.

B. Population and Sample

For the population, the researcher selects the entire class X students of

SMAN 1 RAO in academic year of 2021/2022. Class X consists of 10 classes with

30 students per class. So the total population is 300 people.

For the sample, the researcher chose the students in the X IPA 3’s class

(experimental class) and the students in the X IPA 4’s class (controlled class) in the

1th semester of SMAN 1 RAO in the academic year 2021/2022. The researcher uses

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 purpose sampling to determine the sample, which is the determination of the sample

based on the researcher’s considerations regarding which samples are the most

appropriate, useful and considered to represent a population.

C. Instrumentation

Instrument is a device used to unite data obtained from existing variables.

For this study, the instrument used is a test. This test is divided into two, namely

pretest and post-test. And this test contains multiple choice questions. This test aims

to determine the effect of using fable story text to improve students’ reading

comprehension.

D. Technique of Data Collection

In collecting data, two classes that have been selected as samples are given a

pretest and post-test. Before taking the test, they are given an explanation of the test

they will be doing. In which they will take two types of tests, namely pretest and

post-test. Both tests are in the form of multiple choice consisting of 20 questions

and must be done within 40 minutes. Students will have to answer choices A, B, C

or D. The first test that will be carried out is the pretest. In this test, both classes

take the test with the same ability.

The next step is to give treatment to determine to determine whether fable

story text can improve students’ reading comprehension or not. Giving this

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 treatment aims to obtain data from both classes. The experimental class uses fable

story text while the controlled class does not use fable story text.

After the treatment was carried out in the two classes, then the two classes

were given a post-test which aimed to see the data from the results of the tests

carried out whether there was an increase in reading comprehension in the class that

was given treatment using fable story text or not.

E. Validity and Reliability

Cureton (1951) states that test validity is how well a test does the job it is

employed to do” and that “we cannot label the validity. After the test is completed

by the students, then the calculation of the test results is carried out. The formula

used is product-moment correlation:

𝑁 ∑ 𝑋𝑌 − (∑ 𝑋 )(∑ 𝑌 )
𝑟𝑥𝑦 =
√{𝑁 ∑ 𝑋 2 − (∑ 𝑋)2 }(𝑁 ∑ 𝑌 2 − (∑ 𝑦 2 ))

𝑟𝑥𝑦 = the coefficient of correlation between x and y

N=the count of subject of trial

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 ∑ 𝑥 =the count of score x item

∑ 𝑦 = the count of score y item

Heale (2015) states that reliability relates to the consistency of a measure.

The formula used is Alpha formula:

𝑘 𝑀(𝐾 − 𝑀)
𝑟11 = (1 − )
𝑘−1 𝐾. 𝑆𝑡 2

𝑟11 = Instrument reliability

k= The number of items in the test

𝑆𝑡 2 = The count of variance

M= the average score of students

F. Technique of Data Analysis

After the data is collected, the data that has been obtained is processed using

SPSS. The researcher uses a test formula to find out the inequality in the average

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test scores between the two classes, namely the experimental class and the

controlled class. And “t” test is used to determine the statistical hypothesis “t”. Here

is the formula:

𝑀1 − 𝑀2

√( 𝑋1 + 𝑋2 ) (𝑁1 + 𝑁2)
𝑁1 + 𝑁2 − 2 𝑁1. 𝑁2

M1= the average of experimental class

M2= the average of controlled class

X1=the standard deviation of experimental class

X2=the standard deviation of controlled class

N1=the total number (sample) of experimental class

N2= the total number (sample) of controlled class

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