The Effect of Using Kwl (Know, Want, Learned) Strategy on Efl Students’ Reading Comprehension Achievement

THE EFFECT OF USING KWL (KNOW, WANT, LEARNED) STRATEGY
ON EFL STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT

By: Risnawati
(Lecturer of English Department at IAIN Bengkulu)

Abstract: There is a fact that most of the Secondary School students are still low in comprehending reading texts. Therefore, the main objective of this study was to see whether the use of KWL (Know, Want, Learned) strategy was effective in improving the students’ reading comprehension achievement in learning English as a Foreign Language. Non-equivalent groups pretest-posttest design was used in this study. The population was the eightth grade students of SMPN 4 Palembang in academic year of 2009/2010 with a total number of 326 students. Out of this population, 40 students were taken as sample. There were two groups, each of which consisted of 20 students. The data were collected by using multiple choice reading comprehension test. The data obtained were analyzed by using t-test formula. The finding showed that KWL strategy was effective in improving the students’ reading comprehension achievement. The effectiveness was indicated by the result of the Stepwise Regression formula that the contribution of KWL strategy on students’ reading comprehension achievement was 60.5%.

Keywords: reading, KWL strategy, reading comprehension achievement

A. Introduction

Reading as a field of teaching is considered as one of the important areas of teaching. It is one of the most important academic skills. It is also a major pillar upon which teaching and learning process is built. The reading ability plays a central role in teaching and learning success at all education stages (Addison, 1996: 23). It is because most of the materials of teaching and learning are in written form. It means that the students need to improve their reading skills in order to understand the teaching and learning materials. The students will be on the road to academic failure, if they could not read.

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