IMPROVING THE STUDENTS ’ READING COMPREHENSION BY USING COMIC STRIPS

This Research entitled improving the students’ reading comprehension by using comic strips at SMA MUHAMMADIYAH-7 Serbelawan. It concerned with the problem: Does comic strips effective to improve students’ reading comprehension through narrative text at the eleventh grade of SMA MUHAMMADIYAH-7 Serbelawan?. To answer the research problem, some theories are used: Kligner, Vaughn & Boardman (2007), to Patel and Jain (2008), Snow (2002), Arikunto(2009,2010). Reading is basic skills which should be studied are speaking, listening, reading and writing and a process of looking at series of written symbols and getting meaning from them. Comic strips is some series of drawing that tell a story and drawings interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative often serialized with text in balloons and captions and with the comic strips can improve reading comprehension of students in English. This research is designed into quantitative research by following experimental design of control class and experimental class. The population is 216 students and the sample is taken by using cluster sampling technique so that the sample is 72 students. The research subject is XI IPA 1 as experimental class and XI IPA 2 as control class of SMA Serbelawan. Research instrument is multiple choices. The data analysis is started from scoring the students’ answer sheet, tabulating students’ pre -test and post-test scores, calculating the standard deviation pre-test and post-test scores. Based on the data analysis, it was found before the treatment of using comic strips, value pre-test was 1904 and mean (average) was 52,88 in post-test get value was 2132 and mean (average) was 59,22 and the standard deviation pre-test was 10,20 and post-test was 10,01. get value pre-test was 1972 and mean (average) was 54,78 in post-test value was 3004 and mean (average) was 83,45 and the standard deviation pre-test was 6,91 and post-test was 6,93. Using comic strips effective in improvingstudent s’ reading comprehension through narrative text at the eleventh grade of SMA MUHAMMADIYAH-7 Serbelawan. The t-table value is on the amount sample (n) 72 subtracted 2 then the number of sample will be 70 which the value of t-table was 1,99. Then, result was df(degree of freedom) =70. So, the t-test result was than 5,73> 4,22 >1,99. It can be concluded that result of experimental class more of control class result that the researcher was accepted.


INTRODUCTION The Background of Research
According to Dardjowidjojo (2010: 299) stated that English have four basic skills which should be studied are speaking, listening, reading and writing. Reading is one of the skills which should be mastered by students. Reading is essential factor to improve the readers to third another skill. In addition, it brings some benefit for students. Students get more additional knowledge which has not gained from teacher explanation. In reading there are some skills to be mastered, there are many texts that the senior high school students need to master. Those are descriptive, narrative, spoof or recount, procedure, report, and anecdote. In other word, students have to comprehend well those kinds of text. On this research, the researcher will be focus on narrative text.
Fact students comprehension is too low. There are some factors which make students reading comprehension is too low. In the reading classroom many students are bored with reading activity and lack of vocabulary mastery so students are unable to read correctly. It decreased students motivation. In learning reading, the students have difficulties to understand major content of text because of minimize their vocabulary mastery and they got difficulties to convey the meaning of the whole paragraph.
The solving the students difficulties in reading comprehension, using interest strategy or authentic media will help the students active in teaching and learning process. Comics are one of the instructional media which can be used in teaching reading comprehension in the classroom.

The Problem of Research
The problem of this researcher is: " Does comic strips effective to improve students' reading comprehension through narrative text at the eleventh grade of SMA MUHAMMADIYAH-7 Serbelawan?"

The Objective of Research
The objective of this research can be stated as follow as to find out the effectiveness of using comics strips to improve students' reading comprehension through narrative text at the eleventh grade of SMA MUHAMMADIYAH-7 Serbelawan.

The Scope of Research
The Researcher only focuses on reading comprehension narrative text by eleventh grade students of SMA MUHAMMADIYAH Serbelawan academic year of 2019/2020.

The Significant of Research
The result of this research intends to give explanation of narrative text through comic strips , and can be improving students' comprehension by comic strips. Then practically, this research may give contribution of using comic strips for all readers.

Ha
: Comic Strips is effective in improving reading comprehension mastery at grade XI SMA MUHAMAMMADIYAH-7 Serbelawan in academic year 2019/2020. Ho : Comic Strips is not effective in improving reading comprehension mastery at grade XI SMA MUHAMMADIYAH-7 Serbelawan in academic year 2019/2020.
Intensive reading is related to further in language learning under the teachers guidance. b. Extensive reading Extensive reading is used to obtain a general understanding of a subject and includes reading longer texts for pleasure. c. Aloud reading The reading will be unnatural. Reading basically is reading silently. Only those text should be read aloud, which have been written to read aloud like poetry, dialogue, and other type of text. d. Silent reading Silent reading is done to acquire a lot of information.

The Purpose of Reading
According to Linse (2005: 72) the purpose of main reading are : a. Reading for Pleasure Reading can be used as a from of entertainment, as a teacher. Encourage readers as a native language and as a English language development. b. Reading for Information Reading for information can be a simple reading. Which can regard of a situation and reading to done for get that information useful for adding insight and science.

The Reason of Reading
According to Harmer (2007:99) stated that there are many reasons why getting students to read English texts is an important part of the teacher's job. In the first place, many students want to be able to read texts in English either for their careers, for study purposes or simply for pleasure.
According to Harmer in Munawaroh S (2018: 11) stated that there are four reason of reading, they are : a. Reading in language learning Reading is an exercise dominated by the eyes and the brainreading to confirm expectation technique is highly motivation and successful since it interest students, creates expected, and gives them a purpose for reading. b. Reading for language learning Reading for language learning which is more fundamental than involved in some language learning tasks seem only to be asking about details at language. c. Reading for information Reading for information is relevant to current study of the reader they read to find out information, to reduce their uncertainties. d. Reading for pleasure Reading for pleasure is done without other people's order but according to an individual reader's wish, and taste.

The Definition of Reading Comprehension
According to Snow (2002:11) stated that Reading comprehension is the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language.
According to Grabe and Stoller (2011: 23) stated that Reading comprehensionis an extraordinary feat of balancing and coordinating many abilities in a very complex and rapid set of processes that makes comprehension a seemingly effortless and enjoyable activity for fluent readers. According to Baier J. (2005:1) stated that Reading comprehension is a skill that is critical in the educational success of all individual without adequate reading comprehension skill, that can struggle in many subject areas.
From the citation above, Reading comprehension is the ability to manage text, understand the purpose of the text and integrate with what the reader knows and recall the contents of the text or from the text that has been read.

The Level of Reading Comprehension
The level of reading comprehension According to Heilman in Fitriana (2013:19-20) stated that consist of several parts such as : 1. Literal comprehension This level of comprehension represents the minimum of involvement on the part of the reader. It is the simple understanding of the words and ideas of author.

Interpretive comprehension
This level the reader not only knows what the author said but goes beyond that simple knowledge. It involves an effort to grasp relationship, compare facts with personal experiences, understand sequences.

Applied comprehension
This level reader does more than merely receiving and interpreting the massage.

Critical comprehension
This level reader analyzing, evaluating, and personally reacting to information presented in a passage.

The Strategies of Reading Comprehension
The process of reading comprehension begins before read. When reads a picture book , see the picture in the book and may start to associate the words on the page with another word.Learn comprehension strategies need modeling, practice and feedback.
Key of Comprehension Strategies are described below: a. Using prior Knowledge/Previewing.
When preview text tap into what already know that will help them to understand the text about to read. This provides a framework for any new information. b. Predicting.
When make a prediction about the text about to read. It sets up expectations based on prior knowledge about similar topics. c. Identifying the main idea and summarization.
Identifying the main idea and summarizing requires that determine what is important and then put in own words. Implicit in this process is trying tto understand the author's purpose in reading the text. d. Questioning Asking and answering questions about text is another strategy that helps focus on the meaning of the text.

The Technique of Reading Comprehension
According to Brown (2007:209-213) stated that the main ways of reading are as follows: a. Skimming is the process of rapid coverage of reading matter to determine its gist or main idea. b. Scanning is a strategy used by all readers to find relevant information in a text. c. Extensive reading is expected response from the reader is likely to involve as much written or sometimes orally performance as reading. d. Summarizing is the technique of distilling the most important information or extract specific information from the text.

Text The Definition of Text
According to Knapp & Watkins ( 2005:14) stated that a text can be any meaning producing event, be it a book, a film, an advertisement, a phone conversation and so on. A text can be seen from two key perspectives: a thing in itself that can be recorded, analyzed and discussed; and also a process that is the outcome of a socially produced occasion.

Kinds of text
According to Aulia (2020 : 130 ) stated that there are thirteen types of long functional text. They are Narrative, Recount, Descriptive, Procedure, Report, Anecdote, Hortatory, Spoof, Explanation, Discussion, News Item, Review, and Analytical Exposition texts. In this Research, The researcher chooses narrative text. The researcher would like to know the effect of this method in improving of reading comprehension. Narrative is the text which related Entertaining, amusing, and dealing with actual or vicarious experience in different ways.

The Definition of Narrative Text
According to Currie (2007:5) stated that narrative is understood as retrospection more readily than it is understood as anticipation, but it cannot really be one without also being the other. Narration is a telling a story.
Then to be interesting, a good story must have interesting content. It should tell about an event our audience would find engaging. might even think of our narrative a movie in which readers see people in action and hear them speak. Therefore, it should be detailed and clear, with event engaged in order in which they happened or in some other effective way.

General Structure of Narrative Text
According to Anderson and Anderson in Defrioka (2014:47) stated that five steps in constructing a narrativetext or general structure of narrative text, they are : They are orientation, complication, sequence of events, resolution, and coda.
a. Orientation The narrator tells the audience who is in the story, when it is happening, where it is happening, and what is happening.

b. Complication
The narrator tells about something that will begin a chain of events. These events will affect one or more of the characters. The complication is the trigger. c. Sequence of events The narrator tells how the characters react to the complication. In this step, the feelings of the character and what they do are included. In addition, the events can be told in chronological order (the order in which they happen) or with flashbacks. The audience is given the narrator's point of view.

d. Resolution
The tell about complication is sorted out or the problem is solved. e. Coda Coda is an optional structure in a narrative. In this part, the narrator includes a coda if there is to be a moral or message to be learned from the story.

Language Feature of Narrative Text
The language feature usually found in narrative text are: a. Specific characters. It means focusing on specific and usually individualized participants. b. Time words that connect to tell when they occur. Use of Temporal Conjunctions and temporal Circumstances can be choice too. c. Verbs to show the actions that occur in the story.
It can be inferred that the tense used is past tense. d. Descriptive words to portray the characters and setting.
It is common place considering the definition of narrative is telling story, so description of characters and setting is important. Meanwhile, states several common grammatical patterns.

Comics The Definition of Comics
According to Kukkonen (2013:6) stated that, comics can be defined as words and images combined into a sequence.
What is more important, usually they are words and images combined into a sequence for a particular purpose, namely , to tell a narrative.
From the citation above , comics are comics are one of the media that tells stories through picture illustrations, pictures that function as story description but the researcher will focus more on comics where comic strips make it more interesting.

The Characteristics of Comics
Comics have several distinct characteristics that can be distinguished from other literary works. The characteristics of comics include the following: This is certainly different from other works of fiction and nonfiction that tell the story in the verbal form: a. Proportional Comics can get readers directly involved emotionally when reading comics.

Readers like to play a role and get involved in comics and become the main actors. b. Conversational Language
Comics never use language that is difficult for readers to understand. In comics, the language use usually the language used for daily conversation so that readers easily understand and comprehend the contents of the comic. c. Heroism In general, the contents of a story contained in a comic will make the reader have a sense or attitude of heroism.

d. Portrayal of Character
The portrayal of character in comics is usually portrayed in a simple way so that readers can more easily understand the characteristics of the characters involved in the comic. e. Providing Humor Humor presented in comics will be very easily understood by comic readers because the humor presented often occurs in the community.

The Kinds of Comics
According to Tatalovic (2009:2) stated that kinds of comics there are 6 parts, they are: a. Comic Strips Comic strips are one of common humor carriers. There is some confusion in meanings of the terms in cartoon family. Comic strips like a cartoon family and simply defines comics as sequential art associated with text and comic strips as short sequences of images telling short stories. b. Comic Book Comic Book is a book produced by publishing companies with an aim to provide medical information in a format appropriate for children, such as marvel's comic a series of comic books about conditions. Fiction comics, especially the super hero style comics often contain characters with powers that defy known scientific explanations, and yet their authors try to make them scientifically justified so that the characters make sense within the reality. c. Graphic novels The graphic novel is a picture story that the pictures are accompanied by dialogue. The graphic Novel as the mediaacts as a tool that has the function of conveying instruction. In this context, the research refers to a process of communication between learners and learning resources in this case comics research.

d. Single Panel Cartoon
A single panel cartoon is an individual frame, or single image, in a sequence of multiple panels from a comic or comic book and a Panel consists of a single image depicting a frozen moment. When there are multiple panels, they are often, though not always, separated by small spaces called gutters. e. Wordless Comic Wordless comics also known as silent comic are comics without text in captions or word balloons. Silent comics are not strictly silent because they often include sound effects in various forms such as pictographs in word balloons.

f. Animated Cartoons
An animated cartoon is a film for the cinema, television or computer screen, featuring some kind of story or plot, which is made using drawings. This is distinct from the terms "animation" and "animated film," as not all follow this definition. Although cartoons can use many different types of animation, they all fall under the traditional animation category.

The Definition of Comic Strips
According Liu (2005 :229) stated that comic strip is defined in this study as a series of pictures inside boxes that tell a story. Among visual genres, comic strips catch many researchers attention because they are communicative, popular, accessible, and readable, and they combine aesthetic perception with intellectual pursuit (Social science learning media presented with comic strips make it easier for teachers to deliver subject matter and help students understand the material. Comic Strips are a learning process that can activate.

The Comic Strips as Reading Material
Basically, interest on reading is one of the internal factors that has influence in reading comprehension. By the interesting material, interest in reading could be increased. It can be assumed that the role of text including their elements in reading comprehension is very important.
One of interesting material is by using comic strips that students have already known. Many reading comprehension studies consider the extent to which visuals, that is any graphic display that portrays all or some accompanying text's content, help reader to comprehend information from text. Reading comics is more than the material in hand, that it involves a certain immersion into the visuals to facilitate students. Because, visuals have good effect on readers.

The Advantages of Using Comic Strips
The Advantages of using comic strips are: 1. Help the students to understand content and context that teacher have teach easily. 2. By using comic strips, it is hope that it can motivate students to read and pay attention to the material. It will create fun learning in English. 3. Comic can help the readers to get the right visualizations.
Comic is such supplementary cues that provide a conceptual basis for organizing the input, the second language comprehension process will be facilitated since learners will be better to make imagery system when encountering words and expressions in a passage with which they are un familiar. 4. It motivates students. 5. It improves children's creative working skills. 6. Children are encouraged to express their creativity.
In the treatment, the teacher conducted teaching-learning activity with the students in both of experimental and controlled class in three meetings. In the first meeting of treatment, she explained about narrative text and how to write it. Then, in the next two meetings, he asked the students to practice to comprehend a narrative text by using different narrative stories, and after that can use comic strips for students in experimental class specially. c. Post-test The last is posttest. The post-test to know the progression between the experimental and controlled class, after the teacher give treatments to the students. The sum of question in post-test was 25 question multiple choice. In this last meeting, she gave the test to the students in experimental and control class. The way he does the test was similar with the pretest.

Instrument of Collecting Data
This research is designed into true-experimental design by using two groups learning so that the researcher determines the sample of the research by means of Cluster Sampling Technique with two groups of experimental group and control group. So, to determine experimental class and control class from those two classes, the researcher makes lottery. The lottery is conducted by giving 6 rolling-pieces of papers where there are two papers has letters 1 and 2 and others paper is blank. Its letter 1 is Experimental class and its 2 letter is Control class. Chairman who gets rolling-piece of paper contained letter 1 will be called as experimental group while chairman who gets letter 2 will be called as control group.

DATA AND DATA ANALYSIS Data Analysis
To investigate students reading comprehension of narrative text before and after taught by using comic strips the researcher conducted pre-test and post-test. A pre-test and post-test is writing test which as the instrument in collecting data. In pre-test and post-test the researcher selected the instruction of test is same but different in the topic. In pre-test, the researcher give 25 question without using comic strips while in post-test was using comic strips. The scores from pre-test and post-test based on the correct of 25 question. And the result of students reading comprehension of narrative text before and after taught were analysed by using comic strips score.The researcher asked them to reading of text have title " Raju and Money Tree" without picture and asked to answer of 25 question it called experimental class and in control class the students will gave a treatment that the students asked to reading comic strips " Raju and Money Tree" then, their translate the comic strips after the students know about ways of story of comic strips the students will be answer of 25 question.

Discussion
The researcher discussion that using comic strips significantly affects students reading comprehension in narrative text. The researcher using comic strips to improve students reading comprehension. The first step of this research is pre-test to know whether the reading skills of the students are bad. The researcher gives a text and students read the text one paragraph for each student. After that the researcher gives a test in the form of multiple choices to all students to answer the questions related to the text and then researcher checking and scoring the students multiple choices Findings Based on the result of the data analysis from pre-test and post-test data, there are some findings found by researcher, they are : 1. In control class, the students score of 36 students get value pre-test was 1904 andmean (average)was 52,88 in post get value was 2132 and mean (average)was 59,22 and the standard deviation pre-testwas10,20 and post-test was 10,01. 2. In experimental class, the students score of 36 students get value pre-test was 1972 and mean (average)was 54,78 in post-test value was 3004 and mean (average) was 83,45 and the standard deviation pre-test was 6,91 and post-test was 6,93. 3. Based on a level significance of t table 0,05. The t-table value is on the amount sample (n) 72 subtracted 2 then the number of sample will be 70 which the value of t-table was 1,99. Then, result was df(degree of freedom) =70. So, the t-test result was than 5,73> 4,22 >1,99. It can be concluded that result of experimental class more of control class result that the researcher was accepted.

CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS Conclusions
Based on the result of the research, it could be conclude that: score. Using comic strips effective in improving students' reading comprehension through narrative text at the eleventh grade of SMA MUHAMMADIYAH -7 Serbelawan. After analyzing the data, it was found out that the students' ability in reading comprehension of narrative text got improvement by using comic strips. It was showed from the mean (average) of the score. It could be seen on the result of computation of mean (average) experimental class which is 83,45 and 59, 22 mean (average)of control class. The standard deviation result also proved the significant difference. In control class pre-test was 10, 20 and post-test was 10, 01. The experimental class had value pre-test was 6, 91 and post-test was 6, 93.