The Use of The DR-TA Stratregy to Improve Students’ Reading Comprehension

Reading Problems and the Solution to Solve the Problems

by

Barkah Saputri

Reading is one of the four basic language skills that must be mastered in language learning, especially in English learning. At Senior High Schools in Indonesia, English reading lesson has been taught from the tenth to twelfth year.  English reading ability becomes something crucial and indispensable for the Senior High School students because the success of their learning depends on the greater part of their ability to read. If the students’ reading comprehension is poor, they are very likely to fail in their learning or at least they will have difficulties in making progress. On the other hand, if they have good comprehension in reading, they will have a better chance to succeed in their learning. However, many students at Senior High Schools still have insufficient skills in reading and they get many difficulties in comprehending a text. The lack of the reading comprehension on the students can be caused by some reasons below.

The first reason is the lack of interest and concentration in reading. When the students lose their interest and concentration in reading, this is very difficult to the students to reach high reading achievement. The lack of interest and concentration in reading can be caused by the use of inappropriate materials, strategies, and methods in teaching reading.

The second reason is failure to understand words and sentences in a text. If the students cannot understand words or sentences in texts which they read, they will get difficulties to comprehend the texts. The failure to understand words and sentences in the texts can be caused by the lack of vocabulary, linguistic knowledge, and discourse knowledge on the students.

The last reason is insufficient knowledge background on the students about the topic of the text. When the students do not have sufficient background knowledge about the topic of the text which they will read, they will get difficulties to comprehend the text. Meanwhile, the students who have sufficient background knowledge about the topic of the text will comprehend the text easily. It is obvious that the sufficient background knowledge about the topic of the text can help the students a lot in comprehending the text.

Based on the explanations above, it seems clear that there are many problems in the English reading teaching learning process. It will be English teachers’ task to solve the problems. There are many ways to solve the problems. One of them is the use of appropriate reading strategies in teaching reading. An appropriate reading strategy can facilitate the reading process and give the students a clear sense of what they are reading. It also can improve the reading comprehension on the students.

The directed reading thinking ability (DR-TA) strategy is one of reading strategies which it has been proved, through many studies, to have been able to improve students’ reading comprehension. The DR-TA strategy is developed by Russell Stauffer in 1969 to help the students in comprehending a text. The DR-TA strategy has many advantages in the reading teaching and learning. First, the DR-TA strategy can help to develop critical reading skills. Second, the strategy can encourage the students to be active readers. Third, it can activate the students’ prior knowledge. Then, the strategy can monitor students’ reading comprehension as they are reading. Finally, the strategy can enhance students’ curiosity about particular texts or text types.   From the statements above, it is obvious that the DR-TA strategy is effective to improve the students’ reading comprehension, so it is appropriate to be used by English teachers in teaching reading.

In conclusion, reading ability is very necessary to be had by students because the ability influences their study. However, many students get difficulties in comprehending a text. The lack of the reading comprehension on the students is caused by some reasons: (1) the lack of interest and concentration in reading, (2) failure to understand words and sentences in a text, (3) insufficient knowledge background on the students about the topic of the text. The use of the DR-TA strategy can solve the problems. It can be used to improve the students’ reading comprehension.