Improving Students’ Reading Comprehension of Descriptive Texts Through Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) at Grade X 4 of SMAN 8 Padang

The purpose of this research is to improve the students’ reading comprehension of descriptive texts through Collaborative Strategy Reading (CSR) at grade X4 of SMAN 8 Padang and to find out the factors that influence the changes of the students’ reading comprehension of descriptive texts through Collaborative Strategy Reading (CSR). This research was the Classroom Action Research (CAR). The participants were the students at grade X4 of SMAN 8 Padang that consisted of 35 students. The instruments used to collect data in this research were observation sheet, field note, interview, reading task and test which were used to see the development of students’ reading comprehension of descriptive text through Collaborative Strategy Reading (CSR). This research consisted of 11 meetings of 3 cycles. Each cycle applied plan, action, observation, and reflection. The findings of this research showed that the students’ reading comprehension of descriptive texts at grade X4 of SMAN 8 Padang improved through Collaborative Strategy Reading (CSR). The improvement could be seen from the result of students’ reading comprehension of descriptive test at the first cycle was 59,09. It increased on the second cycle 71.89, and on the third cycle increased to 79.09. The improvement was influenced by several factors such as students’ prior knowledge, teacher’s approach, teacher’s strategy, management of classroom, classroom activities, and teacher’s motivation. From the explanation above, it can be concluded that by applying Collaborative Strategy Reading (CSR), the students’ reading comprehension of descriptive texts could be improved. Hopefully, this research could be significant input for English teachers in teaching reading.