Improving Students‟ Reading Comprehension through Extensive Reading Activities at Level III of Language Center of UIN Sultan Syarif Kasim Riau.

The students in the researcher‟s class at Language Center of State Islamic University of Sultan Syarif Kasim Riau could not read with good comprehension. The students were at the level III and, consequently, they need to improve their reading comprehension in order to pass the level. Therefore, the purpose of this research was to explain whether extensive reading activities could improve students‟ reading comprehension at level three of the Language Center of UIN Sultan Syarif Kasim Riau. Besides, this research also identified the factors that influence the changes of the students‟ reading comprehension when the researcher applied extensive reading activities. This research was carried out in the design of classroom action research, which was a cyclical process that involved planning, action, observation, and reflection-, for two cycles. In every cycle, a collaborator helped the researcher to collect two types of data, namely qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data were collected by using observation sheets for the researcher and the students. Besides, field notes and interview were also used to collect the qualitative data that out of the observation sheets. Then, the quantitative data were collected by administering reading comprehension tests. The results of the tests showed that each indicator of reading comprehension increased in each cycle. Therefore, the researcher concluded that extensive reading activities could improve the students‟ reading comprehension. Besides, the results of observations and interviews showed that there were three factors influencing the improvement of students‟ reading comprehension during extensive reading activities. The factors were providing a variety of reading materials, motivating the students to read and practicing reading strategies.