Identifying Main Clause of Compound, Complex, and Compound-Complex Sentence: Students’ Ability and Perception Toward Academic Reading Comprehension

There is a new reading strategy namely text simplification. One of the processes of text simplification is to find the main clause of Compound, Complex, and Compound-Complex Sentences that it can help students to improve their reading comprehension. This research aims to assess students’ ability in identifying main clause of compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences in academic reading and to know the perception of the students whether their ability in identifying those main clauses can help them improve their academic reading comprehension. The third year students of English education of UNP were the sample of this research. The instrument of this research was a test to identify the main idea of compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences, and an interview to know the perception of the students whether their ability to identify main clause help them in understanding any academic text. However, the finding showed that only 4% or 3 students who were in the good level, 4% or 3 students who were in the fair level, 3% or 2 students who were in the good level, and 89% or 66 students who were in the extremely low level. Based on the foregoing data, it can even be revealed that students' ability to identify the main clause of compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences is extremely low. From the interview session, student who had ability in doing the test agreed that the strategy of identifying main clause can help improve their reading comprehension.Therefore, this strategy is worth further testing for its use in the classroom activity