The Effect of Picture Story Books on Students’ Reading Comprehension

Abstract

As a non formal education students, PKBM (a Non-Formal Community Learning Center) Medaso Kolaka students tend to encounter some difficulties in reading such as low motivation, infrequent tutors (non-formal education teachers) coming, inappropriate teaching materials, etc.  This research aimed to investigate the effects of picture story books on the students’ reading comprehension and to clarify students’ perception on the utilization of  picture story books in teaching reading. The research was conducted at the PKBM Medaso Kolaka by applying the experimental design. There were 15 students randomly took as the sample and they were taking a Paket B. The sample was divided into two groups, namely experimental group and control groups.  The data were collected by administering a test, namely pre-test that aimed to determine the prior students’ knowledge, and the post-test that was conducted in the end of the experiment. Questionnaires and interviews were also used to collect data of the students’ perception. Then, the data were analyzed by using Pearson Product Moment assisted by SPSS 14.0. The results revealed that picture story books were able to improve students’ reading as well as the students’ interest in reading. The result showed that the utilization of picture story books had effect on the students’ reading comprehension that revealed the value of 0.025 with higher scores found in the post-test.