1

THE EFFECT OF USING SIX THINKING HATS STRATEGY TOWARD

READING COMPREHENSION IN DESCRIPTIVE TEXT

OF THE EIGHT GRADE STUDENTS AT STATE

JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL 8 PEKANBARU

A. Background of the problem

Reading is one a way to understanding the meaning of the texts. Reading is

one of the skill in learning based listening, writing and speaking. According to

Richards,”reading is perceiving a written text in order to understand its

contents ,1.Reading is very important for people especially for students because by

reading, students can spend their time in good way generally, and reading is

aimed at getting information

Reading includes one of the language skills that should be mastered by

students, it is a basic tool in daily life that make us succsesfull. When we are

reading should focus and concentrate. People read books, magazines or everything

sare to get information , knowledge or anything else. Without reading skill we can

get difficulties to find the information from sources. Reading is an activity with a

purpose 2.

Reading is not easy matter, especially for students in junior high school. In

uderstanding the reading text needs some skill should be mastered by the reader.

1
Jack Richards C. et al, Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics(Malaysia :Longman
Group Uk Limited,1992), p.305
2
Hasibuan dan Fauzan Muhammad. 2007. Teaching English As Foreign Language.
Pekanbaru: Alaf Riau Graha UNRI Press.p.114.
 2

In order to reading should be able to master to determine to the topic sentence,

vocabulary students should use knowledge, skills and strategies to determaine

what the text is mean. The teachers should have some strategies. The strategies

that can help the students read more quickly and effectivelly include; previewing,

predicting, skimming and scanning, and guessing from context.

After observing the teacher’s ways in teaching reading activity at state junior

high school 08 Pekanbaru,reading has been taught from the first year until the

third year. Based on curriculum, in reading skill for junior high school students

are required to be able to understand meaning of the simple short form the text to

interactive with surroundings. It means students should be able to comprehend the

content of the reading text. Based on sylabus of State Junior high school 08

Pekanbaru for eight grade that” students will be able to comprehend recount,

descriptive and narrative text.3 KKM for English subject at SMPN 08 Pekanbaru

is 78.

Based on researcher’s observation on September 12th, 2013 in State Junior

High School 08 Pekanbaru reading was taught by conventional technique. The

student were given materials and then students read the text paraghraph by

paragraph ,found the difficult words and then found the meaning of the words,

students answer the question from the text, collected the papper and then the

teacher gave the true answer to the students. The teacher gave support to students

in order to improve their reading comprehension by providing English day. In the

fact ,some students can not comprehend the reading materials well and their

3
Tim Penyusun.SilabusSMPN 08 Pekanbaru 2012/2013.(Pekanbaru Unpublished,2011),p.15
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reading comprehension are still far from the expectation of curiculum. The

students are not able to comprehend the content of reading text in descriptive

form. It can be seen from the phenomena :

a. Some of students are not able to find main idea based on the text.

b. Some students are not able to answer questions based on the text.

c. Some students are not able to reach the standart score.

d. Some students are not able to recall the content of the text when teacher

ask them.

e. Some students are not able to find the meaning of unfamiliar words.

f. Some students are not able to analyvze the generic structure of the text.

If the problems are no solved, it will influence student’s comprehension .The

teacher has lack of technique to apply in teaching reading especially in descriptive

text. In fact various reading techniques and strategies can be used hin order to

assist the students to gain the comprehension level as the goal of reading activity.

One of strategy can be used in reading activity is Six Thingking Hats strategy.

Six thinking Hats startegy is a tool that can empower teachers of any grade and

or subject matter to motivate students to use critical thinking and problem solving

skills, while expressing inner creativity.This strategy for reading comprehension and

the benefit of six thingking hats strategy are : teachers can help students explore their

own potential by taking an active role in their learning and enhance their creative

thinking, Awareness is created that there are multiple perspectives on a topic or

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problem, Improves communication, Improves decision making. There are some

procedurs to use this strategy:4

Therefore, based on the explanation and symptomps above, the writer is

interested in carrying out a research entitled The Effect of Using Six Thinking

Hats Strategy toward reading Comprehension in Descriptive Text of The Eight

grade at State Junior High School 08 Pekanbaru.

B. The definition of the Terms

In order to avoid misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the terms used in

this research , the researcher needs to explain them as follows :

1. Effect

Effect is change that somebody or something causes in somebody or

something else5. In this reseach, effect is an ability that can change caused by

something. The writer wants to know the effect of using Six Thinking Hats

strategy towards students comprehension in reading.

4
Harvey and Goudvis.2007.Six Thinking Hats 2009.(Florida Departement of
Education,2007),p.1
5
Manse & Martin. H , Oxford Learner’s Pocket Dictionary, Third Edition (Oxford:
Oxford Universitiy Press, 2000),p. 138
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2. Strategy

Strategy is plan intended to achieve a particular purpose. 6In this research

writer used Six Thinking Hats strategy to improve students reading

comprehension.

3. Six Thinking Hats Strategy

Six thinking Hats startegy is a tool that can empower teachers of any grade and

or subject matter to motivate students to use critical thinking and problem solving

skills, while expressing inner creativity.This strategy for reading comprehension and

the benefit of six thingking hats strategy are : teachers can help students explore their

own potential by taking an active role in their learning and enhance their creative

thinking, Awareness is created that there are multiple perspectives on a topic or

problem, Improves communication, Improves decision making.7

4. Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is the process of constructing meaning by coordinating a

number of complex processes that include word reading, word and world

knowledge , and fluency8. In this research, it refers to students’ reading

comprehension at the second year students of SMP Negri 8 Pekanbaru. Collin

6
Ho-Chia Chueh. Anxious Identity : Education, Deferences, and Politics. (USA :
Praeger,2004).p.439
7
De Bono’s Edward. Six Thinking Hats New Tools for New Solution.(Michigan : Host –
Dennis Sergent,2012).p.7.
8
Klingner, Janet K, et al, Teaching Reading Comprehension to students with Learning
Difficulties, ( New York : The Guilford Press, 2007),p.17
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state that comprehension is a process of integrating new sentences new sentences

with antecedent information in extrasentensial structures.9

5. Descriptive text

Descriptive text is a kind of text that is used to show or describe what the

subject looks, souds, feels, tastes and smells as if the reader can see the object that

is being described directly.

Dealing the definition if the descriptive text above, Syafi’i (2007:43)says that

there are several elements of descriptive text, it should use world that appeak to

the five senses: smell, touch , hearing, taste, or feeling. Of course not all five of

senses are necessary to apply every subject that we write about, but strive to use

as many as you can. The generic structure of descriptive text : identification ;

identifying the phenomenonis described, description ; describing the phenomenon

in parts , Qualities and characteristic. In descriptive text , you describe a place, a

thing , or a person. When you describe the way something looks (physical

description), you have to describe it according to where the objects being

described are located.

9
Collin Harrison. Understanding Reading Comprehension.(London: SAGE
Publication.2004).p.51.
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C. The Problems

1. The Identification of the Problems

The identification of the problems in this research is as follows :

a. Why are some of students not interested in reading activity?

b. Why are some of the students not able to find the main idea in

reading text?

c. Why are some of the students not able to determine the general

information of the reading text ?

d. Why are some of the students not able to find the main idea in reading

text ?

e. Why are some of the students not able to comprehend the text?

2. The Limitation of the Problem

Because of limitation time, energy, fund, it is necessary for writer to limit the

problem. Therefore, the writer limited to focus on The Effect of Using Six

Thinking Hats Toward Student’s Reading Comprehension in descriptive text at

the Eight Grade students of SMP Negeri 8 Pekanbaru.

3. Formulation of The Problem

The problem of this research is formulated in the following questions:

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a. How is the students’ comprehension in reading Descriptive text by using

Six Thinking hats strategy at the eight grade of State Junior High School 8

Pekanbaru?

b. How is the students’ comprehension in reading Descriptive text without

using Six Thinking Hats strategy at the eight grade of the State Junior

High School 8 Pekanbaru?

c. Is there any significant effect of using Six Thinking Hats strategy toward

students’ reading comprehension in descriptive text at the eight grade of

State Junior High School s8 Pekanbaru?

D. Reason of Choosing Title

The reason why the writer is very interested in choosing a research on the

topic above is based on several consideration:

1. Based on th problems found in observation this strategy is crucial to solve the

problems. For instance, some of students are not interested in reading because

it is so hard and make them bored. Therefore, this strategy is appropriate one

for teacher to use this strategy after reading a book, chapter of novel or short

story.

2. This research is very important to be discussed and will be valuable

constribution for the researcher particularly and for english teacher generally

to be recognized and applied this strategy to increase the students interaction

in reading class.
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3. This researc is very important to be discussed and will be valuable

constribution for the researcher particularly and for English teacher generally

to be recognized and applied this strategy to increase students’ interaction in

reading class.

4. The writer is able to conduct this research because the researcher have been

PPL in this school before.

5. The title of this research has never investegated by any other researchers.

E. The objective and the Significance of the Research

The objective of the study

a. To find out the students’ reading comprhension taught by using Six

Thinking Hats Strategy at the Eight Grade Students of SMP Negeri 8

Pekanbaru.

b. To find out the students’ reading comprehension taught without using

Six Thinking Hats Strategy at the Eight grade students of SMP Negeri 8

Pekanbaru.

c. To find out whether there is significant effect of using Six Thinking

Hats strategy toward reading comprehension at the Eight Grade

students of SMP Negeri 8 Pekanbaru.

2. The Significance of the Study

Related to the objectives of the research above, the significances of the

research are :
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a. To give information about the Effect of Using Six Thinking Hats

toward reading comprehension of the eight grade at SMP Negeri 8

Pekanbaru

b. To Improve students’ reading comprehension by using Six Thinking

Hats strategy.

c. To give information to the reader of this thesis about the use of Six

Thinking Hats Strategy in teaching English.

d. To enlarge the writer’s knowledge about Six Thinking Hats and reading

comprhension of the eight grade at SMP Negeri 8 Pekanbaru.

CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

A. The Theoretical Framework

1. Reading

a. The Nature of Reading

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As one of the important skills in English has to comprehend the text when

they are reading. According to Grabe, reading is something many of us take for

granted. We read with what appears to be little effort and little planning 10.

Reading is not an easy job, moreover for reading second language. The are many

students are not able to comprehend the texts. The goal of reading is to

comprehend meaning. Comprehension depends on the ability to get individual

word meanings11.

The reader can comprehend the text if they have many vocabularies and

they can connect their previous knowledge with their reading text. Therefore, the

reader must choose their own text in order to make themeeasy in comprehending

the text. There are many information that are not inside the text, but the

information comes from the reader previous knowledge.

According to Sharon Vaughn, reading comprehension includes the

following:

a. Applying one’s knowledge and experiences to the text.

b. Setting goals for reading, an ensuring that they are aligned with text.

c. Using Strategies and skills to constructmeaning during and after

reading.

10
Wiilliam Grabe, Reading in a second Language Moving From Theory to Practice,(USA
: Cambridge University Press),p.4.
11
Arifuddin Hamra&EnySyatriana,Developing a Model of Teaching Reading
Comprehension efl Students, TEFLIN Journal, Volume 2821, Number 1, 2010 ,p.4

11
 12

d. Adapting strategies that match the author’s purpose.

e. Recoginizing the author’s purpose.

f. Distinguishing between facts and opinions.

g. Drawing logical conclusions.

Based on the components above, reading comprehension releated to

someone knowledge, reading purposes, strategies and skill use in reading, match

reader’s text and purposes, knowing the author purpose, and differenciates facts

and opinions. And the last the readers know or drawing the logical conclusions.

Reading is complex, multifaceted pursuit requiring the continuous

deployment and integration of multiple operation. Reading is a constellation of

interfaced capabilities, ranging from mechanical mappings to more sophisticated

conceptual manipulations, such as reasoning and inferencing.12

Reading is developing and instructional action can be taken in

response.13The goal of reading is comprehension. The purpose for reading also

determines the appropriate approach to reading comprehension.

b. Types ( genres) of Reading

There are several types of reading.14 They are :

12
John S Hedgcook & Dana R Ferris. Teaching Readers of English Students, Texts, and
Contexts. ( New York: Routledge.2009).p.15.
13
Alison L Bailey, Margaret Heritage. Formative Assesment for Literacy, Building
Reading and Academic Language Skills Across the Curriculum.(California: Corwin
Press.2008.)p.49.
14
Douglas Brown. Language Assesment Principles and Classroom Practices.(California;
Longman.2003).p 186- 187.
 13

a) Academic reading like general interest articles, technical reports,

professional journal articles, reference material, text book , theses,essays,

paper, etc.

b) Job related reading such as massages, letters, email, reports, etc.

c) Personal reading suach as newspaper and magazines, invitation, notes,

lists, etc.

c. Microskills , Macroskills, and Strategies for Reading.

According to Nunan , the micro and macroskills below represent the

spectrum of possibilities for objectives in the assessment of reading

comprehension.15

a. Microskills

a) Discriminate among the distinctive graphemes and orthogaphic patterns

of English.

b) Retain chunks of language of different lengths in short- term memory.

c) Process writing at an efficient rate of speed to suit the purpose.

d) Recognize a core of words, and interpet word order patterns and their

significance.

e) Recognize grammatical word classes (nouns, verbs, etc ), systems ( e.g

tense, agreement), patterns, rules, and elliptical forms.

f) Recognize that a particular meaning may be expressed in different

grammatical forms.

15
ibid
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g) Recognize cohesive devices in written discourse and their role in

signaling the releationship between and among clauses.

b. Macroskills

a) Recognize the rhetorical forms of written discourse and their significance

for interpretation.

b) Recognize the communicative function of written texts, according to

form and purpose.

c) From described events, ideas, etc., infer links and connections between

events, deduce causes and effects, and detect such relations as main

idea , supporting idea, new information, generalization, and

exemplification.

d) Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.

e) Detect culturally specific references and interpret them them in a context

of the appropriate cultural schemata.

f) Develop and use a battery of reading strategies, such as scanning ab]nd

skimming, detecting discourse markers, guessing the meaning of words

from contexts, and activating for the interpretation of texts.

c. Some Principal Strategies for Reading Comprehension

a) Identify your purpose in reading a text

b) Apply spelling rules and conventions for bottom up decoding.

c) Use lexical analysis (prefixes, roots, suffixes, etc.) to determine meaning.

d) Guess at meaning (of words, idioms, etc.) when you aren’t certain.

e) Skim the text for the gist and for main ideas.
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f) Scan the text for specific information ( names, dates, key words).

g) Use silent reading techniques for rapid processing.

h) Use marginal notes. Outlines, charts, or semantic maps for understanding

and retaining information.

i) Distinguish between literal and implied meanings.

j) Capitalize on discourse markers to process relationships.

d. Reading Comprehension.

According to Janette reading comprehension is a multicomponent, highly

complex process that involves many interactions between readers and what they

bring to the text (previous knowledge, strategy use) as well as variables related to

the text it self ( interest in the text

2. Teaching Reading Comprehension

Teaching reading comprehension, teach the students how to comprehend

the text and it is not and easy job. Comprehension is the active process of

constructing meaning of the text; it’s involve assessing previous knowledge,

understanding vocabulary , and concept , making inference, and linking key ideas
 16

16
. Therefore, the students need a teacher for help them in understanding the text.

Teachers must provide explanations, modeling, guided practice, and application of

any new skill or strategy and teach students to use these comprehension strategies

flexibly an in combination with one another 17. There are some principles for

teaching comprehension that the teacher should consider. They are :

a. Begin comprehension instruction in the earliest grades, even before

children have moved into conventional reading.

b. Consider the reader, the activity, and the text when planning

instruction.

c. Teach Comprehension strategies through explanations, modeling (of

thinking and actions), and guided practice. Repeat them often.

d. Help learners understand when and why particular comprehension

strategies are useful.

e. Use a range of text genres.

f. Use good books in which kids are interested.

g. Conduct deep conversation about the meanings of texts

h. Whenever possible,employ paired or group learning.

i. Plan for plenty of practice opportunities, especially in authentic

contexts with real texts.

j. Give lots of feedback.

16
Ibid,p 98
17
Ellen Mclntyre,et al , Reading Instruction for Diverse Classrooms,( New York :the
Guilford Press, 2011),p.116
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k. Design instruction that provides just enough scaffolding for students to

be able to participate in tasks that are currently beyond their reach;

that is, teaching within their ZPD.

Every teacher have to know the principles above especially for English reading

teacher. Those principle will help the students in learning and they will easy in

comprehend the text.

3. The Nature of Descriptive Text

4. The Nature of Six Thinking Hats Strategy

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Six Thinking Hats strategy is a tool that can empower teachers of any grade

and or subject matter to motivate students to use critical thinking and problem solving

skills, while expressing inner creativity18. It is mean that, this strategy can help

students to explore their own potential by taking an active role in their learning and

enhance their creative thinking, Awareness is created that there are multiple

perspectives on a topic or problem, Improves communication, Improves decision

making. Therefore , this strategy is very useful to comprehending the text.

There are some steps of Six Thinking Hats Strategy in teaching reading :

1. Determine a topic that would offer the opportunity for students to apply

multiple perspectives.

2. As the teacher, activate prior knowledge on the topic with the class. You

may want to start with blue hat within the large group to go over what

might already be known about the topic.

3. Take time to model the strategy if this is the first time students are using it.

4. Pass out the six hat strategy sheet. While completing the reading

assignment students should consider each hat’s focus.

5. write down notes, thoughts, and opinions they derived from the reading.

6. In small groups have students listen to the thoughts each one has on the

topic, each taking turns “wearing” the different hats.

18
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7. As each participant gives their input on the topic, the facilitator of the

group should take notes on a six hat handout.

8. When everyone has given input, the group can come up with further

questions to challenge and explore the ideas they’ve presented to each

other. The blue hat should be revisited and a summary created19.

Based on the steps of using Six Thinking Hats above, the writer conclude that,

this strategy is very usefull to make students active in the class and build their

own comprehension about the texts.

5. Using Six Thinking Hats Strategy toward Students’ Reading

Comprehension.

Reading comprehension is very important for the reader in order to get meaning

from the written text. Through reading comprehension, the reader will get their

goal in reading. According to Gerald G. Duffy 20, comprehension is the essence of

reading because the goal of written language is communication of massages. If we

do not understand the massage, we are not reading. One of strategy that can help

students to comprehend reading text in Six Thinking Hats strategy. Six Thinking

19

20
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Hats Strategy asks students to read, comprehend the text, and make a note what

they have read to get the most meaningful bits21.

Based on the definition, it can be said that Six Thinking Hats Strategy

isthis strategy can help students to explore their own potential by taking an active role

in their learning and enhance their creative thinking, Awareness is created that there

are multiple perspectives on a topic or problem, Improves communication, Improves

decision making. Therefore , this strategy is very useful to comprehending the text

this strategy can help students to explore their own potential by taking an active role

in their learning and enhance their creative thinking, Awareness is created that there

are multiple perspectives on a topic or problem, Improves communication, Improves

decision making. Therefore , this strategy is very useful to comprehending the

text.

21
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B. The Relevant Research

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C. The Operational Concept

In order to clarify the theories in this research, the writer would like to

explain briefly about variables of this researc. This research is quasi experiment

research which focusses on gaining the effect of Six Thinking Hats Strategy

toward students’ reading comprehension. Therefore in analyzing the problem of

this research, there ae two variables used, they are independent variable (x ) refers

to Six Thinking Hats Strategy and dependent variable (y) refers to students’

reading comprehension.

The indicators of variable X ( Six Thinking Hats) are as follows :

1. Teacher asks students’ Determine a topic that would offer the opportunity

for students to apply multiple perspectives.

2. As the teacher, activate prior knowledge on the topic with the class. You

may want to start with blue hat within the large group to go over what

might already be known about the topic.

3. Teacher asks student’s take time to model the strategy if this is the first

time students are using it.

4. Teacher asks students’ Pass out the six hat strategy sheet. While

completing the reading assignment students should consider each hat’s

focus.

5. Teacher asks students’ write down notes, thoughts, and opinions they

derived from the reading.

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6. Teacher asks students listen to the thoughts each one has on the topic, each

taking turns “wearing” the different hats.

7. Teacher asks students’give their input on the topic, the facilitator of the

group should take notes on a six hat handout.

8. Teacher asks the group can come up with further questions to challenge

and explore the ideas they’ve presented to each other. The blue hat should

be revisited and a summary created22.

The indicators of variable Y ( Reading Comprehension ) are as follows:

1. Students are able to find the main idea in reading text.

2. Students are able to determine the general information of the reading text.

3. Students are able to find the main idea in reading text.

4. Students are able to comprehend the text.

D. Assumption and Hypothesis

1. Assumption

Before formulating hypothesis as temporary answer of the problems, the writer

would like to present some assumptions :

22
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a. Six Thinking Hats strategy can improve reading comprehension of the

eight grade students at SMP Negeri 8 Pekanbaru.

b. The respond of students toward Six Thinking Hats is various.

2. Hypothesis

Based on theassumption above, hypothesis for this study can be formulated as

follows :

Ho : There is no Significant effect of using Six Thinking Hats toward reading

comprehension in descriptive text of the eight grade students at SMP

Negeri 8 Pekanbaru.

Ha : There is significant effect of using Six Thinking Hats Strategy toward

reading comprehension in descriptive text of the eight grade students

at SMP Negeri 8 Pekanbaru.

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CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. The Research Design

This research is a quasi experimental research that focus on non equivalent

control group design. This research is aimed to find out the significant difference

of student’s reading by using six thinking hats strategy and without using six

thinking hats strategy. This strategy will be given only for experimental class and

the control class will not be given this strategy. The target of population of this

research is the eight grade students of State Junior High School 08 Pekanbaru,

with 305students.Considering that the population is big, the researcher tries to

pick up 2 groups by using cluster sampling. The design of this research can be

illustrated as follows :

Table III.I

Research Design
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Method of the research

This research is a quasi experimental research that focus on non equivalent

control group design. This research is aimed to find out the significant difference

of student’s reading by using six thinking hats strategy and without using six

thinking hats strategy. This strategy will be given only for experimental class and

the control class will not be given this strategy. The target of population of this

research is the eight grade students of State Junior High School 08 Pekanbaru,

with 305students.Considering that the population is big, the researcher tries to

pick up 2 groups by using cluster sampling. Each groups consist of 35 stdents as

sample which each of them acts as experimental group and control group.

population. In the data collection, the writer will use the multiple choice as a test
 27

.23 The data will be analyzed by T-test,especially Paired Sample T-test. T-test is

used in order to find out whether there is a significant effect of using six thinking

hats strategy toward students reading comprehension .The technique of data

analysis is using T test that taken from pre test score and post test score . The

formula of t-test is:24

Mx−My
t o=

√( ) (√ )
2 2
SD x SD y
+
√ N −1 N −1

to = The value of t – obtained

Mx = Mean score of experimental sample

My = Mean score of control sample

SDx = Standard deviation of experimental group

SDy = Standard deviation of control group

N = Number of student

23
John W. Cresswell, Educational Research : Planning Conducting and Evaluating
Quantitative and Qualitative Research( New Jersey : Preason Education Ltd,2008),p.314
24
Hartono. Statistik Untuk Penelitian. (Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar, 2008), p.193
 28

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Depdiknas. 2006. Kurikulum Tingkat Satuan Pendidikan (KTSP) 2006.

Jakarta Unpublished.

Hartono.2008. Statistik Untuk Penelitian. Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar.

Harvey and Goudvis.2007.Six Thinking Hats 2009.Florida: Florida

Departement of Education. Florida.

Geofrey Broughton et al.1980. Teaching English as foreign

language.Canada:Routledge.

John, W. Cresswell. 2008. Educational Research: Planning,

Conducting and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative
Research . New Jersey : Pearson Education

Kathlen Drevitch et all. 2007. The Six Thinking Hats in your classroom.
Pennsylvania:Presented at the Second Indiana University

Richards, C. Jack. et al. 2002. Longman Dictionary of Language

Teaching and Applied Linguistics. New York : Pearson Education
29