Using Inquiry Method to Improve the Students' Reading Comprehension (a Classroom Action Research)

This research aimed to explain the improvement of the students' reading comprehension in terms of literal comprehension dealing with and word meaning main ideas and interpretive comprehension dealing conclusion. To explain the improvement, the researcher used a classroom action research (CAR) which was conducted in two cycles in which every cycle consisted of four meetings. The location of this research was taken from the first semester students of English Education Department with a number of the subject were 25 students. The research findings indicated that the application of Inquiry Method was significant in improving the students' reading comprehension in terms of literal comprehension and interpretive comprehension. It was proved by the mean score of the cycle I was 68, 47. It was classified as fair then improved to be 81, 20. It was classified as good in cycle II. They are higher than the mean score of diagnostic test namely 58.40 that classified as poor. Therefore there was the improvement of the students' reading comprehension in terms of literal comprehension dealing with word meaning and main ideas and interpretive comprehension dealing conclusion.

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan peningkatan pemahaman membaca siswa dalam hal pemahaman literal dengan dan kata yang berarti ide-ide utama dan pemahaman interpretatif menyimpulkan kesimpulan. Untuk menjelaskan peningkatan, peneliti menggunakan penelitian tindakan kelas (PTK)  Learning English as a foreign language covers four skills; they are listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Reading is the process of getting meaning from text. Platt and Platt (1992:306-307) state that reading is perceiving a written text in order to understand its contents. The understanding that results is called reading comprehension. Different types of reading comprehension are often distinguished according to the reader's purposes in reading and the type of reading used. In reading comprehension, the message to be imposed in the written form is the most important element that the students must recognize, because the primary purpose of reading is to know the thoughts expressed in the printed material.
Therefore, reading with comprehension is only a way for the students to arrive at what they want to know from the reading material. However, the problem is how to make them comprehend. Reading comprehension is not just reading with a loud voice but reading is established to understand the meaning of word, sentences, and paragraph sense relationship among ideas as it is (Simanjuntak 1988:4). If a student just reads loudly but can't understand the content of the text, it means that he fails in comprehending passage. When preparing students for a reading activity, we can help them become aware of relevant prior knowledge, while we judge whether or not that knowledge is sufficient for comprehension of the text.
Reading for general comprehension is a skill that involves absorbing the content of the text. As the reader, we are not looking for specific points only, but rather than it, we need to get an overall understanding of the text. Problem mostly occurs to the students when reading book. Sometimes students were facing a book but do not read at all. They just can mention symbol word without getting any idea from the book. The researcher herself experienced when reading a book without any comprehension tends to feel sleepy. Many students can read the word in passage perfectly but are unable to get the meaning of the words. They can say the words, but unable to gain the meaning from words. They find hard to comprehend reading materials. So, the students who did not understand what they read. As a result, they could not answer the whole questions correctly. Based on the result of students' achievement in reading are still underneath, it is about 58, 40 mean score and the standard of curriculum is 75. In this case, the students have to read critically, and the teacher must select the suitable technique or strategy to teach it. The technique of teaching reading are very important to influence the students in success reading. A technique can help students in reading so in teaching English a teacher must use technique or methods where can help students to comprehends easy what the teacher teach to them.
An appropriate method for teaching English for student is very important because appropriate method determines the result of teaching vocabulary that is improving student's reading comprehension. To improve the students' reading comprehension, the researcher uses Inquiry method that provides a constructivist modeling in teaching reading as an implementation to improve the students' reading comprehension. The model helps students connect the content they are learning to the life contexts in which that content could be used. Therefore, students may find meaning in the learning process. As they try to attain the learning goals, they draw upon their previous experiences and build upon existing knowledge.
According to Postman and Weingartner (1969:31), Inquiry method is motivate and recognize the students to be good learners and sound reasoners center their attention and activity on the dynamic process of inquiry itself, not merely on the end product of static knowledge. Inquiry is a learning process through questions generated from the interests, curiosities, and perspectives/experiences of the learner. One important element in this strategy is the teacher modeling or thinking out loud about how to figure out the meaning of the word. This can be done by sharing the associations that come to mind when using structural analysis. Inquiry can be considered a philosophical approach to teaching any number of subjects, not just science or can be considered a mere method.

DEFINITION OF INQUIRY METHOD
A method of inquiry is capable of methods followed learners to realize what has been gained during learn. Inquiry put learners as subjects to active (Mulyasa, 2003: 234). Garcia.C (2003:2). Inquiry-based instruction is instruction using hands-on activities that allow children to explore scientific concepts, as well as instruction in which the focus is on using process skills to gain deeper understandings of the connections in science. Inquiry is the dynamic process of being open to wonder and puzzlements and coming to know and understand the world" (Galileo Educational Network in Alberta 2004). Bruce. B. C and Davidson. J (1996:9) The Inquiry Model assumes that knowledge is constructed through meaningful activity which may include, but is not limited to, conventional literacy activities. Inquiry as a teaching method was invented by social studies teachers. Students were given data from different countries, and asked to analyze the data to make generalizations and predictions about the people of the countries.
Inquiry is a term used broadly to refer to everything from pseudo-experiments where the teacher has the students reify already taught concepts to one in which students have virtually total control.

STEP OF INQUIRY METHOD
According to Hollywood Academy of Art And Science (2006:3) defines the steps of inquiry lessons are:

a. Purpose
The teacher tells the students what they will be learning about and tells them of the interesting implications of the lesson.

b. Hypothesis
In those activities where there will be a hypothesis, the students should always be expected to make their own hypotheses. This should be done in small groups (pairs), then in whole class discussion. Students should state their hypotheses in terms of the effect of one variable on another, and you must encourage them to justify their hypotheses.

c. Procedure
Once students have a clear idea of the purpose of the experiment or study, they should have some idea of how to find the answer. Often, the discussion of different hypotheses will give those ideas for how to test their own hypothesis. Just because they have shown that their hypothesis might be true does not mean they have proved it! The alternative might still be a possibility.
They have to rule on the other hypothesis as well as showing that their hypothesis works.

d. Materials
Once students know what they plan to do, they can make a list of the materials they will need. Sometimes it helps to tell them what materials are available before they design their procedure (one small way you can retain control) However, often the materials they need can be brought from home. If students are testing different kinds of food for starch and fat, you would encourage them to bring some from home.

e. Data
Before students begin the experiment, remind them of all safety precautions.
If they are working with chemicals, they should be wearing safety glasses. If they are working with Bunsen burners, they should have their hair tied back.
Etc. Then they are to carry out their experiment. Since they designed the procedure, they should know what data to collect. They should have a plan to record their data.

f. Analysis
Students should know what they are trying to find. They might need assistance in steering away from their affirmation bias, however. The students need to be reminded that they should start with more than one of each bean plant, just in case one of them is a dud. And, it might turn out that vinegar is good for germination of bean seeds.

g. Conclusion
When your students have finished their study or experiment, they must discuss their results with one another. They must find out who had the same results, which had different results, why the results might have been different.
They must interpret the results according to their original question. What do the results mean? The results will almost certainly lead to another question, and the process begins again. Notice that the class discussion of the conclusion is the brief of the lesson. This is when the meaning of the lesson can be put into the context of the unit as a whole. A big advantage of inquiry where students have most of the control over the activity is that students of different cultural backgrounds have different principles of inquiry Alberta (2004:11) Inquiry-based learning is a process where students are involved in their learning, formulate questions, investigate widely and then build new understandings, meanings and knowledge. That knowledge is new to the students and may be used to answer a question, to develop a solution or to support a position or point of view. The knowledge is usually presented to others and may result in some sort of action.

PROCEDURE OF INQUIRY METHOD
Center for Inspired Teaching (2008:1) inquiry-based teaching is a pedagogical approach that invites students to explore academic content by posing, investigating, and answering questions. Also known as problem-based teaching or simply as 'inquiry,' this approach puts students' questions at the A systematic approach to the development of these skills is essential to prepare students for problem solving and lifelong learning. A systematic approach ensures that students have the opportunity to engage in inquiry, to learn an overall process and to understand that this general inquiry process can be transferred to other inquiry situations, the Great Books Foundation (2007: 1) state the procedure of inquiry method in: a. Focus on the content of a text and attain thorough understanding b. Read actively, ask questions, retain knowledge, and take initiative for learning c. Resolve confusion and answern questions themselves d. Use new strategies independently to get the most out. Hornby (1994Hornby ( :1043 in Anita (2010:10) reading is the action of a person who reads. Reading is a complex process, every writer gives reason in his or her to establish meaning. Good (1973 : 414) states "Reading is often described as getting thought from the Printed page" from this question the writer can comprehend further that reading is not just to say out the written words, but also to keep in mind the meaning or the thought that the words carry. Steinberg (1982:192) states that reading is a form of communication the goal of which is the reception of information through written forms. It means a teaching program, consequently, should direct itself to the realization of that goal. (2005:6) stated that reading is a transmitting of information process where the author tells all the readers about his ideas or massage. Such as the author is regarded as the informant and he reader in other and is receive. During reading process the reader interacts with the author directly.

Charles in Irawati
According to Mark A. Clark and Sandra Silberstein in Anita (2010:12) define that reading is an active cognitive process of interacting with print and monitoring comprehension to establish meaning. In edition Smith and Robinson (1980) in Anita (2010:11) say that reading is an active attempt, on the part of the reader to understand a writer message. The reader interacts with and tries to contrast, what a writer wishes to communicate. Nuttal (1982: 4) remarks that reading is process of getting a message from a text or understanding a written text mean extracting the information from the text as efficiently as possible.
In addition, reading involves interaction between a reader and written language through which the readers tries to reconstruct the writer's message (Burns, et al :1996) in Saropa (2009:10) . It is a process of combining textual information with the information the reader brings to the text. It means that the reader is not simply extracting information from the text, but also activating a range of knowledge in his/her mind.
From some definitions about reading above, the researcher concludes that reading is very significance for us as student because it is a process of obtaining knowledge from written text. Moreover, information obtained can be applied in our daily lives and in this research, is concerned with the study of comprehending reading text, which is intended to convince readers that we can comprehend reading text easily READING COMPREHENSION Harris and Sipay (1980:8) state that reading comprehension as the result interaction between the perception of graphic symbols that present language skills and knowledge of the world. The reader comprehends by actively constructing meaning internally from interacting with the material that is read (Anderson and Pearson, 1984) in Yasin, Nurlaelah (2010:15).
Comprehension is the act or process of comprehending. Beside, Holt (1996:175) states that reading comprehension is the minds act or power of understanding. According to Reinking and Sceiner in Irawati (2005: 6), she stated that reading comprehension understanding what has been read. It is an active thinking process that depend not only comprehension skill but also the students experience and prior knowledge comprehension involves understanding vocabulary, seeing the relationship among words and concepts, making judgment and evaluating.
Based on definition above, we may concluded that reading comprehension is such a kind of language between an author and a reader in which the written language become the medium that cause the dialogue happen when the two persons communicate through the medium print.

LEVEL OF READING COMPREHENSION
Burn (

b. Interpretive or Inferential Comprehension
Burns in Astriani (2007: 8) defines the interpretive reading is means read between the lines or making inferences. It is the process of deriving ideas that are implied rather than directly stated. This level demands higher level of thinking ability because the question in the category of interpretation are concerned with answer that are not directly stated in the text but are suggested or implied where the students make connections among individuals' states ideas, make inferences, draw conclusion, read between the lines to get inferences, or implied meaning from the read. Needle, in Yuharniaty, (2007: 20) states that descriptive paragraph is a paragraph that describe about people, place, and subject. Description appears in almost writing because the writers try too hard to create word image of ideas that convey. Besides that, it also describe about a sense of impression such as: the feel, sound, taste and smell. Emotion may be described too, feeling such as happiness, fear, lone lines, gloom, and joy. Description helps the Rader, through his/her imagination, to visualize a scene or a person, or to understand a sensation or emotion. Good descriptions usually have three important qualities. Have a dominant impression supported by specific details, a clearly recognized mood, and logical development. In order to write an effective description, you need to explore both the details and the feelings related to your experience. Begin by selecting details that appeal to all the senses, sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Because your senses are telling you about surroundings, use them to provide the vivid details of description. Select specific sensory words that will bring an experience to life. Work from the vocabulary of the sensory words that you have been building.

a. Objective description
Objective description is based purely on observable details: it is not colored by the writer emotion or like and dislike. Objective description records exactly see from the writer vantage point. Some descriptive have not topic (or thesis) statement, however they always begin with some kinds of orienting statement, because the goal of such the description is merely to catalog the details of subject so that reader can visualize (Lennon,:1992:165).

b. Subjective Description
Subjective description can be defined as that has descriptive details by colored by personal impression. The usual goal of subjective description is to create a mood or to share feelings. According to Lennon, (1992:74), that any description has one of these goals: 1. To provide factual impression about something to someone who will use, assemble, who need to know more about the factual information of some good reason are called objective description. A strictly objective description has a referential goal. It includes fact about the thing itself.
2. To create a mood or impression in the raiders mind to share a feeling is called subjective description. It has an expressive Goal and emphases the writer's impression about this thing.

METHODOLOGY
In this Classroom Action Research (CAR), the researcher used the CAR principle with some cycle in procedure planning, action, observation, and reflection.

c. Observation
In this phase, the researcher observeed students' participation in learning process, the students' activeness in the classroom, asked question, students' response in answered teacher's question, students' attention, and students' ability in answered test.

d. Reflection
After collected the data, the observer evaluated the teaching-learning process. Where for word meaning enough improved but for main idea and conclusionstill low because some students still got low score .Then, the researcher continued to cycle II.

Cycle II
In cycle II conducted four times meeting included once time for test in cycle II. The main activities are:

a. Planning
In this cycle, the researcher did the next action research based on the data that got in cycle one, the steps as follows: 1. Making a lesson planning for four meeting in cycle II.

c. Observation
In this phase, the researcher observed students' participation in learning process, the students' activeness in the classroom, asked question, students' response in answered teacher's question, students' attention, and students' ability in answered test.

d. Reflection
After collecting the data, the observer evaluated the teaching-learning process, where word meaning, main idea and conclusion had achieved target score. So, the researcher did not continue to the next cycle. By seeing the result of the observation, Inquiry Method was good to apply in teaching learning process at the classroom.

Research Variables and Indicators
The variables and indicators of the research as follow:

Research Variables
There are two variables in this research. The first variable is dependent variable and the second variable is independent variable. Dependent variable is Inquiry Method, while Reading Comprehension is independent variable.

The indicators of the research
a. Literal reading comprehension with the indicator: The students' understanding of the word meaning and main idea.
b. Interpretive reading comprehension with the indicator: The students' understanding of making conclusion.

Research Instrument
The instruments of this research are as follows: 1. Observation sheet is an instrument to collect the data which is done by observing and note down systematically the symptoms were observed during the research. Observation was used to collect the data about students' activities during learning process by using Inquiry Method.
2. Reading test was used to know the students' capability in comprehending the text. In cycle I the test consists of 3 items, where 1 item to found the meaning of the words which included in the text, 1 item to found the main idea, and 1 item make conclusion of the text.

Data Collection
The procedures of collecting the data are as follows:

Observation Sheet
The researcher did observation directly toward teaching reading learning process in the first year of English Education Departmentin 2012-2013 academic year. In this research, the researcher acted as an active observer. The researcher observes students' activeness in learning process using Inquiry Method.

Reading Test
Data about the improvement of students' achievement were took from test from the cycle I and test from the cycle II. The test gave to the students to find out the students' improvement in reading comprehension in terms of literal compehension covering word meaning and main idea, and interpretive comprehension cover making conclusion. The researcher gave score for students'answer based on indicators below:   (Gay 1981:298)

Data Analysis
The data were got from cycle I and cycle II were analyzed through the following step: 1. To find out the mean score of the students' test, the researcher used the following formula:

Notes:
̅ =Mean score = The number of students ∑ = The sum of all score (Gay, 1981:298) 2. After collecting the data of the students, the researcher classified the score of the students. To classify the students' score, there were seven classifications which follows: Categorizing the whole of score into the following classification  (Depdikbud, 1985:6) 3. To analyze the students' participation in research toward the material and activities in teaching and learning process by checklist. The students' active participation described followed: To calculate the percentage of the students' score participation, the formula which was used as follows?

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
This part presents the finding and discussion of the research. The findings consist of the data obtained through achievement test to see the students' achievement after being taught the materials of reading comprehension through Inquiry Method and data collected through observation sheet and test to see the students' improvement in learning reading comprehension after being given treatment in the first and second cycle of the research.

Findings
The results of the data findings found that teaching reading comprehension through Inquiry Method can improve the students' achievement in literal comprehension and also can improve the students' achievement in interpretive comprehension. In the further interpretation of the data analysis were given below: The table above indicates the significant improvement of the students' literal comprehension from cycle I to cycle II where the students' literal comprehension in cycle I is 69, 70 and in cycle II is 83.80. Thus, the improvement of students' literal comprehension achievement from cycle I to cycle II is 20.23%

Inquiry Method.
The improvement of the students' interpretive comprehension, which focused on prediction of outcomes and conclusion as indicators in VII class of English Education Department as result of the students' assessment of cycle I and cycle II can be seen clearly in the following table:

Method.
The improvement of the students' reading comprehension Through Inquiry Method, which focused on literal comprehension and interpretive comprehension as variables in VII class of English Education Department as result of the students' assessment of cycle I and cycle II can be seen clearly in the following

The Result of the Students' Activeness in Learning Process.
The result of observation of the students' activeness in teaching and learning process during 8 meetings was taken by the observer through observation sheet. It could be seen clearly through the following table: The table above explains about the average of the students' activeness in teaching and learning process through observation sheet by observer. The table above shows the process the students' activity in each meeting. The percentages of the cycle I from the first meeting to the fourth meeting are 53%, 64%, 69% and 79%. Moreover, the percentage of the cycle II from the first meeting to the fourth meeting are 76%, 80%, 80% and 84%. In addition, the average score in every cycle, in cycle I is 66% and in cycle II is 80%. Hence, the improvement of the students' activity is 21.21%.

Discussions
In this part, discussion deals with the interpretation of findings derived from the result of findings about the students' literal reading comprehension consist of Word meaning and main ideas and interpretive reading comprehension consist of conclusion. The application of Inquiry Method in teaching reading comprehension at the VII class of English Education Department can improve the students' achievement and their ability to understand the material of reading comprehension in cycle I and cycle II inside the learning process and KKM in VII class of English Education Department specially English subject is 75. Before taking a classroom action research through Inquiry Method, the researcher hold diagnostic test to measure the students' prior knowledge in English reading. After gave diagnostic test, the researcher found that the students' reading comprehension at the VII class of English Education Department was poor, so it must be improved. The diagnostic tests score was that all of students' got very poor. To improve the students' reading comprehension, the researcher decided to use Inquiry Method and then prepared to do cycle I that consisted of 4 phases namely: planning, action, observation, and reflecting. In cycle I, the researcher found that the students still difficult and confused to comprehend the text. The difficulty of the students in reading had been analyzed, so the researcher had to think the solution of the problem. The researcher decided to do cycle II by doing revision in the lesson plan. In cycle II, the researcher got a good response from the students. Students are fair active in classroom. They can enjoy the teaching and learning process, and their score was improved in cycle II. The mean score of the students' literal reading comprehension in cycle I was 69, 70 and in cycle II was 83, 80. The students' improvement was from cycle I to cycle II was 20.23% and the mean score of the students' interpretive reading comprehension in cycle I was 67,40 and in cycle II was 78,40. The students' improvement from cycle I to cycle II was 19.30%. Finally the mean score of reading comprehension through Inquiry Method in cycle II 81,20.and 68,47 in cycle I with the students' improvement from cycle I to Cycle II 18,60%. It means that the students' reading comprehension improved significantly through Inquiry Method. The observation result of students' activeness in teaching and learning process improved significantly through Inquiry Method in improving the students' reading comprehension. It was proved by the improvement of the mean score of the students' activeness in cycle I namely 66% became 80% in cycle II with improvement 21.21%. It also means that there is improvement of the students' activeness in learning reading through Inquiry Method. Based on the discussion above, we can know that there was different result between cycle I and cycle II in teaching reading through Inquiry Method. The researcher may say that teaching reading through Inquiry Method is a good way to improving the students' reading comprehension.