Using Semantic Mapping as an Effort to Improve the Reading Ability of the Fourth Grade Students of Sdn 005 Lenggadai Hilir Rokan Hilir

Reading is one thenecessary skills that foreign languagelearners must achieve. Reading is not as simple as learning to spelland read sentences, but it is more complex than that. Readinginvolves the process of decoding, predicting, and many otherssimultaneously so that the reader can comprehend the text well.However, reading has become a ghost upon the students since itrequires the students to find some information within the text but thestudents are lazy to pay attention to it. Therefore, it is quitechallenging to teach reading. Good teaching has to apply a goodstrategy to encourage the students to be involved in the classactivities. One of the strategies is using semantic mapping. Accordingto Thomas, H. Estes (1999) Semantic Mapping is a strategy thatallows the students to organize their prior knowledge in these formalrelations, and thus provide themselves a basis for understanding whatthey are about to read and study. Semantic mapping provides agraphic structure of the knowledge that can be used to organize newideas as they are understood.


INTRODUCTION
Reading is one of the necessary skills that foreign language learners must achieve. Reading is not as simple as learning to spell and read sentences, but it is more complex than that, Reading involves the process of decoding, predicting, and many others simultaneously so that the readers can comprehend the text well.
However, most students in Indonesia do not know how to read meaningfully. They only read their textbooks before having test or examination. Students are reluctant to read English texts other than their school textbooks.
Good teaching has to apply a good strategies to encourage the students to be involved in the class activities, one of the strategies is using semantic mapping. According Salam (1999) Semantic Mapping is a strategy that allows the students to organize their prior knowledge in these formal relations, and thus provide themselves a basis for understanding what they are about to read and study. Semantic mapping provides a graphic structure of the knowledge that can be used to organize new ideas as they understood.
This research aims to measure the effect of using semantic mapping VWUDWHJ\ RQ WKH VWXGHQWV ¶ UHDGLQJ FRPSUHKHQVLRQ 7KH WHDFKHU XVHV WKUHH W\SHV RI semantic mapping strategies; word mapping, concept mapping, and story mapping. The research was conducted to the fourth grade students of SDN 005 Lenggadai Hilir in the second semester of academic year 2010/2011.

METHODOLOGY
This is a classroom action research which is done to improve thequality of learning and teaching practices. It is a kind of research that is designed, implemented and evaluated by the teacher himself/herself in the classroom The population of this research is the fourth grade students of SDN 005 Lenggadai Hilir. For this research, the sample was taken using cluster sampling technique. It is a technique to find a sample in groups, not individuals, and it is randomly selected.

The Presentation of the Pre-Test
Before conducting the treatments, a pre test was conducted to the respondents in order to know the ability of the students in reading comprehension. The result of the pre-test shows tthat he average score of the pre-WHVW ZDV 7KH IROORZLQJ WDEOH VKRZV WKH FODVVLILFDWLRQ RI WKH VWXGHQWV ¶ scores. Based on the diagram above, shows that: 3 students (11.54%)are characterized in to good level 16 students (61.54%)are characterized in to fair level 7 students (29.62%)are characterized in to very level

The Result of Post-Test in the First Cycle
This test was done after the students got treatments by using semantic mapping in three meetings. The students in the post test are the same with the students in the pre -test. The description of the post-test is presented as follows: The average score of the students after the first cycle was 70.90.

The Result of Post-Test in the second cycle
In the second cycle.some additional treatment was done to the students After three meetings, the post test was conducted after the second cycle post test . None of the students belong to poor and very poor levels anymore. The average score of the students was 74.74 which belongs to good category. This is a UHVHDUFK XVLQJ VHPDQWLF PDSSLQJ WHFKQLTXHWR LPSURYHWKH VWXGHQWV ¶ UHDGLQJ achievement. Some treatments were given to help the studentsin dealing with English reading texts. The treatments were done in 6 meetings with six lesson plans.

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Students responses to the lessons with this technique were not quiet satisfying at first, since they were still curious about what they should do when dealing with texts. But as the time passed by, the students were encouraged to participate and they became more active than before. they began to be brave and not afraid of making mistakes in the work,therefore they became eager to involve the lessons.

CONCLUSION
There are some strengths and weakness in using Semantic Mapping to improve the VWXGHQWV ¶ UHDGLQJ DFKLHYHPHQW 7KH VWUHQJWK DUH The students are motivated in attending the lessons.
The students are happy and are notafraid of making mistakes.
The students work in groups, so they learn to cooperate with each other.
The weakneses are: Some students are confused to deal with the texts Some students cannot answer the questions according to the texts in time.
The cODVV EHFRPHV WRR QRLV\ DQG XQFRQWUROOHG GXH WR VWXGHQWV ¶ UHVSRQVHV LQ discussing the answers to the test. Few students take chances to disturb the others and make some noises instead of answering the questions.