The aim of this study was to find out how can Schema Activation strategy improve the students’ reading comprehension, especially in determining the main idea, identifying factual information, vocabulary, identifying inference and reference.
This research was conducted through classroom action research design.
Then, the subject of research was the students of class X IPA 4 of SMA N 1 Sungai Rayaconsisting of twenty-five students with the detail of 10male students and 15 female students.
In conducting this study, the researcher used observation and measurement as the technique of data collection, while the toolsof data collection used were observation checklist, field note, and reading comprehension test. Then, the data analysis used in this research wasqualitative and quantitative data.
This classroom action research was done in two cycles. Each cycle consisted of four actions; they were planning, acting, observing and reflecting. The result of this research showed that the students’ reading comprehension was improved. It was proven by the findingswhich showed a significant improvement of students from cycle to cycle. The students were more active and enthusiastic in the learning process. Then, the mean score of students also improved from two cycles. It showed that the students’ reading comprehensionimproved.
Based on the research findings, it can be concluded that in this research, the schema activation strategy successfully improved the students’ reading comprehension.
In this research, for the teacher he or sheshould be able to create some activities which can accommodate the students to access their prior knowledge and connect it with the new knowledge from the new material.