Designing Story-Based Materials to Improve Reading Skills for the Fourth Grade Students of Elementary Schools

Abstract

This research is aimed at identifying the learning needs of fourth grade students of elementary schools and designing appropriate reading materials of fourth grade students of elementary school. The development of this research is based on the R&D theory by Walter Dick and Lou Careign Gall, Gall and Borg (2003:570). The development consists of six steps i.e., conducting need analysis, constructing instructional design, designing the materials, producing the materials, evaluating the materials, revising the materials, and developing final draft. The data of this study were quantitative obtained from the questionnaires and qualitative obtained from the interview. The questionnaires were distributed to the students and the expert. The quantitative data were analyzed with simple data statistics while the qualitative data were analyzed in the narrative form. The subjects of the research were 26 students in the third grade of SD Negeri Adisucipto 2 Depok Sleman Yogyakarta. The results of the research are: (1) the learning needs which consist of students preference, material and media, and activities preference; and (2) the product of the research is a story book and teachers’ guide book for teaching reading to the fourth grade students of elementary schools. From the assessments and responses given by the expert judgement, it can be concluded that the story book as the product of this research is feasible to be used for teaching reading. The percentage score given by the expert is 84.56%. It classifies that the product are very good and feasible to use in teaching reading for children.

Keywords: Story-based materials, reading skills, the fourth grade students, elementary school