THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE AND ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION ACHIEVEMENT

Abstract

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to examine the relationship between students’ reading comprehension skills and vocabulary size. The subjects of this research consisted of eleventh-grade students of SMA Negeri 6 Padangsidimpuan. A correlational analysis was employed to ascertain the relationship between scores in reading comprehension and Vocabulary mastery. Based on Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, there was a sufficient correlation (r=0.47) between scores in the students’ vocabulary knowledge and its correlation to their reading comprehension to the eleventh-grade students of SMA Negeri 6 Padangsidimpuan.

The findings also indicate that the students’ mastery in the vocabulary knowledge can be categorized into the capable category. It can be seen from the value of the mean score got by the students (MX), that is 79.01. The students’ reading comprehension is also categorized into a capable category. It can be seen from the value of mean score got by the students (MY), that is 79.34

The findings provide useful insights that vocabulary knowledge contributes to comprehension reading. This research has the implication that students should increase their vocabulary. The teacher should develop an English language learning process that can improve the vocabulary of the students. Hopefully, the reading comprehension process will be more successful by developing effective learning to improve vocabulary mastery.