CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of the Study

English is very important to be learned by people certainly in the
globalization era. There are some reasons in learning English. First, English
has become international language. Everyone can improve their ability and
capability by learning English. People will have more confidence and they will
get advancement after learning English. Second, English becomes community
language teaching. It means that the communities always use English for
discussing material related to the community itself. When somebody studies in
English Department, he or she is able to communicate in English. Third, there
are many books, literature, internet resources written in English. The readers
will understand the topic and they will get information clearly when they
understand English.
English learning process gets good response from the society. They
also think that introducing English to children will give opportunities for them
to develop their English. Krashen, Long and Scarella (1982) stated that
children who learn foreign language naturally will have higher attainment and
proficiency.
A language uses words to communicate as art uses line and color or as
dancing uses movement and rhythm. The better ones vocabulary is, the more
effectively he or she can understand and communicate idea. Vocabulary also
helps us organize our ideas and experiences (Terry, 1998:35).

Vocabulary is essential for students to make sentences. If the students

want to make a good language, they should master it. Vocabulary mastery
means that the readers/ the students can comprehend the messages, write idea,
and etc. The need of English vocabulary is urgent for students of guidance and
counseling because of at least two reasons. The first is that many technical
terms related to the program of study they major are in English (or Latin). The
second is that they should read a number of source books, including those
written in English.
In fact, there are students who have lack of vocabulary mastery. The
students get confused in understanding sentences because of the lack of
vocabulary mastery. Hopefully, the students master a new vocabulary in each
day but it has not done yet. They master new words by drilling. Teachers
usually repeat new words more than one so that the students memorize them.
There are two factors which influences the students vocabulary
mastery. They are linguistic factors and non linguistic factors. The linguistic
factors are related to the phonetic obstacle. The non linguistic factors are
background knowledge, mother tongue interference, and bad habit. Students
usually need to have background knowledge of the relative content. Students
need non-linguistic to comprehend the meaning of word and sentence. Students
cannot use the mother tongue to assist their English learning. When the
students listen, speak, read, write, and answer questions many of them have
been accustomed to thinking in Indonesian language. In order to remove the
bad influence, students should raise their awareness of avoiding mother tongue

and accumulate language knowledge, such as remembering new words and

grammar in English. On the other hand, they must do their best to create
English environment listening, speaking, and writing as much as possible. It is
suggest reading English books for mastering the vocabularies.
Reading is one of the four skills in teaching English. Reading is very
important for us especially students for improving their knowledge. Reading is
needed for people especially students. They can advance their learning
achievement better by reading. Unfortunately, there are few students who love
reading books, magazines, and newspapers and so on to improve their
knowledge in our country. It has different condition from western countries
which have good reading habit in their life. The students are aware about the
importance of reading. They spent a lot of time for getting and improving their
knowledge and science. The reading habit should have been appllied in our
countries so that the students can improve their knowledge. It is very important
to introduce reading English books for the students in this time.
There are many factors which influence the students reading habit.
The first is family background of students where few homes are not condusive
and the second is lack material for reading. There are still many students who
do not like reading. Most of them read when they have final examination. It
can be identified by measuring the students who visit the library. Students of
SD Bondalem may be classified into students who lack motivation in reading.
Their lack of motivation gives influences for their vocabulary mastery.

The government inserts English as a local content. The students get

the English subject in the fourth grade. But it is possible if English is given to
the first level. Certainly, it is given simple vocabularies that find surrounding
us. It must be applied to motivate students. They will be confident in the higher
level of study. The focus of teaching English is that the students are able to
understand the spoken as well as written information and simple expression.
It is obvious that when students will understand about the simple
expression, they must master vocabulary. The focuses of English teaching
process are listening, speaking, reading and writing. The vocabulary mastery
plays an important role in teaching and learning English process. Students need
to comprehend the vocabularies in listening process. They must have many
vocabularies in speaking English. They have to know the meaning of the words
to understand the whole sentences in reading process and they must master the
vocabularies in writing experiment.
The topic of this research is important because the researcher can
identify the influences of reading habit towards students vocabulary mastery.
The students will be able to increase the number of vocabularies when they
have reading habit. It help them to understand the meaning of sentences. It is
useful to master the new vocabularies.

B. Identification of the Problem

Reading is an effective way to master vocabulary. The students have many
opportunities to advance their vocabulary mastery when they have good
reading habit. The students will get new words after reading English book
automatically. They will record that new information and try to understand the
meaning of them. The vocabulary mastery can be measured by the
accumulating the vocabulary. They will be more confidences if they master
many vocabularies in the higher level of study.
Reading habit will give influences to students reading habit.. It can give
advantages for the students to develop their knowledge with try to
understanding the simple sentences. The students reading more can improve
their vocabulary. Evidences shows that wide reading is the main avenue for
students word acquisition. Texas (2000: 40) presents the following scenario to
demonstrate the effectiveness of wide reading : If a fifth grade students spent
an hour each day, in a week he or she will encounter 2.250.000 words. Five to
ten percent the new words encountered by reading, the students may learn at
least 2.250 new words each year.
To enrich vocabulary, the students must read more and more. They can
learn directly and indirectly. The students learn the meaning most of words
indirectly, through everyday experiences with oral and written language. The
students know the meaning of words as the teacher says to them and explains
the words around them. The students improve their vocabulary mastery
through reading intensively. By reading their new vocabulary improves. They

also expand their vocabulary by adding the new vocabulary into conversation.
To be truly beneficial, wide reading should include reading texts with varied
levels of difficulty. Students reading at or below their current levels will not
dramatically increase their vocabulary.
In fact, there are many Indonesian students do not have good reading
habit. Because of that reason, their ability is not good enough in
comprehending and mastering English text related to vocabularies. They will
not get new information from the short or long article when they do not apply
the reading habit in their daily activities.
Reading habit must be introduced to children earlier. It can be realized
by providing their favorite books, such as children story book, comic, and
dictionary pictures. Children like books which completed by the pictures better
than books without picture.

C. Limitation of the Problem

From the explanation above, reading habit is an effective way to
master the vocabularies. It is best way used by students of elementary school to
have reading habit. The researcher does not focus on how to improve the
vocabularies mastery for children.
In this study, the researcher limits the scope of study into the
vocabulary mastery through reading habit. The researcher wants to measure the
influences of vocabulary mastery through reading habit. How much is the
contribution of reading habit towards vocabulary mastery.

D. Formulation of the Problem

Based on limitation of the problem, the researcher formulates the
problems that become research questions on the study. They are presented as
follow:
1. How is the reading habit of the fifth grade students of SD Bondalem in the
academic year of 2009/2010?
2. How is the vocabulary mastery of the fifth grade students of SD Bondalem
in the academic year 2009/2010?
3. How is the influence of reading habit towards vocabulary mastery of the
fifth grade students of SD Bondalem in the academic year 2009/2010?
E. Objective of the Study
In accordance with the formulation of the problem mentioned above,
the objectives of the study are written as follows :
1. to find out the reading habit of the fifth grade students of SD Bondalem in
the academic year 2009/2010.
2. to find out the vocabulary mastery of the fifth grade students of SD
Bondalem in the academic year 2009/2010.
3. to find out whether there is a positive and significant influence of the
reading habit towards vocabulary mastery of the fifth grade students of SD
Bondalem in the academic year 2009/2010.

F. Significance of the Study

The study of students vocabulary mastery through reading habit is
important in theory and practice. The study has some benefits. These benefits
are as follows :
1. To the teacher
It will give advantages to English teachers to encourage their
students to get reading habit to improve their vocabulary mastery. It will
be better if their students apply the reading habit earlier.
2. To the Students
The students know the result of this research. They can practice
the reading habit to increase their vocabularies. They know the influences
of the reading habit to increase their vocabulary mastery.
3. To the other researchers
The result of this research will help the other researchers who
have research about the habit in reading and vocabulary mastery. They get
references and information about the vocabulary mastery through the
reading habit.