The Effectiveness of Story Mapping Strategy On The Eighth Grade Students’ Reading Comprehension of Narrative Texts

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of using the Story Mapping Strategy on students’ reading comprehension of narrative texts at the eighth grade of SMP Budi Murni 2 Medan. The research employed an experimental design involving two groups, namely the experimental class and the control class. The population initially consisted of 64 students, with 32 students in each class; however, due to student absence during the testing process, the final sample included 62 students, with 31 students in each class.The experimental class was taught using the Story Mapping Strategy, while the control class was taught using the conventional method. The instrument used in this study was a multiple-choice reading test. Data were collected through pre-test and post-test. The results of the normality test showed that the data were normally distributed, and the homogeneity test indicated that the data were homogeneous. Furthermore, the data were analyzed using the independent samples t-test. The results revealed a significant difference between the students’ learning outcomes in the experimental and control classes. The mean score of the post-test in the experimental class was 92.10, while in the control class it was 79.68. The result of the t-test showed that the significance value (Sig. 2-tailed) was 0.000 < 0.05, indicating that the null hypothesis ( ) was rejected and the alternative hypothesis ) was accepted. In conclusion, the use of the Story Mapping Strategy is effective in improving students’ reading comprehension of narrative texts. This strategy helps students understand the structure of the story and increases their engagement in the learning process.