Analysis of Early Reading Ability in Grade II Elementary School Students

The purpose of this research is to describe the analysis of an earlier reading ability at second grade of elementary school students as well as factors that affect students' earlier reading ability. Researchers use a qualitative approach with a case study type of research. The data sources in this study were grade 2 teachers and parents of grade 2 SD Negeri 045 /I Sridadi. The data collection techniques used in this study were observation, interviews, and document studies. The data obtained is then analyzed through the stages consisting of data reduction, data presentation, and verification / drawing conclusions. The results showed that out of 16 second grade students of SD Negeri 045/1 Sridadi, it was found that 6 students, namely JA, AC, MR, AI, DA, and MN experienced problems in the realm of an earlier reading ability such as : (a) not being able to recognize letters, (b) reading syllables, (c) spelling words, (d) stringing words into simple sentences, and (e) reading short texts. Those aspects are the benchmark for students to have an earlier reading ability. Then students' difficulty in reading is caused by several factors, namely: (a) lack of interest in learning, (b) lack of self-confidence, (c) preschool education, and (d) attention from parents. II sekolah dasar serta faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi kemampuan siswa dalam membaca permulaan. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dengan jenis penelitian studi kasus. Sumber data pada penelitian ini adalah guru kelas II dan orang tua siswa kelas II SD Negeri 045/I Sridadi. Teknik pengumpulan data yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini yaitu observasi, wawancara, dan studi dokumen. Data yang diperoleh kemudian dianalisis melalui tahapan reduksi penyajian dan verifikasi/menarik kesimpulan. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa dari 16 orang siswa kelas II SD Negeri Sridadi ditemukan bahwa orang siswa JA, AC, DA, mengalami permasalahan dalam ranah seperti:


INTRODUCTION
Elementary school is the first part of basic education that really functions as a basis for developing students' language skills, especially. The ability to read and write is part of language skills. Language is a means of acquiring knowledge, as well as being part of culture, as well as a means of communication. According to Kuntarto (2013), the ability to communicate using Indonesian properly and 44 correctly can be increased through language learning both written and spoken. Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing are aspects of language skills that are very important in students' daily lives. Of the four language skills, reading skills are the basic skills that must be possessed by students. By mastering reading skills, students will be able to understand various writings around them and can tell the contents of their readings to those closest to them. This is in line with what is stated in Law Number 20 of 2003 concerning the National Education System Article 4 Paragraph 5 which states that "Education is carried out by developing a culture of Reading, Writing and arithmetic for the whole community". The mandate in this law is the juridical basis for the need to strengthen reading, writing, and arithmetic skills in elementary schools. This means that reading is very important for citizens. Therefore, learning to read should be carried out in accordance with the principles of education.
According to Irdawati (2017: 6), the ability to read is very necessary in the continuity of daily life. Considering the relation to learning in elementary school, some of the students who started entering and occupying elementary school had already attended kindergarten (Kindergarten) learning which had been taught to read at the beginning and some others had never received an education in Kindergarten. . Bua (2016Bua ( :1749 states that for elementary school students in the early grades reading activities can be referred to as early reading because it is given at the early school age, namely in grade 1 and grade 2. If these basic abilities are not strong, then at the advanced reading stage students will have difficulty in obtaining adequate reading. Beginning reading skills are actually more directed at children's reading skills at the basic level, namely literacy skills. The purpose of literacy is that children can make changes and then pronounce symbols or written letters into meaningful sounds. This agrees with what was stated by Mustikowati (2016: 39) that the focus used in early reading activities in elementary school is on the ability to read in the early stages, namely the ability to interpret letter symbols. From this statement, we get an idea that the first step in early reading is that early grade students must be able to recognize, assemble, and also pronounce written symbols that they see into syllables, words, and then sentences.
Based on the results of the researchers' initial observations, the researchers found that out of 16 students in grade II SD, some of the students were able to read and were classified as good at beginning reading. However, some students still found problems in the realm of reading. Of the 16 students, it was found that there were 6 students who were not fluent in reading. Some students are still far from expectations even though in grade 1 they are always taught to read the beginning because they do not recognize some letters of the alphabet. Then there are students who when reading words sometimes omit certain letters. There are also students who have difficulty in reading simple sentences and short texts and stutter so that when reading in front of their friends, students feel ashamed and not confident. When asked to repeat the reading from the beginning the child looked confused and could not spell again. Things like this happen usually because of many factors that affect the ability to read early in children such as physiological factors that include physical health, etc., intellectual factors, environmental factors, and psychological.
Therefore, this research is important to see how to create good pre-reading learning activities to determine the initial reading ability in grade II students and because of the importance of early reading presented in early grades as the main provision for students in preparing themselves for a higher level, 45 namely reading. advanced and what are the factors that affect the ability to read the beginning, especially grade II students.

RESEARCH METHODS
This research was conducted at SD Negeri 045/I Sridadi. This research takes place during the even semester of the 2021/2022 academic year which takes place from 22 February to 22 March 2022. This research uses a qualitative approach with the type of case study research. The aim is to see how the reading ability of grade II students at SDN 045/I Sridadi, Muara Bulian is and what are the factors that influence students' initial reading ability. The subjects in this study were class II students, class teachers, and students' parents. The data in this study were taken through interview, observation and documentation studies. Observations were made to class II students, interviews were conducted to homeroom teachers for class II and students' parents, and documentation in the form of student list books, photos of learning to read in class, and so on. The instruments used in data collection were observation sheets, interview sheets and documentation. The researcher uses data analysis techniques using the Miles and Huberman model in analyzing data which includes stages such as data reduction, data presentation, and data verification/drawing conclusions.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
After the researchers conducted observations in class II, interviews with class teachers and parents of students, and the results of the study of documents, data was obtained about how the initial reading ability of the second graders of SD Negeri 45/I Sridadi was obtained. Based on the results of the analysis of 16 students, it was obtained data that some students were fluent in beginning reading and there were 6 students namely JA, AC, MR, AI, DA, and MN who still faced difficulties in the realm of early reading such as letter recognition and distinguishing letters of the alphabet. , spell words, perform letter omissions, read syllables, read words, read simple sentences, and read short texts.
The ability to recognize letters, on average, students are able to recognize the letters of the alphabet from A-Z well, as can be seen from the results of observations that see that students on average already know letters. However, there are 2 students, namely MN and MR, who do not recognize some letters of the alphabet such as vowels and consonants, students are less able to distinguish them. There are some consonants that sometimes students don't know, such as C, J, G, Q, S, T, V, U, X, Z and so on. When asked to read words, MN and MR students seemed to stop for a moment and did not know the letters. In addition, the difficulty in recognizing letters can also be seen that there are students who still have difficulty in distinguishing certain letters in the alphabet. For the letters of the alphabet that look almost similar in shape such as "b" and "d" , "p" and "q", "c" and "j" and so on. students sometimes mispronounce the letters.
According to Abdurrahman (2012: 166) reversal of letters can occur because children have difficulty distinguishing the position of letters between top-down or left-right. So that is also one of the inhibiting factors for children to read at the beginning. This is supported by the results of interviews with homeroom teachers who stated that there were still students who had difficulty recognizing some letters of the alphabet and had difficulty distinguishing vowels and consonants.
The ability to read syllables, on average, grade II students are able to read syllables. Although they still have to be guided, most of the students are able to read syllables which are pairs of vowels and consonants such as "ba, bi, bu, be, bo and so on". Syllables are word-forming units composed of a combination of vowels and consonants. In line with the opinion of Muammar (2020) which states that to introduce syllables to early grade students, it can be done by pairing consonants and vowels. It's just that students who have not been able to recognize the previous letters still have difficulty. This is supported by the results of interviews with class teachers who stated that most students were able to read or spell syllables, for students who were still having difficulties they would be guided.
The ability to read words, based on the results of observations and interviews, there are students, namely JA, AC, MR and MN who in reading words sometimes remove certain letters from words. Reading the words themselves is done by combining syllables. Abdurrahman (2012:165) argues that the omission of letters by students who have difficulty learning to read is caused by students not being familiar with letters, language sounds (phonics), and the form of words or sentences that usually occur in the middle of a word or sentence. there are several letters that are often omitted in words such as "Menyanyi" read "Menayi", "Mendengar" is read "Medengar" "Minuman" is read "Minum" and so on so that if certain letters are omitted in a word it will change the meaning of the word or word that is being used. become meaningless.
For the ability to read simple sentences, it was found that on average, grade II students were also able to understand and read simple sentences, but for students who still had difficulty reading words such as JA, AC, MN and MR students, it would also be difficult to read simple sentences. consists of several words. Based on the results of observations of second grade students of SD Negeri 45/I Sridadi and interviews with homeroom teachers, some students can read simple sentences such as "This is a table". However, for students who still have problems in reading words, students also find it difficult to compose simple sentences. Students can only read one word then for the next word looks doubtful and confused.
Then, for the ability to read short texts, there are students who still experience problems in the realm of initial reading, especially in spelling sentences when reading texts in textbooks and still stammering. The researcher found that JA, AC, MR, AI, DA, and MN students still could not read the text and stammered. Students stop while reading one word and students look confused and cannot read the next word again. Students are too focused on letter by letter. In line with the opinion of Komara (2014: 7-8) which states that in the process of understanding the contents of the reading it will be difficult when reading must focus excessively on the decoding process which includes identifying letters or words. Reading activities themselves are related to letter recognition, assembling syllables into words, words into sentences and understanding the meaning or intent of reading texts so that if reading activities are carried out regularly both at home and at school, the difficulties children have will decrease over time.
The factors that cause students difficulty in reading the beginning consist of several factors, namely: (1) Lack of student interest in learning; Based on the explanations of the homeroom teacher and parents during the interview, it was found that some of the second grade students had a fairly good interest in learning to read in a learning atmosphere and some students had less interest and the children seemed disinterested and would tend to be noisy in class. interest in learning is one of the factors that affect students' ability to read at the beginning, if students have less interest in learning then students will have difficulty learning to read. It can be seen in grade II that some students' interest in reading tends to be lacking because in their childhood they tend to 47 think about playing. In addition, interest also comes from the students themselves. According to Rahim (2018:16) that interest is a strong desire accompanied by one's conscious efforts to read, which must be generated with a strong conscious effort. A strong desire must be generated from the students themselves as well as encouragement from parents regardless of the role of a teacher in creating an interesting and fun learning atmosphere.
(2) Lack of confidence; Based on the results of observations in grade II SD Negeri 45/I Sridadi and interviews with classroom teachers, it was found that students whose initial reading skills were still relatively low were also due to their self-confidence. MN, DA, and MR students are sometimes embarrassed and not confident when asked to learn to read ahead with the teacher because they cannot and are afraid of being ridiculed by friends who can read. Whereas selfconfidence is quite important and needed by children because the purpose of self-study is to teach things that cannot be possible. The importance of self-confidence for students in learning is explained by Anita Lie (2014:4), that children who have self-confidence can complete tasks well or have the ability to learn how to complete the task, have courage and will grow in experience and abilities so that they become a more courageous and independent personality. If students have low self-confidence, they tend to have difficulty in learning to read at the beginning.
(3) Not taking preschool education; Preschool education is also one of the factors that affect students' early reading ability. Children who take pre-school education such as kindergarten will have a learning experience at school because they are taught to read, write, and count which are basic lessons. In line with Indrawan's opinion (2020: 1) that preschool education is the basis for the development of attitudes, knowledge, skills, creativity and adjustment to the social environment. Based on the results of interviews with parents of students who are still experiencing problems in the realm of early reading, the researchers found that some students did not take preschool or kindergarten education so that they did not know letters and did not have experience learning in school and caused students when entering elementary school to become difficulty in learning to read.
(4) Lack of attention from parents; Attention from parents is the main factor that supports the success of students in the learning process, especially in early reading. Based on the results of interviews with homeroom teachers and parents, it was found that there are still many parents who pay less attention to their children because they are busy working so that they hand over the responsibility for education to the class teacher or the school. Even though the attention of parents is quite important to support children's ability to learn, especially reading, considering that the house is the first madrasa and parents are the first teachers for children. In line with Sutjipto's opinion (Slameto, 2015:61) that the family is the first and foremost educational institution for children, the way parents educate their children will affect their development. In schools, teachers will always try their best for the success of students in the learning process. But that's not enough, repetition and studying at home are also quite important to support children's reading skills. In this case, parents are busy working so that children get less attention from parents and completely surrender responsibility to the school so that reading learning that children get at home is not optimal.
The teacher's way of helping students who have difficulty reading the beginning is by overcoming students who have difficulty reading. The teacher applies several ways such as giving attention and learning more specifically to students, the teacher uses teaching materials in the form of teacher books 48 and student books and utilizes relevant books. in the library to support reading and learning. In addition, the teacher also uses certain learning media such as letter card media to introduce the letters of the alphabet for students who are not familiar with vowels or consonants at all.
In addition to utilizing teaching materials, the teacher also uses strategies for students who still have difficulty in reading. Learning strategies are structured to achieve learning objectives so that the steps in learning, utilizing various facilities and learning resources, are all directed towards achieving learning objectives (Majid, 2013:8). The teacher's strategy to help students who have difficulty in reading is to introduce the letters first by asking students to write the alphabet a, b, c, and so on and then dictate the word. Then on the sidelines of learning when giving exercises to other students, the teacher calls students who have problems in reading to the front to be taught by him using student books or letter cards. In addition, teachers also need to provide additional hours for students who still have difficulty in reading the beginning.

CONCLUSION
Based on the results of research that has been carried out by researchers at SD Negeri 045/I Sridadi regarding Analysis of Beginning Reading Ability in Grade II Elementary School Students, it can be concluded that of the 16 second grade students of SD Negeri 045/I Sridadi there are 6 students namely JA, AC, MR, AI, DA, and MN experienced problems in the realm of beginning reading. As for the problems experienced, namely: not being able to recognize letters, reading syllables, spelling words, stringing words into simple sentences, and reading short texts where these aspects are a benchmark for students to be able to read beginning. The difficulty of students in early reading is influenced by several factors, namely: (a) lack of interest in student learning, (b) lack of confidence, (c) not taking preschool education, and (d) lack of attention from parents. The ways that teachers do to help students who have difficulty in beginning reading include giving attention and learning more specifically to students, teachers using interesting teaching materials and learning media, and making strategies such as introducing letters, asking students to write the alphabet a, b, c, and so on then dictate the word, and use the media.