Abstrak
Reading is one of the basic skills in English that is important for students to be mastered. Therefore, appropriate learning strategies such as Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review (SQ3R) are needed to improve the students’ reading comprehension. The purpose of this study was to determine the significant effect of the implementation of SQ3R strategy on reading comprehension ability of descriptive texts of grade XI students. The research method used a pre-experimental method with a one-group pre-test and post-test design. The population in this study was all grade XI students of SMAN 3 Tarakan, with a sample of 36 students from grade XI C selected using a purposive sampling technique. The research instruments used a multiple-choice test in the form of a pre-test and a post-test. In addition, the data were analyzed using the SPSS version 23.0 program. The results of the data analysis showed that the mean pre-test score was 52.36 and the mean post-test score was 74.58, with an increase of 22.22 points. The result of the paired sample t-test showed a significant value of 0.000 which was less than 0.05, which means that the null hypothesis (H₀) was rejected and the alternative hypothesis (Hₐ) was accepted. It can be concluded that the SQ3R strategy has proven effective in improving the reading comprehension ability of descriptive texts of grade XI students at SMAN 3 Tarakan.