Analisis kesulitan siswa dalam membaca pemahaman pada siswa kelas delapan SMPN 7 Tarakan
This study aims to identify the difficulties faced by eighth graders at SMP Negeri 7 Tarakan and to find out the factors causing the students' difficulties in reading comprehension. This research is qualitative descriptive research. The subject of this research was the eighth graders and English teacher of SMP Negeri 7 Tarakan. The techniques of data collection are interviewing, observation, and document analysis. The techniques of data analysis used in this research were data reduction, data display, and data verification. The result showed that there are five difficulties faced by students in reading comprehension: (1) students have difficulty understanding the meaning of the word; (2) Students have difficulty understanding long sentences; (3) Students do not understand the main idea; (4) Students do not understand grammar or vocabulary; and (5) Students have difficulty drawing conclusions. Some of the students feel it is difficult to know the meaning of the text because they do not know the meaning of the word. Students are also not interested in the English teaching and learning process because English is still a foreign language for them. So, they do not know about the material that was delivered by the teacher in the class. There are also three factors causing students' difficulties in reading comprehension. These are: (1) learners background knowledge; (2) the teacher’s technique; and (3) the learners’ environment.