the English Reading Habits of Highly Proficient Learners in SMAN 1 Tumpang

Reading habits are activities of understanding and acquiring information of written text done frequently. The previous studies state that students’ reading habits include what and how they read, how much time they spend reading and the involvement of their parents in promoting reading habits to them. However, many students are not really interested in reading; they do not have good reading habits. This study aims to investigate the English reading habits of highly proficient students in SMAN 1 Tumpang majoring Language Program covering the time frequency of reading activity, the reading materials preference, the purpose of reading, the reasons they like reading English, and the support from their English teacher and parents. The method used in this study is an in-depth study and interview guide as the instrument. Each interview guide consists of several questions used to help to find the answer of the objectives. The data were collected from high proficient English students in X – Language Program in SMAN 1 Tumpang, the English teacher, the classmates, and the students’ parents as the supporting information given by the highly proficient English students. The data were analysed by interpreting and comparing to the previous research the findings. The findings reveal that (a) time frequency of the highly proficient students spent range from 1-2 hours per week in average to read English books and 1-3 hours to read online; (b) the reading materials preference they like to read are fiction stories such as novels in Indonesian and English as well; (c) the purpose of reading English is not for pleasure but for assignment; (d) the reasons they like reading English are varied as improving reading skill and having friends to read in library, and (e) the supports from the English teacher is still in the form of verbal encouragement and the supports from parents are none; parents are indifferent to the students’ improvement in learning. It can be concluded that the highly proficient students spend English reading activities is still in low level since they spent a little of their time to read in English; about 1-2 hours in per week, they do not read varied reading materials, they still read English to pass the exam, and they do not get much support from parents and the teacher. It can be suggested that the high proficient students and the others need to read more varied reading materials using some reading strategic; the teachers apply various reading activities in class to make students interested in reading; the parents pay attention and support the students about their learning; and the future researchers employ the findings as a reference for the research preference. Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE AR-SA /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:Table Normal;mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-priority:99;mso-style-parent:;mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;mso-para-margin-top:0cm;mso-para-margin-right:0cm;mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt;mso-para-margin-left:0cm;line-height:115%;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}