Designing Leveled English Reading Materials for Jabal Rahmah Mulia Elementary School Medan

Abstract

This study deals with the design of leveled English reading materials for grade four students of Jabal Rahmah Mulia Elementary School Medan through Authentic Materials Approach. The objectives of this study is to design the suitable English Reading Materials which are relevant to the Islamic School. This study was conducted by applying phases of Educational Research and Development (R&D). The phases are (1) Needs Analysis, (2) Reviewing Existing English Reading Materials and Syllabus, (3) Designing New Leveled  English Reading Materials, (4) Validating the new Leveled English Reading Materials, (5) Tryout of the new Leveled English Reading Materials, (6) Final Result and (7) Testing the Effectiveness of the Products. The data of this research are the existing documents such as materials and syllabus also students’ questionnaire and teacher’s interview. The result of this research shows the existing reading materials are not suitable to the Islamic school students' needs. Therefore, new leveled English reading materials were designed in order to meet the Islamic students’ needs. The new leveled English reading materials are concern with Islamic stories. They are My Two Journeys, I and Apple Tree, The Orphan Boy, The Blind Boy, Grapes, Valley of Sheep, Empty Hand of a Rich Man, and Fatimah Az Zahra. The leveled reading materials were designed by AMA (Authentic Materials Approach) principles. The materials were validated by three experts. Three of them agree that the new leveled English reading materials designed are suitable with the Islamic school students’ needs. To know the effectiveness of the product was supported with the data obtained significant value of  0.000 <from 0.05 it can be concluded that the English reading materials is appropriate for fourth grade of Jabal Rahmah Elementary School Medan. Therefore it is suggested that the new leveled English reading materials designed are relevant to use for grade four of Jabal Rahmah Elementary School Medan.

Keywords: Leveled, English, Reading Materials, Authentic Materials Approach (AMA), and Elementary School