Using Digital Reading Books to Improve Students’ Reading Comprehension at Junior High School

Abstract

Comprehension and explores students’ interest in using digital reading books as learning media. The research employed a quantitative approach with a pre-experimental one-group pre-test–post-test design, complemented by a descriptive quantitative method through a questionnaire. The participants were 31 ninth-grade students of SMP Handayani Gowata, selected using cluster sampling. Data were collected through a reading comprehension test and a Likert-scale questionnaire. The results revealed a significant improvement in students’ reading comprehension after the implementation of digital reading books. The paired-sample t-test showed a significance value of 0.000 (< 0.05), indicating a statistically significant effect. The mean score increased from 42.74 in the pre-test to 66.45 in the post-test, with an N-Gain score of 0.40, categorized as moderate. Questionnaire findings indicated that 77.42% of students were interested, 16.13% were very interested, and 6.45% were moderately interested in using digital reading books. The findings conclude that digital reading books are effective in enhancing students’ reading comprehension and positively influence their interest in reading activities.