Big Book in Early Reading Learning in Lower-Class Elementary School

Big book, beginning reading ability, elementary school Problems at the initial reading stage must be overcome so that students do not have difficulty in reading. Efforts are made to overcome the problem of reading at the beginning of grade I elementary school students by using big book learning media. This research aims to know: (1) the use of the big book in reading learning begins. (2) student learning outcomes by using big books in initial reading activities in Karangpatihan 3 Elementary School. This research is qualitative research with a type of descriptive research. The study subjects were students of class I SDN 3 Karangpatihan, totaling 23 people. Data collection techniques in the form of tests and observations. The results showed an average score at the pre-tests of 75.43 and post-tests 80.65. Post-test results showed 13 students in the good category at 56.52% and 10 students in the good category with a percentage of 43.48%. Thus, it can be concluded that the use of Big Book media positively influences the ability to read the beginning in 1-grade students in Karangpatihan 3 Elementary School.

Problems at the initial reading stage must be overcome so that students do not have difficulty in reading. Efforts are made to overcome the problem of reading at the beginning of grade I elementary school students by using big book learning media. This research aims to know: (1) the use of the big book in reading learning begins. (2) student learning outcomes by using big books in initial reading activities in Karangpatihan 3 Elementary School. This research is qualitative research with a type of descriptive research. The study subjects were students of class I SDN 3 Karangpatihan, totaling 23 people. Data collection techniques in the form of tests and observations. The results showed an average score at the pre-tests of 75.43 and post-tests 80.65. Post-test results showed 13 students in the good category at 56.52% and 10 students in the good category with a percentage of 43.48%. Thus, it can be concluded that the use of Big Book media positively influences the ability to read the beginning in 1 st -grade students in Karangpatihan 3 Elementary School.

A. Introduction
Education plays an important role in instilling the values of life for students. In modern society, schools are believed to be institutions that have an important role in instilling and developing life values in students. In elementary schools, the inculcation of life values includes low-grade and high-grade students with unique and different characteristics.
Lower-grade students (1 st until 3 rd grades) are in the early childhood range. At this early age, children's potential needs to get full attention and encouragement. One of the developments of students that needs attention is language education and literacy skills. Literacy education is one aspect that is useful for cultivating interests and talents in students from an early age. Most of the educational process depends on literacy skills and awareness. The literacy culture embedded in students affects the level of success and students' ability to understand information analytically, critically, and reflectively (Kemendikbud, 2010).
The government supports efforts to build a literacy culture in Regulation of the Minister of Education and Culture (Permendikbud) Number 23 of 2015, which states that the Growth of Character, Development Center, Language Development and Development Agency (Language Agency), Ministry of Education and Culture has a flagship program called "The National Literacy Movement (Gerakan Literasi Bangsa)" which aims to cultivate children's character through a culture of literacy (reading and writing). Ironically, the literacy culture among elementary school students is still early. Children spend more time watching TV than reading books (Gerakan literasi sekolah, 2014).
One of the literacy activities is reading. According to Suherli (in Prawira, 2014) explaining that literacy skills include (1) literacy or literacy skills; (2) the ability to integrate listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking; (3) the ability to be ready to use in mastering new ideas or how to learn them; (4) ability tools to support success in an academic or social environment; (5) the ability to read and write performance that is always needed; (6) the competence of an academic in understanding discourse in a professional manner. According to Tarigan (2008:7), reading is a process carried out and used by readers to get the message to be conveyed by the author through the medium of words or written language. Tampubolon (2015: 5) reading is one of the four basic language skills and is a written communication component.
Learn to read in elementary schools according to the low-and high-class groups' stages. For low-grade students, the reading stage is the beginning reading. Beginning reading skills in low grades play an important role as the foundation or basis for determining success in student teaching and learning activities. This is in line with the opinion of Darmiyati and Budiasih (2011: 50), which state that learning to read in low grades is an early stage of learning to read. Beginning reading is the learning stage for lower grade elementary school students. The reading ability obtained by students in the lower grades will be the basis for learning to read in the next grade. According to Istarocha (2012: 80) how to teach beginning reading by (1) practicing pronunciation, both vocals, and consonants, (2) practicing tone/speech songs, (3) exercising mastery of punctuation marks, (4) practicing word grouping/phrases into units of ideas (understanding), (5) eye speed exercises, and (6) expression exercises (reading with feelings).
Low-grade students have different characteristics from high-grade students. Lowergrade students learn from the concrete and gradually move to the abstract. Concrete things are real things, for example, what can be seen, heard, and touched. In addition, low-grade students have a short concentration range, so they need supporting tools or media that make them interested and easily understand learning.
Based on the results of initial observations at Karangpatihan 3 Elementary School, it was obtained data that teachers were less effective in choosing instructional media in teaching and learning activities for early reading in class I. Researchers found the fact that in the implementation of the teaching and learning process reading in 1 st grade, the teacher only gave examples of sentences on the blackboard, and students read aloud following the teacher. So that in the initial reading curriculum target, many students are still not precise in reading. To overcome this, the teacher tries to use the Big Book media in learning to read the beginning at Karangpatihan 3 Elementary School.
Big book media attracts students' attention because it contains colorful pictures and large sizes. This can improve students' initial reading skills and make it easier to learn to read early and understand reading texts with the support of pictures. According to Curtain and Dahlberg (2004) in (Sulaiman 2017: 196), big books allow students to learn to read through remembering and repeating reading. Big books are usually used in modeling reading activities, guided reading, and reading together.
The results of Sulaiman's research (2017) with the title of research on the effect of using Big Book media in learning on the literacy skills of early grade students of Madrasah Ibtidaiyah (MI) in Banta-Bantaeng Makassar shows that there is an effect of using Big Book media on literacy skills of early grade students of Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Negeri Banta -Bantaeng Makassar this can be seen from the results of hypothesis testing, namely the p-value = 0.019 <0.05 which indicates that it is accepted. This means that there is an effect of using Big Book media on the literacy skills of early grade students at Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Negeri Banta-Bantaeng Makassar. This is in line with research conducted by Septiani (2017) with the title of research on the influence of big book media on speaking skills in early childhood. There was a significant effect between the experimental and control groups in speaking ability (tcount 5,437 ttable 2,145), with an average of 13.7 for the experimental group and 13.1 for the control group.
Basically, a big book is a reading book with large sizes, writings, and pictures that are easy for children to understand. This is in line with the opinion of USAID (2014: 19), which states that big book media is a type of reading book in which there are pictures, writings, or sizes on a large scale. The size of the big book media is adjusted to the needs so that the big book size varies from A3, A4, or A5 paper. Teachers can design big books whose contents and stories are tailored to their students' characteristics, interests, and needs.
Students' reading skills can increase because they are influenced by several factors, as stated by Dalman (2013: 25) regarding the factors that influence reading, including 1) motivation, 2) family environment, 3) reading materials. Students' motivation to read greatly influences students' reading skills. Students who have the drive to read have good reading skills.
Big books can be used for lower-grade students. Suyanto (2007:128-129) explained that reading using big books can be done to students in grades I, II, or III because the average lower grade students are not yet skilled at reading. Azwie (2010:29) defines Big Book as a large book categorized as a children's book used to develop early reading and writing skills.
The steps in making a big book are: (1) preparing a drawing book or manila paper which is divided into 4 white parts and 4 sheets of A4 or HVS paper. (2) prepare pictures of objects, people, plants whose size is adjusted to the size of the paper. (3) Coloring, full-color pictures/pictures pasted lengthwise on manila paper, divided into 4 parts. (4) Write the image's contents with a large size using a marker or printed. (5) unite the manila paper that has been pasted with pictures and the reading contents so that it becomes 4 parts. (6) make a cover by drawing all the pictures that have been pasted on one small A4/HVS paper or by writing the theme and title of the discussion related to the picture.

Child Education Journal. Volume 3 Nomor 3, December 2021, 150-155
The procedure for implementing the use of big book media is as follows: 1. Pre-reading activities include (a) the teacher showing the front cover and inviting the children to comment on the pictures on the cover. (b) the teacher reads the title and author's name, (c) the teacher asks the children about the possible contents of the story based on title and cover illustration. 2. The activity of reading the story in its entirety. These activities include (a) the teacher reading the story continuously from the first page to the last, (b) the teacher pointing at the writing by hand or a pointing device so that children can follow and know which writing they are reading. 3. Repetitive reading activities include (a) the teacher rereads page by page with enthusiasm, enthusiasm, and life, (b) the teacher pointing to words and asking the children to comment, (c) the teacher stops reading for a moment to give the child a chance. Guess the next word and predict what will happen. 4. Activities after reading the repetition include (a) the teacher discussing the keywords in the text and helping the children connect the concepts to one another, (b) the teacher rereading the story together. 5. Follow-up activities include (a) the teacher inviting children to pay attention to the pictures and word patterns in the text, (b) the teacher providing opportunities for children to read on their own.

B. Methodology
This research is descriptive research with a qualitative approach. This study collects information and describes a phenomenon according to what it is at the time of the study. This study aims to describe the use of big books in early reading learning at Karangpatihan 3 Elementary School.
This research was carried out in 1 st -grade at Karangpatihan 3 Elementary School in April 2021. The population of this study was 1 st -grade students at Karangpatihan 3 Elementary School, totalling 23 students. The sampling technique in this research is a total sampling; that is, the entire population is sampled.
Data collection techniques used are observation and tests. The data were analyzed descriptively. Guidelines for the initial reading assessment can be seen in Table 1. The data that has been analyzed will be classified into certain categories with the criteria of very good, good, good enough, not good, and failed. According to Arikunto (2010:245) the qualification values can be seen in Table 2.

C. Result and Discussion
The study began with the implementation of a pre-test (pre-test) of the initial reading ability of the first graders of Karangpatihan 3 Elementary School. This test aims to determine the initial ability of grade I students at Karangpatihan 3 Elementary School. Based on the results of the pre-test found several categories of students in reading. There are students in the category of fluent reading (very good), students in the category of limping (good), students in the category of not being able to distinguish letters (not good). The results of the pre-test analysis are presented in full in Table 3 below.  Table 3, it was obtained that the category of students' early reading ability at the time of the pre-test was that there were 5 students in the 80-100 score range or in the very good category with a percentage of 21.73%, 12 students in the 66-79 score range with a good category with a percentage of 52 .18% and 6 students are in the range of values 56-65 or categorized enough with a percentage of 26.09%. The average value of the pre-test is 75.43. The next step is to apply the big book media in early reading activities in 1 st -grade in Elementary School. The big book media provided are 15 copies of A3 size (420mm x 297 mm) with the theme of the universe adapted to the theme of learning at school.
The learning process carried out is 1) the teacher conveys the learning objectives; 2) the teacher shows the media and the steps for using the big book media (each big book is given to two students); 3) the teacher reads the text aloud; 4) the teacher directs students to read the text contained in the big book; 5) the teacher asks students to answer questions, and 6) the teacher evaluates the students' initial reading. The results showed that the average score of students after taking the initial reading test using the big book media was 80.65. The results of the students' initial reading test results can be seen in Table 4 below. Based on table 4, the data shows that there are 13 students in the very good category with a percentage of 56.52% and 10 students in the good category with a percentage of 43.48%. The value of learning outcomes obtained by students in the post-test increased better. So, it can be seen that most students get a very good category in beginning reading by using Big Book media.
Based on the researchers' observation activities, it was found that students read by looking at pictures when given treatment with Big Book media. When the teacher repeats reading with the students by pointing at the words, the students have already recited the words that the teacher has not pointed out on the same page. So when students are faced with words or writings that do not have pictures, students have difficulty reading them.