Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk meningkatkan pemahaman membaca siswa kelas VII-7 SMP Negeri 1 Tarakan tahun ajaran 2015/2016 dengan menggunakan Metode CIRC (Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition). Jenis penelitian ini adalah penelitian tindakan kelas yang dilaksanakan dalam 2 siklus, yang masing-masing siklus terdiri atas tahap perencanaan, tindakan, analisis dan refleksi. Teknik pengumpulan data menggunakan instrumen lembar observasi siswa, lembar observasi guru, dan tes tertulis. Penelitian ini dilaksanakan mulai tanggal 25 April – 23 Mei 2016 dengan 4 kali pertemuan dalam 2 siklus. Subjek penelitian adalah siswa kelas VII-7 SMP Negeri 1 Tarakan tahun ajaran 2015/2016 yang berjumlah 29 siswa. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukan bahwa terjadi peningkatan pada hasil belajar siswa. Pada siklus pertama 18 atau 62% siswa mencapai kriteria ketuntasan minimal. Kemudian pada siklus kedua meningkat menjadi 28 siswa atau 96% siswa mencapai kriteria ketuntasan minimal. Hasil dari pengamatan aktivitas guru dan siswa dalam kategori sangat baik. Dengan demikian, dapat disimpulkan bahwa penggunaan Metode CIRC (Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition) dapat meningkatkan hasil belajar siswa di kelas VII-7 SMP Negeri 1 Tarakan.

The objective of this research was to improve students’ reading comprehension on descriptive text through CIRC (Cooperative Integrated Reading and Composition) Method at seventh grade students’ of SMP Negeri 1 Tarakan in academic year 2015/2016. This research employed classroom action research, it was carried out 2 (two) cycles which consisted of planning, acting, observing and reflecting. The data were collected by using teacher’s observation sheet, students’ observation sheet, and reading comprehension test. This research was conducted on April 25 th– May 23rd 2016 with four meetings in two cycles. The subject of this research was the students’ of class VII-7 in academic year 2015/2016 which consisted of 29 students’. The result of this research showed that there was an improvement on students’ reading comprehension. This could be seen from the result of each cycle. The result of written test in the first cycle was found that there were 18 or 62% students’ reached the minimum passing grade, then improved in the second cycle to 28 or 96% students’ reached the minimum passing grade. The enhancement between first cycle and second cycle reached 34%. It could be concluded that the use of CIRC method could improve students’ reading comprehension on descriptive text at the seventh grade students’ of SMP Negeri 1 Tarakan in academic year 2015/2016.