Nurindriyani, Nina. 2026. The Effect of Storybook Media Featuring Banjarese Folktales on the Reading Comprehension of 8th Grade Students at SMP Negeri 10 Banjarmasin. Sarjana’s Thesis, English Language Education Department, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Lambung Mangkurat University. The first advisor: Dr. Hj. Noor Eka Chandra, M.Pd., the second advisor: Emma Rosana Febriyanti, M.Pd.

Keywords: Banjarese folktales, Instructional media, Narrative text, Reading comprehension, Storybook media.

Reading comprehension is an essential skill in English learning because it helps students understand and interpret written texts effectively. However, many eighth-grade students at SMP Negeri 10 Banjarmasin still struggle to comprehend English narrative texts due to limited vocabulary, difficulty identifying main ideas, and a lack of culturally relevant reading materials. To overcome this issue, the use of instructional media is considered important in creating engaging and meaningful learning experiences. Therefore, this research aimed to investigate whether storybook media featuring Banjarese folktales has an effect on students’ reading comprehension compared to comic strips media.

This research employed a quantitative, quasi-experimental design. The participants in this research were 52 eighth-grade students from SMP Negeri 10 Banjarmasin, divided into an experimental and a control class through cluster random sampling. The experimental class was taught using storybook media featuring Banjarese folktales, while the control class was taught using comic strips media. The instrument used for data collection was a reading comprehension achievement test consisting of a pre-test and a post-test. The collected data were analyzed using the Independent Sample T-Test in SPSS version 21.

The findings showed that there was a difference between the students taught using storybook media featuring Banjarese folktales and those taught using comic strips media. The students in the experimental class achieved higher post-test scores than the students in the control class. The Independent Sample T-Test showed that the p-value was less than 0.05, indicating that the null hypothesis was rejected and the alternative hypothesis accepted. It can be concluded that storybook media featuring Banjarese folktales had a positive effect on students’ reading comprehension achievement.

Therefore, English teachers are encouraged to use culturally relevant storybook media as an alternative instructional medium to support students’ reading comprehension in learning English.