Abstract :
The Objective of this research is to see whether there is influence or effect
between prior knowledge of English on Reading ability of junior high school students
at the seventh grade of MTs Darul Huda. The subject of this research is 22 students
from the seventh grade.
The method used in this research was quantitative method and the design used in
this research was ex post facto. In collecting the data, the researcher administered
questionnaire which consists five questions describing the prior knowledge of English.
After administered the questionnaire, the researcher share the reading test to the
students and documented the students score. Then, the researcher calculated the
questionnaire score with the reading test score. In analyzing the data, the researcher
used linear regression in SPSS 16.0.
The result of this research shows that there is effect or influence between prior
knowledge of English and reading ability. Based on the table calculation linear
regression, the gain of sig is 0.021 which is less than 0.05 (0.021 < 0.05). it means that
prior knowledge of English at elementary school influence the reading ability of
junior high school students. The conclusion of this research is the students who get
prior knowledge of English at elementary school are having better reading ability than
those who do not