ENGLISH:
This study investigated the effect of the Word Attack Strategy on students’ reading comprehension of recount texts at SMP Negeri 5 Mendobarat. A quantitative quasi-experimental design was employed involving two groups: an experimental class taught using the Word Attack Strategy and a control class taught using conventional methods. The research instruments consisted of 21 validated multiple-choice items administered as pre-test and post-test, assessing students’ ability to identify main ideas, make inferences, and understand vocabulary. The findings showed that both groups improved their reading comprehension after the treatment.The mean score of the experimental class increased from 35.57 to 43.52, while the control class improved from 35.42 to 49.90. The result of the independent t-test showed that the obtained t-count was 2.18, which was higher than the t-table value of 2.021 at a significance level of 0.05 (p = 0.035), indicating a significant difference between the two groups in the post-test Based on these findings, it can be concluded that there was a statistically significant difference in students’ reading comprehension scores between the experimental and control groups after the implementation of the treatments.