ABSTRACT Edi Saputra: 2014. Using Directed Reading Activity (DRA) Strategy in Teaching Reading Comprehension (An Experimental Research at Year XI of SMA N 3 Bireuen). Thesis. Graduate Program in English Education, Syiah Kuala University. Darussalam – Banda Aceh. Advisors: (1) Abdul Gani Asyik, M.A., Ph.D. (2) Dr. Sofyan A. Gani, M.A. Key Words: Directed Reading Activity, Reading Comprehension This thesis discusses about the implementation of Directed Reading Activity (DRA) Strategy in teaching reading comprehension at year XI of SMA N 3 Bireuen. The objective of this research was to find out if there was significant difference in student’s reading comprehension achievement between students who are taught by using Directed Reading Activity (DRA) and those who are by using Free Reading Activity. The population of this research was all of year XI at SMA N 3 Bireuen which consists of 145 students and they were divided into five IPA classes. Therefore, two classes were taken randomly as the samples from the target population. They were experimental and control group, for experimental class, the sample was represented by class XI IPA 1 which consists of 26 students, while in control class the sample was represented by the class XI IPA 2 which consists of 24 students. In consequence, the total samples were 50 students at IPA class. DRA was applied for experimental group and Free Reading Activity was applied for control group as treatment. The instrument was used to collect the data for this research was a set of test (pre-test and post-test). The test was designed in the form of multiple choices and it consists of twenty questions related to main idea, specific information, word meaning and reference. The test was used to measure the students’ proficiency in reading comprehension. The result of this research shows that t-test between post-test both experimental and control group is 3,25 and 2,021 for t-table. By comparing the result from t-test and t-table, it is found that t-test>t-table in which 3,25>2,021. It means that there is significant difference students’ reading comprehension achievement between students who are taught by using Directed Reading Activity (DRA) and those who are taught by Free Reading Activity.