ABSTRACT Maulizan ZA, 2014 A Descriptive Study on Teaching Reading Comprehension at SMPN 16 Banda Aceh Advisor: (1) Dr. Bukhari Daud, M.Ed. (II) Dr. Sofyan A. Gani, M.A Key Word: Teaching Reading, Junior High School (SMPN) 16 Banda Aceh This research is intended to figure out the existing conditions of teaching reading comprehension at SMP Negeri 16 Banda Aceh, the methods that are employed by teachers in teaching reading comprehension and the students’ response toward teaching reading comprehension. This study was conducted at SMPN 16 Banda Aceh, using descriptive research. The populations of this study are students, teachers and principal. The Instruments used were: observation sheets, questionnaires and interviews to gain the data for answering the research problems. Based on the gathered data, researcher found several problems that is needed to be solved, especially in preparing lesson plan even though the teachers at SMP 16 Banda Aceh already had standard knowledge in teaching, the teacher also lack of ability to implement the methods especially in Reading Comprehension class. Based on the observation, researcher can conclude that the methods and strategies applied by teachers generally at SMP 16 were direct method, grammar translation method and think pair share method. The last, the researcher hopes that this study can be continued by subsequent researchers in the future in order to overview the implementation of learning English, especially reading comprehension exposed to the public.