Learning the reading and the writing ability in English is important, because English is an international language and we have learned English from elementary school. The background that makes the researcher interested in conducting research on this topic is the lackness of reading and writing of the tenth grade students. Their average mastery in the reading and the writing ability in English is still 40%. With this research the researcher hope to increase the knowledge of teachers and students in developing English learning.
The problem of this research were: 1) How was the reading ability in English of the tenth grade students? 2) How was the writing ability in English of the tenth grade students? 3) was there any correlation between reading and writing ability in English of the tenth grade students at SMAN 4 Banjarbaru?
This research design was correlational research of Pearson correlation. The population of this research was 179 students and the sample was 33 students chosen by cluster sampling . To collect the data, the researcher used test for both of the research variables. This research is important to increase teacher and student knowledge in developing English lessons.
The result of this research explained that the students’ ability in reading was in good category with the mean score 66.5 and the students’ ability in writing was in fair category with the mean score 63.6. The value of Pearson product moment (rxy) was 0,500 > 0,355 ( rxy > r table) which means there was correlation between their reading and writing ability in English. The value of correlation was 0,500, it means there was a correlation with variables of X and Y is linear. The value of significant correlation at sig2 tailed was (0,003) < 0,05 which means that the correlation was significant. The conclusion of this research that Ha was accepted and H0 was rejected, it means there was significant correlation between reading and writing ability in English of the tenth grade students at SMAN 4 Banjarbaru.