This research was done to test the effect of using Literature Circles to improve the reading comprehension ability of third grade (year 12) Islamic high school students from MAN Cot Gue, Aceh Besar. The objective of this study was to find out if the use of Literature Circles could improve the students’ reading comprehension more than the teacher-centered (Reading-Aloud) approach. This study used an experimental group (EG) and a control group (CG) each with 20 students. The EG was taught using Literature Circles, while the CG was taught using the teacher-centered (reading aloud) approach. The data for this research were collected by means of a pre-test and a post-test. The tests given used multiple choice questions to find out the students’ understanding of the reading narrative text used for the test. The collected data were then analyzed by using the t-test formula. The research findings showed that the mean of the post test of the EG was 58, while that of the CG was 41. The result from the t-test was 4.69 while the t-table at a level of significance with α = 0.05 was 1.697, which means that the students who were taught using Literature Circles did significantly better in reading comprehension than those who were not. In conclusion Literature Circles can be a better ways for teaching English reading comprehension for third grade (year 12) senior high school ESL students
