Game-Based Reading Instruction: Insights from Student Perceptions Using Digital Jigsaw Puzzles

Indonesian students' reading literacy is still categorized as low, according to the PISA 2022 results. This fact improves efforts to familiarize reading at any educational level, including the school teaching-learning process. The research aims to discover students' perceptions of both affective and micro-skills of reading assisted with digital jigsaw puzzles. The study was a descriptive qualitative design involving junior high school students in Indonesia. In-depth interviews and observations collected the data. The data is analyzed through interactive analysis or three flows of thought. The findings show widespread affective perceptions of the learning reading using digital jigsaw puzzles. In addition, digital jigsaw puzzles raise students' positive perceptions of understanding the following reading macro-skills: the gist, main idea, explicit information, reference words, and inference. However, few students struggle to find implicit information and word meaning due to limited vocabulary mastery and rush time. All in all, digital jigsaw puzzles can be a preferential instruction to enhance students' reading literacy.