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chools are regarded as second homes to children and they play an important role in developing their reading habits.

Schools should be equipping students with the skills of learning to read and reading to learn to improve their overall capacity for life-long learning and whole-person development. They need to promote a reading culture both inside and outside the four walls of the classroom.

The development of students' reading skills should start at an early age and attention should be given to the early primary years when the students are taught to learn to read and read to learn at the same time.

One of the ways of developing students' reading habits is incorporating reading in different subject areas, not only in the languages. Reading should not only be done in English, Chinese and Indonesian language lessons, but also in other subjects such as science, social studies and mathematics.

For students to read effectively, teachers should explicitly teach students to use various reading strategies such as making connections to texts, visualizing and asking questions. Students may already be using some reading strategies, but they may not be aware of them. However, as they learn to read more complicated materials, students will need to use reading strategies purposefully. Thus, teachers have to help students apply reading strategies, which also include predicting, synthesizing, reading between the lines and determining the importance of what they are reading.

Implementing a home reading program in which students take a book home every day will also help children develop a reading habit. For this program, students are expected to read at least 10 to 15 minutes every night and write comments in their reading log about the book that they have read. This program encourages parents, especially those who have children in the early years, to set aside time and read stories to their kids.

Setting up reading corners in classrooms and arranging flexible and structured reading time-slots in the timetable would help children develop a love for books. Reading corners do not have to be huge, but should include a range of materials. Teachers can ask for help from parents for the reading materials that will be put in the mini-libraries in their classrooms. They can ask their students to bring some of their storybooks, even old magazines and newspapers, to be placed in the reading corners.

Schools have to make sure that students are exposed to materials from across all genres, including information reports. Exposing students, particularly Indonesian children, to newspapers and even comics would help them improve their literacy. In 2003, Indonesian children ranked very low among other countries in literacy, with only 30 percent understanding the material they read. This 30 percent figure came from the 2003 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. PISA is a system of international assessments that measures the capabilities of 15 year olds in reading literacy, mathematics literacy and science literacy every three years.

Based on the 2003 PISA results, Indonesian students did not do well in three areas - reading, mathematics and science. Highly literate countries include Finland, South Korea and Hong Kong, according to the study.

Besides improving their literacy, reading also helps students become good writers. Reading and writing are closely interwoven. It is no doubt that students' writing is strongly influenced by their reading.

Their ability to write with creative style, complex and correct grammatical structures, and accurate spelling is the result of their exposure to language input. Through reading, students see the author's word choices, treatment of information and use of other language features.

Reading assists students in expanding their topics for writing and increasing their vocabulary. It also aids students in improving their skills in spelling as pointed out in the movie, Akeelah and the Bee.

In this movie, 11-year-old Akeelah Anderson, portrayed by Keke Palmer, was instructed by her English coach Dr. Joshua Larabee to read a lot of books, including essays written by prominent people such as William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

After complaining to Dr. Larabee, played by Laurence Fishburne, Akeelah realized that "big words come from people with big brains". Akeelah's effort paid off and in the end, she made it to the Scripps National Spelling Bee and became a co-champion.

To instill a love of reading in students, school libraries play a vital role. Libraries should be easily accessible by students, even during snack time, lunch breaks and after school. They should be strategically located and not physically distant from classrooms. It is important for schools to think of the location as well as what goes on and what takes place within the libraries.

Schools need to make libraries an inviting space for learning and a focal point of ongoing student inquiry. This can be done through numerous activities, such as storytelling in libraries on certain days.

Having a storytelling program in which librarians, teachers and parent volunteers take turns in sharing stories with students promotes the use of libraries in schools.

The role of librarians is currently changing from being that of "keeper of books" to "information specialist". School librarians nowadays are actively taking part in acquiring quality reading and learning materials, lesson planning and providing students with necessary information skills.

Organizing a buddy reading program in which older, more advanced students read stories to younger ones would also help children get hooked on reading. Students can make new friends with others, too. The buddy reading program can be conducted during a "Language Week" or an "Internationalism Week" as a whole-school program in which students read to their buddies for 30 to 40 minutes.

It would also be of much help if schools conducted information session or workshops that would provide parents with practical strategies and skills on how to instill in their children a love of reading. Parental support is crucial and there has to be ongoing collaboration between family and school. After all, parents remain as first educators of children and teachers as facilitators of learning.