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even-year-old Chairani Mira Ashari will have to work extra hard to improve her reading skills, as the student of a private elementary school in Medan, North Sumatra, is set to soon commence second grade.

Over the past months, her mother, Sri Susilawati, has spent around an hour every night helping Chairani polish her reading skills. Sri acknowledged that her daughter was one of five students in her class that were not yet fluent in reading.

'€œHer IQ score is 117, but her level of concentration is quite low. This has affected her reading fluency. She is good at math, though,'€ Susilawati told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

She said that school teachers who also tried giving extra attention to her daughter had asked her to be patient with Chairani'€™s slow reading skills.

'€œAccording to teachers at her school, a child like Chairani should not be forced to learn how to read because doing so could make her stressed,'€ said Susilawati.

Based on a recent nationwide survey conducted by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in cooperation with the Education Ministry, Religious Affairs Ministry and Myriad Research, the reading ability of primary school students in Sumatra was 69 percent, or comparatively lower than those in Java and Bali, which had reached 78 percent.

The survey said that nearly half of the 4,800 second-grader participants were able to understand what they read.

'€œOnly 5.9 percent of all second graders in Indonesia are placed in the category of not being able to read yet,'€ said USAID Indonesia project management specialist, Ester R. Manurung, early this week.

In Sumatra, 42 percent of the survey participants had reading fluency and could comprehend the reading materials, while 28 percent had lower fluency, but they still understood what they read. Meanwhile, the remaining 30 percent still required additional support to improve their reading skills.

'€œIn this context, teachers must have a strategy to recognize and provide support to the students who are not able to read,'€ said Ester.

The survey also mapped several factors that significantly contributed to the children'€™s reading skills. It said that in Sumatra, students who had access to libraries, received written feedback from teachers regarding their homework or school tasks and had the chance to participate in the classroom, tended to have higher reading skills.

The survey also found that 75 percent of students in Sumatra who were enrolled in kindergarten or pre-school had better reading skills than those who did not have access to early education.

Medan State University rector Ibnu Hajar Damanik said elementary school children living in coastal and mountainous areas in North Sumatra were less fluent in reading because education was not a main priority of the communities there.

'€œWe still find hungry and sick children living along the riverbanks. They can'€™t improve their reading skills if they are not supported by good social and economic conditions,'€ Ibnu told the Post on Wednesday.

He said that the government should assign competent teachers to educate children living in the slums.

Medan-based education observer Mutsyuhito Solin said that between 20 and 30 percent of first graders to third graders in North Sumatra could not read, write or count.

He said the problem was caused by several factors, including a limited number of early childhood education program facilities and parental guidance. Families in the remote areas, he said, generally did not take education seriously, so they did not encourage young children to master basic skills.

'€œThat is why we can still find many children living in isolated and mountainous regions in North Sumatra who are unable to read, write and count,'€ he said.