Indonesian School Students Reading Habits: A Sociocultural Perspectives

Reading should become a habit and should be sustained throughout life. And this should also become among the basic goals in all level of education. Therefore reading is the main focus of the English program in Indonesian high schools. However, students' reading interest and achievement in Indonesian are still considered low. This article is trying to look at socio-cultural factor that contribute to the development of reading habit and achievement in Indonesia context. In doing so, the researcher tries to conduct meta-analysis on researches of the teaching reading in Indonesia. The research findings have demonstrated that the teaching techniques of reading utilized by the researchers brought positive impact on students’ reading habits and achievement. However, the reading habits level and achievement at school cannot be considered satisfactorily especially compared to other South East Asian countries. The sociocultural factors are likely to contribute the undeveloped level of reading habit and achievement in Indonesia.