'We want to take this opportunity to let society know the efforts made by kindergarten educators,' she said. 'For our school, it is also a good opportunity to seek opinions and organise our system.'

Ms Wong said she felt bad that the language proficiency of Hong Kong students was falling. 'Then I thought deeply about what I could do to help,' she said. 'I thought at least I should make my students love reading and writing.'

Ms Wong's school now runs two systems geared towards doing just that: Reading Storybooks Aloud and Learning Writing Happily.

In its initial phase, the Reading Storybooks Aloud scheme went through several stages. In 1998, Ms Wong and Ms Lee joined a research programme organised by the Hong Kong Institute of Education on reading storybooks aloud in school.

They compared the reading and writing skills of the children who joined the scheme and those who did not.

The results were obvious and, as a result, Ms Wong decided to develop the scheme.

At first, Ms Lee read the books to groups of children once a week. Encouraged by the success, the teachers developed it into a school activity. All the teachers were trained to read storybooks to their classes.

The school also involved the parents. Children could take home books once a week. Ms Lee said at least 80 per cent of the parents had responded positively to the project. Children were given worksheets as a follow-up after their parents had read them the story.

The school has seminars and talks with parents about the importance of storybook reading. Through sharing and exchanging experiences, the school can evaluate the scheme. Many parents said their children were always asking them to buy them storybooks.

In the reading sessions, teachers not only read the books but also discuss them with the children. Before reading, teachers introduce the author, the illustrator, the publisher and the book series. They help the children read the cover and guess what the book is about.

During reading, teachers show the children how to ask questions by using the four cognitive strategies of summarising, clarifying, questioning and predicting. These help the children to develop an appreciation for literature.

The other scheme set up at the school is Learning Writing Happily.

'The skills of reading and writing actually develop at the same time,' Ms Wong said. 'We found that from kindergarten three (K3) to Primary One, students forget a lot of words. Then we started to think how we should teach them writing Chinese words. We decided to teach from the basic structure of words. That's how Learning Writing Happily was first established.

'There is no guidance of writing skills for kindergarten students because most people think developing writing skills is unimportant in this stage. We developed the scheme from our own observation and experience of how students learn writing.'

Ms Lam, who is responsible for the writing scheme, said: 'We teach the words by categorising the word components so that students can remember the words systematically.

'Chinese words are 'picture' words. Students dare to guess the meaning of the word by its components. They are more sensitive to words. It is helpful to their reading and writing.

'Writing was what students both feared and hated most in the past. Through this scheme, students have more activities and worksheets to do but less tedious copying work. Students start to think of writing as a happy experience. They become more interested in the words they find in their surroundings. You can now see students guessing and reading words aloud in school in front of signs and notice boards.'