To these students, the little exposure they get is from the television. This too, only if they watch programmes in English. In some homes, students are not encouraged to speak or read in English for fear of learning and adopting a foreign culture. Students have shown that parental and teacher models do influence the reading ability and habits of learners (Wigfield and Asher 1984). The phenomenon of more adults developing into non-reading models for their children can only serve to strengthen the vicious cycle as shown by Smith and Mikulecky (1978).