Teacher Preparedness to Utilize Emergent Literacy for Teaching Initial Literacy in Selected Schools of Mansa District
Abstract
Effective teaching of initial literacy in Grade 1 demands more of the teacher’s attention to pupils’ emergent literacy skill sand consideration of how they learn. The emergent literacy skills children acquire lay a firm foundation for their learning to read and write in the conventional sense. Some of the skills that children develop under emergent literacy include phonological awareness and phonological sensitivity, which give children the ability to hear, recognize, manipulate and distinguish the sounds of the language they have acquired. These are key language skills which teachers will need to utilize in their teaching of reading and writing skills to Grade 1 learners in the classroom. A study was carried out whose purpose was to investigate whether primary school teachers in Mansa District utilized emergent literacy skills in their teaching of conventional reading and writing skills to the learners in Grade 1considering the fact that emergent literacy lays a firm and solid foundation for continuous development of the literacy skills. The study was a descriptive survey and qualitative in nature since it required the researcher to describe the state of affairs as found and observed in their natural setting in the research sites. The qualitative methods of data collection and analysis were used. The sample for this study comprised 62 Grade 1 teachers and 3,594 Grade 1 primary school pupils. Only those schools teaching initial literacy in the local familiar language using the Breakthrough to Literacy(BTL) methodology were targeted for this research. The findings indicated that: (1) Teachers lacked knowledge about emergent literacy and did not know how useful it was for continuous literacy development among the children.(2) Most of the teachers ignored pupils’ prior literacy knowledge and considered their learners as complete illiterates who knew nothing about literacy skills. (3) Teachers never designed extra teaching and learning materials for teaching literacy. Rather, they relied on the New Breakthrough to Literacy (NBTL) kit materials. (4) The class sizes were large and meaningful scaffolding was lacking in most of the classes. This study concluded that the Ministry of Education in Zambia should consider emergent literacy as the foundation for conventional literacy development in Grade 1. One recommendation was that teachers should be equipped with knowledge of emergent literacy through deliberate training. They need to understand and appreciate emergent literacy as an essential body of knowledge to be utilized for successful conventional literacy development among Grade 1 learners.References
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2. Best, J. W. and Kahn, J. V. (2006). Research in education (10thed.). New Delhi: Prentice-Hall
3. Bodrova, E. and Leong, D. J. (2001). Tools of the Mind: A Case study of implementing the Vygotskian Approach in American Early Childhood and Primary Classrooms. IN NODATA MONOGRAPHS –7 UNESCO. Geneva: International Bureau of Education. Sourced form: http://www.ibe.unesco.org/pdf
4. Bruner, J. S. (1960). The Process of Education.Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
5. Clay, Mary. 1966. "Emergent Reading Behaviour." University of Auckland: New Zealand. Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis.
6. Cohen, L., Manion, L. and Morrison K. (2007). Research methods in education(6thed.). New York: Routledge.
7. Dickinson, D. K. & Neuman, S. B. (eds). (2006). Handbook of early literacy research Vol. 2. New York: The Guilford Press.
8. Hodgskiss, J. A. (2007). A Case study: Tracing the development of literacy in a Grade R class. Rhodes University, S. A. Unpublished Masters Dissertation.
9. Korat, O. (2005). Contextual and non-contextual knowledge in emergent literacy development: A comparisonbetween children from low SES and middle SE communities. DTD 5 Early Chidlhood Research Quarterly: Article in Press. Bar Ilan University, 52900 Ramat Gan: Elsevier Inc.
10. Matafwali, B. (2010).The Role of Oral Language in the Acquisition of Early Literacy skills: A case of Zambian Language and English. Lusaka: The University of Zambia. Unpublished PhD. Thesis
11. Ministry of Education, (1992). Focus on Learning: Strategies for the development of school education in Zambia. Lusaka: Ministry of Education, Science,Vocational Training and Early Education
12. Morrow, L. M. (ed) (1995) Family Literacy: Connections in Schools and Communities.New Jersey: Rutgers University.
13. Musonda, M-G. (2011).Literacy behaviours which pre-schoolers exhibit in selected households of Lusaka. Lusaka: The University of Zambia. Unpublished Dissertation.
14. National Academy Press (2000). How people learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School. USA: National Academy Press.
15. National Reading Panel (2000). Literacy Development. Retrieved on 1 May 2012 from the World Wide Web: http://www.netc.org/focus/Challenges/litercay.php
16. Santrock, J. W. (2002). Educational Psychology:second edition. New York: Mcgraw Hill
17. Schunk, H. D. (2009). Learning theories; An educational perspective(5thed.). London; Pearson Education Limited.
18. Sénéchal, M. (2009). Literacy, language and emotional development. Rev ed. In Tremblay RE, Barr RG, Peters RDeV, Boivin, (eds.). Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development[online]. Montreal, Quebec: Centre of Excellence for Early Childhood Development; 2009:1-6. Available at: http://www.childencyclopedia.com/documents/SenechalANGxp.pdf. Accessed 1 May 2012.
19. Slavin, R., E. (2009). Educational psychology: Theory and practice(9thed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
20. Teale, W. and Sulzby, E. (1989). Emergent Literacy: New Perspectives, in Strickland and Morrow (eds), Emergent Literacy: Young Children Learn to Read and Write(pp 1-5). Newark: DE: International Reading Association
21. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Published
2020-12-18
How to Cite
Imange, S. and Simwinga, J. (2020) “Teacher Preparedness to Utilize Emergent Literacy for Teaching Initial Literacy in Selected Schools of Mansa District”, Journal of Law and Social Sciences, 2(1), pp. 1-17. doi: https://doi.org/10.53974/unza.jlss.2.1.393.
Section
Social Sciences