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 skills and 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 1 considering 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.