The Role Of Parental Engagement In Enhancing Reading Skills Among Public Pre-School Pupils In Tanzania: The Case Of Muheza District In Tanga Region

ABSTRACT

This study explores the Role of Parental Literacy Engagement in Enhancing Reading

Skills to Pre-school Children. The study was conducted in Muheza district in Tanga

region involving a total number of 80 participants composed of 30 preschool

children(12 male and 18 female), 40 parents (22 female and 18 male), 2 Ward

Education Officers, 4 Head of schools and 4 class teachers. The study employed:

purposive sampling and simple random sampling to obtain participants.

Furthermore, the study employed case study design through mixed approach where

semi-structured interview, participatory observation and questionnaire were

employed for data collection. The data were analyzed based on themes or objectives

and resulted into the emergence of different sub-themes.

The study findings revealed that, the role of parental literacy involvement is the best

strategy of developing pre-school children literacy learning at school. Parental

literacy engagements were found to develop the preschool children‟s oral language

and vocabulary and enhanced confidences of using different learning materials at

home. Also the study found that, songs and shared reading at home are the most

effective literacy practices supporting the role of parental literacy engagement in

enhancing reading skills to preschool children. However, parents are to be

empowered in order to understand broadly about their role in literacy engagement in

enhancing reading skills to preschool children.

Lastly, it is recommended that more study (s) should be conducted in the area of the

role of parental literacy engagement in enhancing reading skills to preschool

children as it seems that such studies as conducted in Tanzania are limited.