How Grade-R teachers’ inability to promote a ‘love for books’ influences the acquisition of early literacy skills in Grade-R learners in Zambezi Region, Namibia

Abstract

Promoting a love for books is key to learning to reading and writing in pre-primary grades. This can only be achieved through the use of qualified human capital at this level of schooling with adequate support from Regional Advisory Services (RAS). Research claims that learners who are regularly exposed to reading materials find a positive basis and impetus for literacy learning. This paper thus reports on a study that investigated the significance of promoting a love for books in Grade-R (in the Namibian context, Grade-R refers to Grade 0) classrooms in the Zambezi region, Namibia. The study also shares the significance of this move as well as what teachers should put in place to promote it as a way to accelerate the emergence of learner early literacy skills in their respective Grade-R classrooms in the Zambezi region. The data were analysed using Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory through themes and statistical analysis of emergent Early Grade Reading Assessment (eEGRA) test. Data were collected through interviews, lesson observation as well learner output in the eEGRA test which learners took at the beginning of their Grade One year.