Parent’s Level of Education and pupils’ reading readiness: A case of rural pre-schools in Kenya

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue IX, September 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

Parent’s Level of Education and pupils’ reading readiness: A case of rural pre-schools in Kenya

Williams Otieno Obilloh
Mount Kenya University, Kenya

Abstract: This study explored the relationship between parents’ level of education and their children’s reading readiness achievement focusing on both parents’ level of education. The study adopted a descriptive research design which allowed for in-depth examination of the study variables. This study employed Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory. The study adopted stratified random sampling to sample schools as public and private pre-primary schools, urban and rural schools. Systematic random sampling was used to further select the schools to participate in the study. Finally, 12% of the pupils were randomly chosen to be included in the study. The study selected 96 public Pre-Primary school pupils and 16 private pre-primary school pupils to participate in the study. Questionnaires enabled the researcher to collect data from the parents and reading readiness checklists were utilized to collect data from sampled pupils. Data collected was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 20. The findings of the study revealed that the high level of parents education positively contributes to their children’s reading readiness achievement. Large co-relation was found between parents’ level of education and reading readiness achievement. On the basis of the findings, the study recommended introduction of awareness campaigns, use of social media for community education ad adult education programs.

Key words: Parent’s level of education, reading readiness, reading, pre-primary schools achievement, pre-primary school pupils.

I. INTRODUCTION

Reading is the ability to understand words used in a text for personal advancement. Mike pike (1995) claimed that reading is the ‘a gate pass’ to all other languages. He believed that reading can enable one understand the world hidden in a text and beyond. Numerous studies (Guthrie, J. T., Wigfield, A., & You, W, 2012) asserted that reading is a multidimensional cognitive process of building meaning of the texts written in different sources. However, many children and adults fall below a basic level of reading. Around 14% of US adults have a ‘below basic’ reading competency and 21% have a reading competency below a reading age of eleven (NIL, 2015). The situation in the US is not unique, in the UK, 16% of UK adults are not able to read and write (NLT, 2011) and the UK has one of the highest youth functionally illiteracy rates in the developed world (OECD, 2015).

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