Perceived Socio-cultural Barriers to Children’s Acquisition of Kiswahili Pre-Reading Skills in Rural Pre-primary Schools in Tanzania

Abstract

This paper explores socio-cultural barriers to children’s acquisition
of Kiswahili pre-reading skills in rural public –pre-primary schools in
Tanzania. Purposive sampling was used to obtain 48 pre-primary school
teachers, head teachers and parents. Data were collected through semistructured
interview and focus group discussion methods. Thematic analysis
was utilised in data analysis using NVivo-12 software for qualitative
and non-structured data. The findings revealed that mother-tongue
interference, limited parent-teacher collaboration and community beliefs
about children’s education were the perceived socio-cultural barriers to
children’s acquisition of Kiswahili pre-reading skills. The paper concludes
that children’s acquisition of Kiswahili pre-reading skills was hampered
by the presence of various socio-cultural barriers. The paper recommends
that pre-primary school learning environments in rural areas should be
improved for children’s successful acquisition of pre-reading skills.
Keywords: early childhood education, Kiswahili language, marginalised
schools, reading acquisition, socio-cultural barriers