Learning to Read Words in Cinyanja Language and the Contribution of the Home and School Environments in Lusaka District of Zambia

The focus of this study was to establish how reading developed in children in Cinyanja language by charting their development from home environment, through grade 1 to 2. An embedded explanatory sequential mixed methods design of both quantitative and qualitative methods was employed to collect, analyse and interpret the data. Six grade 1 children with ages ranging from 7 to 9 at entry point, 6 parents and 3 teachers participated in the study. Quantitative data across the three phases were collected through literacy tests: alphabetic knowledge and word reading. Simple tables were generated manually to analyse the data from literacy tests. Qualitative data was collected from parents/guardians and the teachers via a questionnaire with both closed and open-ended questions, and analysed thematically. Results revealed the following: (i) alphabetic knowledge in children start developing very early before formal schooling and continue until children become skillful readers; (ii) there is a strong relationship between rich-literacy home/school environment and literacy development in children; (iii) learning to read in L1 with a transparent orthography is faster and easier than learning to read in a L2 with an opaque orthography; (iv) the number of stages children go through to become proficient in reading in a transparent language was not the same as in English, an opaque language; (v) Learning to read in the L1 is similar to learning to read in L2 in terms of the language and cognitive processes that are involved. The study makes three major recommendations to policy makers and teachers based on the results: (i) literacy curriculum developers should consider the language in which reading is intended to be developed to avoid the tendency by teachers to simply generalize what is known or assumed about reading in English to apply to Bantu language instruction; (ii) teachers should understand that although children are non-readers at school entry point, they bring with them several literacy skills acquired from home and the surrounding environment which can be exploited in lessons; (iii) more studies on reading development in Zambian languages, beyond the Cinyanja language, are needed to confirm whether the four stages of literacy development in English cited in the theoretical framework can apply to other transparent languages.