Ethiopian Early Grade English Teachers’ Preparedness to Teach Basic Reading Skills

Table 1

Teachers’ response on coursework emphasis.

No.	Items	Mean scores
1	Teaching children how to identify, isolate, separate, blend, and manipulate sounds in spoken words	1.70
2	Teaching children to use phonics skills to figure out how to pronounce unfamiliar words	1.80
3	Teaching children to monitor how well they understand what they read and correct the problems as they occur	1.50
4	Using a variety of methods to teach children the meaning of words, including direct and indirect instruction, multiple exposures, and repetition	1.76
5	Identifying the words in a text that children do not know and using their background knowledge to help them figure out word meanings	2.00
6	Making instructional decisions based on assessments of children’s oral reading fluency	1.73
7	Teaching children a variety of strategies for understanding the text they read, such as using graphic organizers, making predictions, asking questions, and identifying the main ideas	1.83
8	Teaching phonics to children in a systematic way, with a series of skills and activities	1.63
9	Teaching children to recognize letters and name them	1.76
10	Having children repeatedly read the same text aloud to improve their speed, accuracy, and expression	1.63
11	Using textbooks, teacher’s guide, and other age appropriate supplementary readers	1.70
12	Assessing children’s progress in acquiring reading skills	2.03
13	Using a variety of teaching strategies to teach early reading	1.73
14	Preparing teaching aids and creating literacy rich environment with locally available materials	3.10
	Overall mean	1.75

0 = none; 1 = little; 2 = moderate; 3 = considerable.