Enhancing the Literacy Abilities of Students: A Home-School Complementary Role

Abstract

The literacy development of children is not the sole responsibility of the school alone. Although there is the growing awareness among the Nigerian public of the need for parents to be involved in the educational development of their children, the potential of Nigerian parents as an agent of literacy promotion has not been fully tapped. The present study was designed to find out the extent to which some parents in Ekpoma metropolis were involved in the literacy development of their children. A total of 50 parents made up of both sexes participated in the study. A fiveitem parent literacy involvement Questionnaire was used for data collection. Using frequency counts and percentages for data analysis, the results indicated that the percentage of parents
who read aloud to their children on a regular basis was very low. It was also found that a good number of the parents did not provide a good literate model. However, the vast majority of the parents engaged in the activity of talking and listening to their children on a regular basis. The findings were interpreted in terms of the need to guide parents on how they could bepurposefully and meaningfully involved in their children's literacy development on a consistent basis.