Teachers’ perceptions about play-based pedagogy to develop the literacy skills of children in pre-primary level

Abstract

This paper aims to know the teachers' perceptions about the role of play in developing the literacy skills of the children are very essential. Play-based pre-primary education to develop early literacy skills is gaining ground all over the world including Bangladesh. Early literacy skill of a child is an essential factor for the readiness for primary school. Children who can recognize words, read letters, understand signs and symbols, and so on are taken as skills in literacy. The play has a significant role to support cognitive-linguistic abilities and skills that help children learn to read. The development of literacy skills in pre-primary level children is of great importance for making them ready for primary school and future quality education. As the play has an immense impact on children's learning literacy, the teachers' perception deserves to be reviewed and examined. Qualitative research was set to explore the situation of the teachers' perception of early literacy skills with two key research questions. The study population was the teachers of government primary schools from both Dhaka North and South City teaching in the pre-primary class. The data were analyzed with the qualitative approach. A content analysis technique was followed. The data collected were triangulated for testing the authenticity. Ethical principles were strictly followed and were necessary to clarify under what conditions the research had been carried out. Most of the participants were found to show positive perceptions of play-based pedagogy and literacy skills. But they have been facing problems in the practice and implementation of the plays in the classroom, such as lack of space, time allocation, lack of materials, and most importantly, lack of training on play-based pedagogy. The research has provided a set of recommendations to overcome the problems- provide of hands-on training to the pre-primary teachers on play-based pedagogy, remove the shortage of play materials, creating supportive classroom environment for the children etc.