Parental Engagement Approaches to Primary School Children’s Literacy Skills Development in Tabora Region, Tanzania

Abstract

This paper employs a qualitative case study design to explore parental engagement approaches in developing children’s literacy skills in primary schools.  Focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews were used with purposive sampling to obtain 44 participants. It was revealed that parents in  high-performing schools were highly engaged in their children’s literacy development through regular parent-teacher communications, parent-teacher  trust, and parent-teacher cooperation. Parents in lowperforming schools, on the other hand, were less engaged due to the lack of awareness of their  children’s literacy skills development and hectic schedules on socio-economic activities. The paper recommends that teachers use encouraging and  friendly approaches to parents so that they can feel comfortable engaging in developing their children’s literacy skills.