An integrative review of teaching reading in Kenyan primary schools

Reading Research QuarterlyVol. 42, No. 2

April/May/June 2007© 2007 International Reading Association

(pp. 258–281)doi:10.1598/RRQ.42.2.3

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An integrative review ofteaching reading in Kenyanprimary schoolsMICHELLE COMMEYRASUniversity of Georgia, Athens, USA

HELLEN N. INYEGAKenya Science Teachers College, Nairobi, Kenya

ince independence in 1963, the government of Kenya has emphasized improvingreading instruction and reading ability (Kamau, 2000). Free primary education(Otieno, 2003) and adult literacy campaigns have been aimed at giving everyKenyan the right to read (Akhusama, 1984; Nyongesa, 1990). We propose thatKenya’s emphasis on reading is needed in part because when books were intro-duced, they were not promoted as something to derive pleasure from; in fact, peo-ple were forced to read (Chakava, 1982). In Okot p’Bitek’s (1966) celebrated poemSong of Lawino, written in Acholi, Lawino blames her husband Ocol for havingabandoned the ways of his people. She accuses him of burying himself in a forest ofbooks and allowing his manhood to be crushed by large books. Investigations ofthe history of the book in Kenya seek to explain how negative attitudes towardreading developed and continue (Stroud, 2002). One explanation is that Kenyanswere made to read mostly religious documents such as the Bible or other holy writ-ings (Sifuna, 1980) that did not fit their indigenous ways of living. These readingsdirected them away from their rich cultural and religious heritage (Maina, 2003).

Generally, formal education was viewed as something to be endured and dis-pensed with as soon as the benefits could be realized. Most Africans do not readmuch beyond newspapers and religious texts once formal education is completed(Chakava, 1982). Rather, they prefer the pleasures of storytelling, singing, dancing,and simply talking rather than the private and individual preoccupation of readinga book (Chakava, 1984; Ng’ang’a, 1993).

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THIS INTEGRATIVE review on the teaching of reading in Kenyan primary schools provides a foundation forthe growing movement there to improve reading education. In gathering sources for this review, we took an inclu-sive historical stance. Thus, we did not dismiss research reports that lacked traditional indicators of quality such asbeing published in peer-reviewed journals. We used multiple methods to find relevant research and associateddocuments, including two trips to Kenya. The review is organized by six topics: (a) language of instruction, (b) read-ing instruction, (c) reading materials, (d) reading culture, (e) assessment, and (f) teacher development. The reviewconcludes with six proposals for policymakers, educational researchers, and teacher educators for the developmentof reading instruction based on what we learned in reviewing the literature. The first proposals are intendedspecifically to address the teaching of reading in Kenya, but they may be relevant to other sub-Saharan nations.The final proposal encourages others to conduct similar reviews to make possible a handbook of reading in Africa.

An integrativereview ofteaching readingin Kenyanprimary schools

ESTA REVISIÓN integradora sobre la enseñanza de la lectura en las escuelas primarias de Kenia proporcionafundamentos para el movimiento creciente para el mejoramiento de la educación en lectura. En la recolección de lasfuentes de esta revisión tomamos una posición histórica abarcadora. Por ello no descartamos informes de investi-gación que carecieran de los indicadores de calidad tradicionales como haber aparecido en publicaciones evaluadaspor pares. Usamos múltiples métodos para hallar investigaciones relevantes y documentos relacionados, incluyen-do dos viajes a Kenia. La revisión se organiza en seis tópicos: (a) lengua de enseñanza, (b) enseñanza de la lectura,(c) materiales de lectura, (d) cultura escrita, (e) evaluación y (f) formación docente. La revisión concluye con cincopropuestas para elaborar políticas, formar investigadores en educación y capacitadores de docentes para el desarrol-lo de la enseñanza de la lectura basadas en aquello que aprendimos al revisar la literatura. Las primeras cuatropropuestas tienen como propósito específico abordar la enseñanza de la lectura en Kenia, si bien podrían ser rele-vantes también para otras naciones subsaharianas. La propuesta final estimula a otros a realizar revisiones similarespara hacer posible un manual de la lectura en África.

Una revisiónintegradora de laenseñanza de lalectura en lasescuelasprimarias deKenia

DIESE INTEGRATIVE Betrachtung über den Leseunterricht in Kenias Grundschulen liefert einen Grundstockfür die wachsende Bewegung dort zur Verbesserung des Leseunterrichts. Beim Zusammenstellen von Unterlagenfür diese Betrachtung nahmen wir einen inklusiven historischen Standpunkt ein. Daher verwarfen wir nicht jeneForschungsberichte, denen traditionelle Indikatoren an Qualität fehlten, wie beispielsweise solche, die in fach-beurteilten Journalen publiziert sind. Wir nutzten mannigfache Methoden, um relevante Forschung und assoziierteDokumente zu finden, einschließlich zweier Reisen nach Kenia. Die Betrachtung ist nach sechs Themen organisiert:(a) Unterweisungssprache; (b) Leseunterricht; (c) Lesematerialien; (d) Lesekultur; (e) Beurteilung; und (f)Lehrerweiterbildung. Die Betrachtung schließt mit fünf Vorschlägen für Richtlinienersteller, Bildungsforscherund Lehrerausbilder für die Entwicklung von Leseinstruktionen basierend auf dem, was wir aus der Betrachtung derLiteratur erfuhren. Die ersten vier Vorschläge sind vorherrschend darauf bedacht, den Leseunterricht in Keniaanzusprechen, jedoch könnten sie auch für andere Nationen der Subsahara relevant sein. Durch den letztenVorschlag werden Andere ermutigt, ähnlich gelagerte Betrachtungen durchzuführen, um ein Handbuch übers Lesenin Afrika zu ermöglichen.

Eine integrativeBetrachtung desLeseunterrichts inKeniasGrundschulen

ABSTRACTS

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CETTE REVUE intégrative de l’enseignement de la lecture dans les écoles primaires au Kenya fournit une base aumouvement qui se développe dans ce pays en vue d’y améliorer l’enseignement de la lecture. En rassemblant lessources pour réaliser cette revue, nous avons adopté un point de vue historique inclusif. Ainsi, n’avons nous pasécarté les rapports de recherche auxquels manquent les habituels indicateurs de qualité, tel que le fait d’être publiédans des journaux comportant une évaluation par des pairs. Nous avons utilisé des méthodes multiples pour trou-ver des recherches pertinentes et les documents correspondants, y compris deux voyages au Kenya. La revue est or-ganisée en six thèmes : a) langue d’enseignement ; b) enseignement de la lecture ; c) matériel pédagogique ; d)évaluation ; e) formation des maîtres. Elle conclue par cinq propositions à l’intention des décideurs, des chercheursen éducation et des formateurs de maîtres en vue d’un développement de l’enseignement de la lecture basé sur ce quenous avons appris en faisant cette revue de question. Les quatre premières propositions concernent spécifiquementl’enseignement de la lecture au Kenya, mais peuvent être valables pour d’autres nations sub-sahariennes. La propo-sition finale encourage d’autres auteurs à effectuer des revues du même type afin de réaliser un manuel sur la lec-ture en Afrique.

Une revue dequestion

intégrative surl’enseignement

de la lecturedans les écoles

primaires auKenya

Настоящий обзор демонстрирует, насколько обоснованна потребность всовершенствовании методов обучения чтению в кенийских начальных школах.Собирая данные для обзора, мы руководствовались исключительноисторическим подходом. Поэтому мы принимали во внимание любыеисточники, в том числе те, которые не соответствуют классическим индикаторамкачества (например, не опубликованы в научных журналах с системойанонимного рецензирования). В поисках значимых источников и связанных сними документов мы использовали разнообразные методы, включая две поездкинепосредственно в Кению. Обзор состоит из шести разделов: (а) язык обучения,(б) обучение чтению, (в) материалы для чтения, (г) культура чтения, (д) оценка, и(е) повышение квалификации учителей. В заключение приводится пять идей отом, как улучшить обучение чтению. Они адресованы руководителям системыобразования, ученым и преподавателям, работающим с учителями. Первыечетыре идеи связаны непосредственно с ситуацией в Кении, но могут бытьуместны при формировании политики по обучению чтению в сопредельныхстранах в районе пустыни Сахары. В заключение предлагается провестиподобные обзоры в других странах региона, чтобы затем составить пособие пообучению чтению в Африке.

Интегративныйобзор литературы

о практике обучениячтению в начальных

ABSTRACTS

Nzomo, Kariuki, and Guantai (2001) havecalled for a review of the quality of the reading cur-riculum, teachers, and methods because student per-formance on the Kenya Certificate of PrimaryEducation (KCPE) English and Kiswahili tests hasbeen declining (United Nations Educational,Scientific and Cultural Organization [UNESCO]Nairobi/International Reading Association [IRA],2004). As is the case in most parts of the world,Kenyan children begin learning to read in primaryschool. Yet approximately half of the children whoenter primary school drop out before standard 8(Muthwii, 2004b), which is the equivalent of grade8 in the United States. Furthermore, of those whocomplete primary school, less than 50% go on tosecondary school (Muthwii & Kioko, 2003). Thatpercentage means that many children are finishedwith formal education and reading instruction whenthey graduate from primary school (Eisemon, Hallet,& Maundu, 1986; Muthwii; Schroeder, 2005;Wanyoike, 1982). It is within this historical and con-temporary context that we undertook a review ofteaching reading with a focus on Kenyan primaryschool education.

The present review is important to us becauseone of us (Hellen) was a Kenyan citizen studyingreading education in the United States when this re-view was initiated. The other (Michelle), her advisor,recommended undertaking this review as a means ofestablishing a foundation of knowledge for her andfor all those concerned with reading education inKenya. Thus, the audience we have foremost inmind includes the Kenyan Ministry of Education,teacher educators, school administrators, teachers,and all others concerned with the teaching of read-ing. We also have in mind other readers who mayfind the review relevant to reading education in oth-er nations with multiethnic, multilingual popula-tions. To orient all potential readers we begin withbackground information on the context of Kenyaneducation.

The Kenyan contextKenya became a British colony in 1920, after

being run as an East African protectorate by theBritish East Africa Company since 1890. Reading ofthe printed word, as well as formal education as weknow it today, has a relatively short history in Kenya(Chakava, 1984). Reading print, like many otherthings Kenyan, is a product of colonialism and mis-sionary work. The earliest missionaries credited withthe establishment of formal education in Kenya are

Johan Krapf and Johan Rebman, both of theChristian Missionary Society of the Church ofEngland. The missionaries established presses at vari-ous centers, undertook the daunting task of translat-ing the Bible into African languages, taught peoplehow to read and write, and produced for them awide range of simple reading materials, mostly reli-gious. Needless to say, they also taught Africans theirEuropean languages and had Africans read materialsthat they considered suitable for them (Sifuna,1990). With time, the missionaries expanded theiractivities, sometimes in conjunction with the colo-nial government, and together they ventured intopublishing textbooks for schools.

Missionaries introduced elements such asgrouping children in a classroom for daily lessonsand stressed the significance of reading, writing,arithmetic, and religious instruction along with ex-aminations and certificates (Shiundu & Omulando,1992). The missionaries, more than any otheragents, did the most to encourage and extend thepractice of reading (Alwiny & Schech, 2004)—somuch so that in many African languages the wordfor reader is synonymous with that for Christian(Sifuna, 1980). For instance, in the language ofEkegusii someone might ask, “nosomete?” (“Are you areader?”). This is the same as asking, “Are you aChristian?”

In 1909, a British government-sponsored studyof education in East Africa known as the FrazerReport proposed that education should be stratifiedalong racial lines (Mutua, 1975), with the Europeansat the top of the hierarchy, Asians in the middle, andthe indigenous people at the bottom. Later, anothersystem for native Swahili and Arab speakers wasadded. Education followed this four-system educa-tion curricular until independence. There was educa-tion for (a) whites, (b) Asians, (c) Arabs andWaswahili, and (d) Africans who spoke a variety ofindigenous languages (Eshiwani, 1993). Each of thegroups received education according to its rung onthe ladder of racial status. The European children re-ceived education to be the rulers and decision mak-ers. The Asians, who were brought to build theKenya–Uganda railway (1890–1901), were encour-aged to settle in Kenya to provide services to thecolonial government. Their education was mainlyacademic to prepare them for managerial, trade, andcommerce positions. The indigenous Kenyans wereminimally educated to keep them subservient to thecolonialists (Mutua). Their education emphasizedbasic reading and catechism to train teachers, techni-cians, and clerks for the colonial administration.

Teaching reading in Kenyan primary schools 261

By the 1920s, Kenyans began confrontingcolonial education as racially stratified and disadvan-taging (Maina, 2003). Dissatisfaction with the mis-sionary values that defined the curriculum contenteventually resulted in new developments in Kenyaneducation. By 1930, some Kenyans had formed theirown independent schools. The independent schoolsallowed traditional activities that were previously for-bidden, such as female circumcision and polygamy,as well as providing academic skills to their youth.According to Sheffield (1973), “Every effort wasmade to build education upon the new African atti-tudes of independent thought” (p. 28). To sum up,the legacy of colonial education in Kenya was one ofconflict, one that alienated people from their cultureand created foreigners in their own country. Much ofwhat was learned and experienced was a contradic-tion to the philosophies of indigenous Kenyan soci-eties (Maina). “Neither the missionaries nor thecolonial administration made any real attempts tolink African education to African problems andAfrican heritage” (Shiundu & Omulando, 1992, p. 15).

Since independence, the Kenyan educationalsystem has followed the 8–4–4 system taken fromthe British model. Primary school includes standards1 to 8. Primary school is followed by four years ofsecondary education known as forms 1 to 4. Thefortunate students go on to higher education in tech-nical institutes, polytechnics, or a four-year universi-ty program. Postcolonial African governments werecommitted to the spread of education and the eradi-cation or minimization of the colonial legacy in edu-cation and acted by setting up more new schools andexpanding educational facilities for the young andlaunching adult literacy programs for adults (Mutua,1975).

Kenya’s leadership has long recognized the needfor both national identity and international participa-tion and has fostered the use of the Kiswahili lan-guage for the former goal and English for the latter.Students are expected to learn to read in Kiswahiliand English. The current language policy is bilingual(Willis, 1988), although the reality is that Kenyansare monolinguals (speaking only their mothertongues), bilinguals, or multilinguals (Michieka,2005). The Asmara Declaration (2000) was issued atthe conclusion of the historic conference of writersand scholars from all regions of Africa called “AgainstAll Odds: African Languages and Literatures Into the21st Century” (www.outreach.psu.edu/C&I/AllOdds/declaration.html). It proclaimed that allAfrican children have the unalienable right to attendschool and learn their mother tongues and that every

effort should be made to develop African languages atall levels of education. The significance of Africanlanguages was further linked to development of sci-ence and technology, democracy, equality, social jus-tice, and decolonization.

Kiswahili is of Bantu origin, with words bor-rowed from other languages such as Arabic. It is anontribal language, a lingua franca that allows forcross-ethnic communication. It is typically learnedinformally from other Kenyans. Kiswahili is used bypoliticians and government officials when interactingwith members of the public. It is also used across theEast and Central African regions (Musau, 2003). Aversion of Kiswahili becomes standardized throughformal instruction at school. Mother tongue or thelanguage of wider communication (such asKiswahili) is used as the language of instruction inthe first three years of primary schooling (standards1–3) throughout the country, whereas English istaught as a subject. English becomes the language ofinstruction from standard 4 upward, while Kiswahiliis taught as a subject (Report of the PresidentialWorking Party on the Second Public University inKenya [MacKay Report], 1981).

In Kenya, teacher preparation for primaryschool teachers includes one course on the four basiclanguage skills: listening, speaking, reading, andwriting. Secondary school teacher training, however,does not explicitly emphasize the teaching of read-ing, because it is assumed that students have learnedto read and can read to learn when they completeprimary school. The Kenya Institute of Education(KIE) provides instructional materials to primaryschools outlining what is supposed to be taught forthe four skills. Curriculum in Kenya can be de-scribed as being “narrow in scope and emphasizingthe role of learning for passing national exams to ac-quire certificates” (Shiundu & Omulando, 1992, p. 30).

Kenya is an examination-oriented country(Otieno, 2003). Examinations play a decisive role inevaluating the success of students and teachers andall other stakeholders. The level of performance onpublic examinations is a deciding factor for an indi-vidual’s future in education and eventual participa-tion in nation building (Agak, 1995). Students sitfor written exams at the end of every year in order tograduate to the next grade level. The KenyaCertificate of Primary Education is the final exam atthe end of standard 8, and those who pass and canafford school fees continue with secondary school.Eventually they will have to pass the KenyaCertificate of Secondary Education at the end of

262 Reading Research Quarterly APRIL/MAY/JUNE 2007 42/2


form 4 to be considered for a college or universityeducation.

The United Nations Literacy Decade (UNLD)was declared in February 2003 to reduce adult illiteracy by 2015 in every country (UNESCONairobi/IRA, 2004). Kenya is experiencing many literacy-related initiatives that are intended to em-phasize the need for more reading education. We be-lieve that those who are leading these initiativesmight benefit from a review of teaching reading inKenyan primary schools.

MethodDocument collection

Educational research reports are not centrallyarchived or widely disseminated in Kenya (Makotsi,2001). Many university libraries in Kenya are still inthe process of computerizing their systems, whichpresents challenges in conducting a review of researchreports not available in the United States. Studies ofreading conducted in Kenya for university degrees inwestern universities and published in journals includ-ed in electronic databases were relatively easy to lo-cate. Also, world organizations such as UNESCOand the Rockefeller Foundation sometimes put rele-vant reports on the Internet (e.g., unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001235/123540e.pdf).

We used multiple methods to find as manydocuments relevant to our topic as possible. In theUnited States we searched electronic databasesthrough our library system. In Kenya we searchedcard catalogs and, when available, electronic hold-ings in libraries. Also, in Kenya we relied on key in-formants who in turn referred us to others knownfor their interest and work in reading or literature orlibraries. This process is known in qualitative re-search as snowballing (Patton, 2002).

Key informants We spent three weeks in July and August 2004

meeting key informants in Kenya. The process offinding them began with Jennifer Bowser at theInternational Reading Association’s headquarters.She gave us contact information for MargaretMakenzi, who served as the president of the localIRA council based at Egerton University in Njoro.She became our first key informant via electronicmail before we arrived in Kenya. Our informantswere, more often than not, librarians and faculty atdifferent universities. We would ask, “Who would be

the best person to talk to in order to find studies ofteaching reading?” Consistent with the snowballtechnique, we accumulated more documents andfound more people to interview. In most cases, a fewkey names were mentioned repeatedly as valuable.They were Henry Chakava, a renowned publisherand chief executive officer of East AfricanEducational Publishers (EAEP); Ruth Makotsi, exec-utive secretary of the East Africa Book DevelopmentAssociation (EABDA); Pamela Kola, chairperson ofReading Association of Kenya (RAK); and AgnesGathumbi of Kenyatta University.

Library visitsIn 2003 Hellen searched the libraries at

Kenyatta University and the University of Nairobifor relevant documents. In 2004 we both went toKenya where we revisited four universities (Kenyatta,Nairobi, Egerton, and Moi) because they offer ad-vanced degrees in education, linguistics, literature,and library sciences. Thus, they are likely places tofind research papers, master’s theses, and doctoraldissertations on reading.

In conversation with lecturers and librarians,we learned that some completed theses were keptwithin the offices of different departments ratherthan at the main libraries. We encountered difficultyin obtaining those research studies that were deemedparticularly promising for publication or further re-search. It is understandable that Kenyans may becautious about sharing knowledge, given the practiceof outsiders appropriating knowledge for their ownprofessional or commercial benefit. As LindaTuhiwai Smith (1999) has noted, in writing aboutdecolonizing methodologies, research can be “a sig-nificant site of struggle between the interests andways of knowing of the West and the interests andways of resisting of the Other” (p. 2). AlthoughHellen is herself a Kenyan, she was at the time a doc-toral student in the United States, which positionedher as a privileged Kenyan who might unwittingly beserving the goals and interests of outsiders.

After visiting libraries, we returned to Nairobiwhere one can find most of the textbooks used toteach the national curriculum. For reference purpos-es we purchased three English instruction pupilbooks for standard 1 (Gimoi, Kodeng, & Mathenge,2003; Kariuki, Muitung’u, Muutu, Ndua, & Hurst,2003; Ongeri, Birgen, & Mutiso, 2003).We alsopurchased the teacher’s guides (Birgen, Mutiso, &Ongeri, 2002; Gimoi, Kodeng, & Mathenge, 2002;Kariuki et al., 2003). We asked a saleswoman whichof the textbooks for teachers’ colleges was most

sought after or used for training primary schoolteachers. She directed us to Williams’s (1996) text onteaching English in primary schools.

Electronic searchesFrom our library system we searched four data-

bases: (a) Dissertation Abstracts International, (b)Education Abstracts Full Text, (c) ERIC, and (d)International Political Science Abstracts. Wesearched using the terms Reading and Kenya;Teaching reading in Kenya; Literacy in Kenya;Reading and writing in Kenya; Primary education inKenya; Reading and literacy in Kenya; and Kenyaand reading (or literacy).

Document analysisThe research documents relevant to our review

of teaching reading in Kenyan primary schools in-cluded

• Unpublished postgraduate diploma theses (Gakunga,1982)

• Unpublished master’s theses (Akhusama, 1984; Barasa,1984; Ikumi, 1985; Kamau, 2000; Karanu, 1992;Munyeki, 1997; Mutea, 2000; Nyongesa, 1990; Obondo,1984; Odero, 1995; Onyamwaro, 1990; Oriedo, 1988;Owino, 1987; Wanyoike, 1978)

• Unpublished dissertations (Agak, 1995; Ingule, 1983;Mutuku, 2000; Willis, 1988)

• Unpublished thesis (Makotsi, 2001)

• Conference papers (Kitonga, 1984; Schroeder, 2005)

• Refereed journal articles (Abdulaziz, 1982; Alwiny &Schech, 2004; Carter, Lees, Murira, Gona, Neville, &Newton, 2005; Eisemon, Hallet, & Maundu, 1986;Kembo-Sure, 2003; Kiboss, Musonye, & Kitetu, 2002;Lauglo & Narman, 1987; Makenzi, Ongus, & Nyamboga,2003; Musau, 2003; Muthwii, 2004a; Pontefract &Hardman, 2005; Schroeder, 2001)

• Reports for government or organizations (Nzomo et al.,2001)

• Book chapters (Mwanycky & Bugembe, 1990; Odini,2000)

• Books (Makotsi & Nyariki, 1997; Muthwii, 2002; Mutua,1975)

In addition, we reviewed a variety of nonem-pirical, popular literature, including the following:

• Books (Eshiwani, 1993; Makotsi & Nyariki, 1997; Mutua,1975; Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, 1986; Shiundu & Omulando,1992; Sifuna, 1980, 1990)

• Journal articles (Buchmann, 1999; Bunyi, 1999; Kembo,1993; Kiarie, 2004; Michieka, 2005; Muthwii, 2004b;Muthwii & Kioko, 2003)

• Newspapers (Otieno, 2003; Oyaro, 2005)

• Government documents (Bedi, Kimalu, Manda, &Nafula, 2002; MacKay Report, 1981)

• Unpublished papers (Maina, 2003; Ng’ang’a, 1993)

We read these documents to identify majortopics of interest. Six topics were identified: (a) lan-guage of instruction, (b) reading instruction, (c)reading materials, (d) reading culture, (e) assessment,and (f ) teacher development. Within these topics wefurther classified the literature according to languageor languages (Kiswahili, English, mother tongue, ornot specified). We settled on these topics based onour analysis of what the primary focus was of eachresearch report. There were some research reportsthat addressed more than one of these topics.

More than half of the empirical studies we lo-cated were unpublished theses or dissertations. Thepublication dates span a 23-year period (1982–2005). We are aware that readers may question thequality and relevance of a review that includes such adiverse literature during a relatively long period.Some readers will wonder about the quality of theresearch in unpublished theses or dissertations, be-cause standards imposed by university faculty com-mittees vary both within and between institutions.Some readers will wonder if findings from studiespublished in the 1980s are relevant to reading educa-tion today in Kenya. Although we agree with andunderstand the significance of these concerns, we of-fer that our purpose here is pragmatic and archival.Our review is pragmatic in that the goal is to takestock of whatever has been researched on reading inorder to motivate action focused on improving read-ing education in Kenya (see Kvale, 1995, for moreon pragmatic validity). Our review is archival in thatthis is the first effort to look across the research con-ducted that might be of interest to those working inthe area of reading education in Kenya. We do notclaim that this review is the real or only truth aboutreading in Kenyan primary schools. Those who readthe review are responsible for deciding what is useful,particularly toward improving reading education inKenya.

In our second phase we used writing as ourmethod of analysis. Although writing as a method ofinquiry has been proposed for qualitative researchers(Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005), it has yet to be de-fended as useful or important in an analytic processfor writing an integrative literature review. Yet, writ-ing was what we did to think, to prioritize and to or-ganize all the information we had collected in theform of empirical and nonempirical documents. Wewrote about what we knew, what was ambiguous, or



what was unknown with regard to each topical cate-gory. This writing understandably led us back torereading, rethinking, and rewriting what was im-portant in approximately 200 pages of analysis.

In the third phase of our analysis, we askedMargaret Makenzi, a senior librarian at EgertonUniversity who serves as president of the localInternational Reading Association council, to readand comment on a longer version of the review.Being in Kenya, she is closer to the day-to-day reali-ties of reading education through her work with stu-dents, teachers, schools, and the Reading Tentproject, explained in a subsequent section of this re-port. She provided investigator triangulation (Chilisa& Preece, 2005). When researchers with variedknowledge and experiential backgrounds participatein a review such as the present one, such triangula-tion provides a check on the interpretations and fur-thers the credibility of the findings.

The reviewLanguage of instruction

In Kenya there are controversies about theteaching of languages and the primary language ofinstruction. The language policy specifies the use ofmother tongue in primary standards 1–3. Thismother tongue could be Kiswahili or anotherAfrican language of the region. English becomes thelanguage of instruction from standard 4 throughuniversity.

The controversies are many. For example, it hasbeen argued that primary school teachers are notprepared to teach in languages other than Kiswahiliand English (Kiarie, 2004). The prevailing assump-tion is that a teacher can transfer methods for teach-ing English and Kiswahili to teach other languages.Although many teachers do attempt to take this ap-proach, it may not necessarily be done effectively(Musau, 2003). All language teachers, whether ofEnglish or African languages, need education in gen-eral language teaching methodologies as well asmethodologies for teaching specific languages(Kiarie). Furthermore the teachers need proficiencythemselves in several languages, yet researchers havefound teachers with insufficient or poor languageskills (Owino, 1987). When the teachers are not flu-ent in English and Kiswahili, they make mistakes inteaching reading.

In upper primary school, teachers are, accord-ing to policy, supposed to teach in English. More of-ten, teachers translate content into the region’s

mother tongue or Kiswahili (Muthwii, 2004a;Nzomo et al., 2001). Muthwii found that teachingwith translation was the strategy teachers used whenthere was an important issue to be addressed or toemphasize to those who might not understand whatwas being said in English. Teachers recognize localAfrican languages or Kiswahili as being instruction-ally important for communication. The practice ofteaching in more than one language in school isstrategic and pragmatic. Teachers use whatever lan-guage is most likely to facilitate understanding.

In fact, speaking in more than one language isa communication strategy used by educatedKenyans, and in some situations it is the expectedmode of communication (Abdulaziz, 1982; Kembo-Sure, 2003). For example, a teacher talking to a col-league without switching to Kiswahili or some otherlocal language would be uncharacteristic. This multi-lingual competence is becoming the norm in politi-cal speeches in Kenya today. The most politicallysignificant pronouncements will be delivered inKiswahili, while the other parts of a speech will bedelivered in English.

Muthwii’s (2002) study examined the extent towhich language policy and the concomitant lan-guage practices encouraged or hampered the acquisi-tion of expected learning competencies therebydetermining potential problems associated with thelanguage policies in Kenya and Uganda. Findingsdiffered depending on whether a school was mono-lingual, multilingual, rural, or urban. Children inrural monolingual and rural multilingual schools re-ported being most comfortable learning in theirmother tongue or Kiswahili. Although in Kenya’s ur-ban schools the children from underprivileged areaspreferred Kiswahili, those in privileged schools pre-ferred both English and Kiswahili. Mutuku (2000)cautioned that if the sociolinguistic backgrounds dif-fer significantly from the official language of instruc-tion, then testing students in that language createsinequities (see also Stroud, 2002). Mutuku com-pared the effects of early childhood experiences onstudents’ KCPE and found that students whoachieved high scores in English were also likely toperform significantly better in the content areas thatare tested in English. The median score on theKCPE was 78.41 on English for urban schools,whereas it was only 50.14 for rural students.

Currently, no provision is made for studentstaking the KCPE examination who have had limitedexposure to English, Kiswahili, or both. The urbanstudents typically have eight years of instruction inaddition to home experiences where they communi-cate in both English and Kiswahili. Their counterparts

in the rural areas have only five years of instructionin English (Mutuku, 2000). Too often, the ruralschool experience is characterized by poor teachingstrategies and excessive use of the mother tongue bythe teachers. Moreover, their instruction in Englishtypically lacks meaningful interactive use in mean-ingful contexts. These disparities are not consideredin traditional testing methodologies based onEnglish reading and writing fluency.

There are schools that choose English as thelanguage of instruction from standard 1, and thispresumably gives their students a testing advantageover those students whose schools begin with mothertongue or Kiswahili (Muthwii, 2004a). Yet teachingin English can also pose problems when childrenlearn it by rote, and there is no enabling environ-ment to practice it. Children must hear languageused correctly in authentic situations if they are go-ing to learn to speak the language purposefully.Difficulties arise as well in the teaching of bothKiswahili and English because some teachers havenot passed their own school exams in those lan-guages (Ikumi, 1985; Nyongesa, 1990).

Onyamwaro (1990) reported that 86% ofteachers in Kisii municipality thought teaching read-ing in Kiswahili was easier than teaching reading inEnglish. This stance is because Kiswahili is linguisti-cally related to many other indigenous languagesspoken in Kenya. Teaching in the mother tongue isnot without challenges. Munyeki (1997), in studying32 preschool teachers, found that they were not mo-tivated to use the students’ mother tongue. Yet, usingthe mother tongue is of utmost importance becauseit facilitates children’s development of concepts thatenables them to acquire knowledge in a second orthird language and to further expose the children tothe cultures of their community (Schroeder, 2005;Sifuna, 1980; UNESCO, 2003; Willis, 1988).Mother tongue is the language a learner needs to relyon as an emergent reader in standard 1 (Schroeder,2001) even though literacy in English is the ultimateobjective. Most children think in mother tongue andthen attempt to translate/articulate their thoughts inEnglish. Munyeki claimed that some teachers failedto realize the multiple purposes when the first lan-guage of instruction is mother tongue or Kiswahili.Primary teachers in standards 1–8 need to teachreading and writing as well as speaking and listeningin this first language of instruction. One reason theuse of mother tongue does not necessarily succeed inteaching the curriculum is because teachers maycome from other language communities. Further-more, when future prospects depend on English ac-quisition and proficiency, this reality overshadows

any serious emphasis on teaching students to read intheir mother tongue (Muthwii, 2002, 2004a).

At the Fourth Pan-African ReadingConference, Schroeder (2005) gave an update of herwork with the Tharaka of Central Kenya. She hasbeen investigating for six years how a language artscurriculum using the language of Tharaka affectedchildren’s cognitive and, therefore, academic devel-opment (Schroeder, 2001, 2005). Through collabo-rations with school district personnel, she developeda mother-tongue, early-childhood reading curricu-lum that covered 10 areas: letter and sight-wordrecognition; categorization; picture interpretationand description; story sequencing; listening tosounds (auditory discrimination, placement ofsound in a word, vowel length); grammar andspelling exercises; creative writing development; vo-cabulary development as part of the reading lessons;exposure to a wide variety of literature; and compre-hension exercises. The lessons and texts are used todevelop new vocabulary and concepts through com-parisons and categorizations thus enabling childrento assimilate new information into their existingschemas or world views. Oral and written literaturesin the mother tongue are used to develop students’vocabulary, spelling, grammar, and comprehension.Schroeder’s (2001) approach to mother-tongue, primary-school programs (standards 1–3) is an ex-emplar of what is possible when educators and poli-cymakers agree to intervene in sustainingmother-tongue education.

We conclude this section on language policyand practices by emphasizing that, in education, themedium of instruction is the means by which learn-ers come to access and understand information thatultimately leads to their further acquisition of lifeskills (Schroeder, 2005; Stroud, 2002; UNESCO,2003). Teachers and students are faced with a host ofcomplexities with regard to the language of instruc-tion. A teacher often uses English to teach the offi-cial curriculum and Kiswahili or another vernacularto further explain what was delivered in English. Yetstudents are expected to respond only in English be-cause it is the official language of instruction(Muthwii, 2002, 2004b; Mutuku, 2000). Use ofmore than one language is viewed as unacceptablefor the students because most Kenyans view Englishas the language of globalization. Thus, although thelanguage policy specifies monolingual instruction inEnglish outside of school, code-switching is thenorm for Kenyans (Kembo-Sure, 2003).

Teachers with their students are basically ontheir own to “sort out the acquisition of the newskills of reading and writing in at least three different



languages, simultaneously” (Muthwii, 2004a, p. 28).The battle among languages is so competitive thatthe language with least support in terms of resourcesinevitably gets left behind or bows out (Abdulaziz,1982). When that happens, resolving the complexi-ties with regard to the language of instruction doesnot seriously consider the benefits of bilingual/multi-lingual education (see Stroud, 2002, for a compre-hensive analysis of how to implement bilingual andmother-tongue education). In teachers’ struggles tosort out at least three languages of instruction, theyneed better teacher preparation and ongoing oppor-tunities for professional learning.

Reading instructionReading instruction occurs for both English

and Kiswahili, so it is useful for readers not familiarwith Kiswahili to understand some basic differencesbetween the two languages. Kiswahili words are reg-ularly spelled and therefore decodable, whereas a sig-nificant percentage of English words are irregularlyspelled and cannot be decoded by following phonicsgeneralizations. Another difference between Englishand Kiswahili are vowel sounds. Whereas Kiswahilihas five vowel phonemes represented graphically asa, e, i, o, and u, their pronunciation approximatesthose in Spanish or Italian. Grammatically the nounis the building block of a sentence, because speakersadd verbs and adjectives using the same prefix of theprefix of the subject. Swahili has a few cognates thatare helpful to speakers of European Romance lan-guages, but it is knowledge of Arabic that is mosthelpful. Swahili ranks seventh among the most wide-ly spoken languages in the world, with somewherebetween 45 and 100 million people using it as theirfirst or second language (for more on the differencesbetween Swahili and English see the Kamusi Projectsponsored by Yale University at www.yale.edu/swahili). Reading instruction depends, in part, on ateacher’s knowledge and effective use of instructionalmethods (Owino, 1987). Across the documents wereviewed, a variety of methods of instruction werementioned for teaching reading. Onyamwaro (1990)surveyed lower primary school teachers in the Kisiimunicipality to find out if they used methods fromtextbooks (Duffy & Sherman, 1977; Friedman &Rowls, 1980; Hafner & Jolly, 1982) to teach readingin Kiswahili. He included two approaches to theteaching of reading—the “analytical” and “synthet-ic.” The analytical approach emphasizes the teachingof reading through emphasis on the elements of the words and their sounds to identify words.Specifically, he asked teachers about the alphabetic,

phonic, and syllabic methods. The teachers were alsosurveyed on their familiarity with word-attack skillssuch as context and phonics clues.

The synthetic approach focuses on sentencesand stories placing the emphasis on reading compre-hension. Specifically teachers were surveyed on theiruse of whole-word, look-and-say, or the sentence-and-story method that is based on the premise that asentence rather than a word or phrase is the moremeaningful unit of language expression for learningto read words. An extension of the sentence methodis the story method where a sequence of sentencesthat form a story is used as the basis of instruction.

Onyamwaro (1990) found that most of the 30teachers (97%) used at least one of the methods in-cluded on his questionnaire. Although there wereteachers who were not familiar with all the methodsincluded, the 29 responses from teachers showedthat almost half of the teacher knew and preferredthe syllabic as opposed to the phonic, whole-word,or story method. This finding may be explained bythe fact that Kiswahili words are formed from 150possible syllables (Wanyoike, 1982). Teaching letter–sound correspondences (the phonic method)makes sense in English, but it is less effective forKiswahili because decoding depends on knowing syl-lables, that is, consonants in combination with vow-els such as baba (father), dada (sister), kaka(brother). Yet there were 24% of the teachers whosaid they preferred the phonic method.Onyamwaro’s results did not reveal why some teach-ers preferred a method that focused on individualletter–sound relationships to teach Kiswahili.

Only one third of the 30 teachers indicatedknowledge of a variety of word-attack skills on thesurvey questionnaire. Yet in classroom observationsOnyamwaro (1990) saw more than one third of theteachers using context clues and phonics. This find-ing suggests that teachers may not have the declara-tive knowledge of specific reading methods whenresponding to survey questionnaires or during inter-views, but they may be observed using the methodswhen teaching reading.

Beginning with the assumption that years ofexperience would result in knowledge of teachingreading in English, Owino (1987) surveyed teachersin four primary schools in Bondo Division, SiayaDistrict. He found that years of experience did notnecessarily increase a teacher’s awareness of readinginstruction methods. In his study of 30 teachers (4of whom had taught for 16 or more years), Owinofound that teachers did not have knowledge of themethods of teaching reading found in textbooks.

School reading instruction is sometimes sup-ported by the involvement of parents in the teachingof reading at home. Obondo (1984) investigated thecooperation between teachers and parents in threeNairobi schools. Through interviews with teachers,parents, and their children in standard 1, Obondofound that most teachers and parents recognized thepotential benefits of cooperating with teachers in thedevelopment of beginning readers. The children toldObondo that they liked reading to their parents, butthis activity was sometimes limited because takingbooks home from school was prohibited. With re-gard to parents assisting their children’s reading,teachers said that they could buy recommendedbooks; listen to their child read; encourage story-telling; and help with phonics, spelling, and draw-ing. Unfortunately this advice was not often orconsistently shared with parents. For some parentsthis advice would be difficult, because of limited lit-eracy skills and economic hardships. Obondo recom-mended that more communication occur betweenteachers and parents to further cooperation in teach-ing reading both at school and home.

A strong foundation in beginning reading isneeded for students to be ready for instruction in in-tensive and extensive reading (Kembo, 1993) as theymove into upper primary school. Intensive refers toreading a particular text to understand both surfaceand deeper meanings, whereas extensive readingrefers to students reading a variety of texts for theirown purposes and for whatever understanding fitsthose purposes. Onyamwaro (1990) and Nyongesa(1990) both report that intensive and extensive read-ing were implemented simply as reading and answer-ing questions. Teachers did not call upon thosestudents who were not proficient in oral reading andmade no provision for silent reading (Onyamwaro).Owino (1987) found that the comprehension exer-cises teachers used did not present reading to the stu-dents as a pleasurable activity and, consequently,they were not motivated to read. Some teachers ofreading in English said that they used reading com-prehension questions to occupy students’ time.Munyeki (1997) found that teachers did not takeinto account students’ reading abilities and that toomuch information was covered within a short periodof time.

Government policy emphasizes that no singlemethod should be used in the teaching of reading(MOEST, 2001). Whatever the methods, theyshould be used strategically to meet the learning ob-jectives set for reading and individual students’ learn-ing needs (Onyamwaro, 1990). Mutuku (2000) wentbeyond the idea of using a mix of instructional meth-

ods by advocating for an interdisciplinary approachto teaching reading and writing across school subjects(what is called content area reading elsewhere).

Reading materialsWith the introduction of Free Primary

Education for all in 2003, the government faced thechallenge of ensuring that all schools had appropriateresources including basic materials for teaching andlearning (Otieno, 2003). Research prior to the intro-duction of free primary education showed that therewere inadequate instructional materials in schools(Akhusama, 1984; Kamau, 2000; Karanu, 1992;Munyeki, 1997; Nyongesa, 1990; Obondo, 1984;Odero, 1995; Onyamwaro, 1990; Oriedo, 1988).Since the first book policy (i.e., The National Policyon Textbook Publication, Procurement and Supplyfor Primary Schools on September 1, 1998) the gov-ernment has promised that schools would havebooks of quality and relevance for the primaryschool curriculum. Yet the government did not pro-vide sufficient funds for this initiative, although itdid get the assistance of donors to provide textbooksto arid and semi-arid land areas and Pockets ofPoverty areas (Nzomo et al., 2001). The lack of re-sources is a perennial problem, as explained inBuchmann’s (1999) historical examination of stateand schooling in Kenya. Three decades after inde-pendence, the educational system was failing due tothe economic decline that began in the 1980s, leav-ing the Kenyan government with a massive debt ofUS$6.8 billion in 1990.

Schools that are in more economically stableareas are more likely to have the government-mandated learning and teaching resources. The con-struction of classrooms and provision of school fur-niture is also the responsibility of parents andcommunities, and therefore the levels of provision inschools may be a reflection of the socioeconomic sta-tus of the school catchment areas. For that reason,the government cannot enforce benchmark stan-dards when it does not contribute to basic school fa-cilities, and parents are limited in what they canafford to contribute to their children’s school. Thus,there is a deficiency in the provision of basic teach-ing and learning materials and notable variations inprovisions such as chalk, pencils, paper, textbooks,and furniture across provinces. Without basic learn-ing materials such as textbooks, exercise books, note-books, and pens or pencils, students aredisadvantaged. According to a UNESCO study(Nzomo et al., 2001), 76% of standard 6 pupils lacktheir own textbook for learning across subjects in



English, approximately 10% of children did nothave a pencil, 22% did not have a ruler, 32% didnot have an eraser, and 11% did not have a pen.One third of all standard 6 students had a classroomlibrary, but as many as 60% had no school library. Inthe schools with a library, only 29% of standard 6students were allowed to borrow books to takehome. Obondo (1984) also found that althoughteachers wanted standard 1 students to practice theirreading at home, they were not allowed to takehome any books.

Odero (1995) investigated teachers’ percep-tions of using children’s literature to teach English inlower level primary schools in rural Kenya. Shefound that teachers endorsed a literature-based ap-proach regardless of whether the schools had a li-brary or not. It was evident, however, that children’sliterature was not widely used. Even teachers with li-braries did not use literature on a regular basis. It ap-pears that availability of instructional materials andresources does not, in itself, guarantee utilization.Owino (1987) found no attempt being made to im-provise and make up for the scarcity of resources.This finding seems to concur with Kamau (2000)and Karanu (1992), who indicated that teacherslacked initiative or were not skilled in finding andusing a variety of resources. Several researchers (e.g.,Kamau; Karanu; Willis, 1988) suggested teachersmust supplement the Ministry of Education andKenya Institute of Education (KIE) mandated cur-riculum and materials with local text materials.Munyeki (1997) suggested that “teachers should in-volve the pupils and their parents in the preparationof [mother tongue] instructional materials” (p. 66).

The general trend in Kenya is to publish schooltextbooks, which is estimated to be about 90% of allbook businesses (Chakava, 1992, p. 128). A summa-ry of new publications in English, Kiswahili, and ver-nacular from 1985 through 1989 showed that of1,045 new titles that had been published, 74% werein English, while 21% were in Kiswahili. New titlesin other Kenyan languages accounted for 3%, withthe remaining 2% in foreign languages (Chakava,1992). Musau (2003) reported that “in a countrywith over 40 languages, instructional materials haveso far been developed only for 22 languages” (p.158). Yet Musau further judged that even whenlearning materials were available in African languages,they were “inadequate for sustaining literacy develop-ment in these languages” (p. 158).

The Council for the Promotion of Children’sScience Publications initiated a project with the ob-jective of promoting science publications for chil-dren (Mwanycky & Bugembe, 1990). The review

focused on identifying reading materials on sciencefor primary-school children (ages 2–14). The re-searchers analyzed 1,138 texts to examine the sciencesubjects included, grade levels covered, costs, au-thors’ names, location of publishers, and languageused. They collected texts from supermarkets, streetvendors, book fairs, book exhibitions, publishers,public libraries, schools, and bookshops.Information on texts was also collected through sur-vey questionnaires and interviews during personalvisits. The results showed that there was a lack ofvaried materials for all primary school grade levels.Less than 2% of books they surveyed were written inKiswahili, with the remainder in English. Many stu-dents, especially those in areas where the populationspeaks languages other than Kiswahili or English, aredisadvantaged in the learning of science concepts bythe instructional materials (Thomson, 2002, 2003;Thomson & Jepkorir, 2002). The instructional ma-terials are not written in the languages most familiarto the children and do not draw upon the children’sdaily life experiences.

Too many reading materials and resources cur-rently fail to capture the important cultural aspectsof many communities in Kenya and do not borrowfrom indigenous African education (Eisemon et al.,1986; Lauglo & Narman, 1987; Shiundu &Omulando, 1992; Sifuna, 1990). For instance, in al-phabet books for children, the word apple is typicallyused to teach letter a. But apples are not common inKenya, and they are rarely seen in rural areas(Makotsi & Nyariki, 1997). Eisemon and colleaguesconducted a comparative analysis between Kenyanfolk tales and stories in school texts with regard tothe narrative structures, use of characters, and formsof dramatization. They found little in the schooltexts that preserves the characteristics of African sto-rytelling beyond the use of African names, places,and subject matter.

The use of locally available materials was em-phasized in several studies (Kamau, 2000; Karanu,1992; Makotsi & Nyariki, 1997; Mutuku, 2000;Odero, 1995; Onyamwaro, 1990). For example,materials (food packages/wrappers, billboard adver-tisements) found in the local environments can bevalid sources of instructional materials and re-sources. There is no limit to the number of instruc-tional materials teachers can readily make use of ifthey are willing to go beyond the textbooks and thechalkboard provided by the government as theironly resources (Onyamwaro; Owino, 1987).Makotsi and Nyariki emphasized the importance ofencouraging local writers and publishers to develop

instructional materials based on local languages andcultural practices.

Other factors that adversely affect the availabil-ity of instructional materials and resources are thelow socioeconomic status of some children’s parents.Even if there were high-quality reading materials inthe market, they could not afford to purchase them.One study found that on average there are 38 booksin the homes of standard 6 pupils (Nzomo et al.,2001). In the North Eastern Province there are onaverage only 25 books per home, whereas in theNairobi urban homes the average climbs to 59.4books. In the same study, standard 6 students wereasked if they had the following possessions at home:daily newspaper, magazine subscriptions, radio, tele-vision set, videocassette recorder, cassette player, tele-phone, refrigerator, car, motorcycle, electricity, pipedwater, and a table to write on. The average for thecountry was 5.4 possessions. Nairobi students weremore materially advantaged, with an average of 8.5possessions in the home, while students in the NorthEastern Province had on average of 3.5 possessions.

Reading cultureGiven the relationship found between volun-

tary reading and academic achievement (Agak, 1995;Mutuku, 2000), there is considerable interest in pro-moting a culture of reading in Kenya (Chakava,1984; Makotsi, 2001). Agak analyzed results fromthe International Association for the Evaluation ofEducational Achievement’s (IEA) Reading LiteracyTest and the KCPE to examine the relation of read-ing habits to academic achievement among 14-year-old students in Kenya. Agak found that studentswho engaged in voluntary reading were more likelyto do better on academic reading and other schoolsubjects. Yet there is concern that African studentsdo not engage in enough voluntary reading. Ingule(1983) found that African children valued readingfirst and foremost for its usefulness. Usefulness, inthis study, referred to passing examinations and se-curing certain kinds of employment. That purposemay not necessarily encourage the voluntary readingAgak found contributed to academic achievement.The question then becomes “What can be done toencourage voluntary reading?”

Willis (1988) suggested teachers read aloud totheir students, and there is evidence that this ap-proach stimulates students to become interested inbooks (MOEST, 2001). Willis further recommendedthat teachers should talk with students about the textto prepare them for independent reading. This ap-proach requires teachers who are engaged readers

themselves and who can authentically share their in-terest in and curiosity for reading (Kembo, 1993).Yet researchers have reported that teachers of readingin Kiswahili and English considered the teaching ofreading difficult (Akhusama, 1984; Onyamwaro,1990; Owino, 1987). Teacher attitudes influenceboth overt behaviors and perceptions (Kiboss et al.,2002). Student respect for their teachers continuesto be a deeply held cultural value that originates outof Africans’ respect for tradition and authority(Fuller & Clarke, 1994). It is incumbent, therefore,for teachers to develop and demonstrate reading ef-fectiveness and to share their passion for readingwith their students. MOEST (2001) provides a vari-ety of ways for encouraging students to read, includ-ing setting aside time each week to be used forreading in class; specifying the amount of reading tobe done out of class and keeping a record to trackthe reading that the pupil has done; asking studentsto give oral reports of what they are reading; usingresource persons to read to the pupils, modeling howthey want the pupils to read; and rewarding effortmade to read. Kembo’s (1993) conclusions concurwith MOEST and suggest that students’ interest andcuriosity can be ignited by reading interesting partsof library books to pupils and by encouraging shortquestions and discussions about the pieces or pin-ning text excerpts on display boards. Kembo claimedthat she used these methods with technical, sec-ondary school classes in Nairobi with great successand that students’ curiosity and need to read thetexts increased.

There is some evidence from the nonempiricalliterature that teachers are realizing the importanceof voluntary reading. In a newspaper article titled “IsAnyone Reading?” Oyaro (2005) interviewed twoprimary school teachers from Nairobi on the topic ofreading. Florence Wangari Charagu, a teacher at MoiAirbase Primary School, said teachers in her schoolare encouraging children to read in class during theEnglish lesson. The students are even encouraged totell stories they have read to their classmates. Thisapproach combines oral and print literacy. KennedyNjuguna, a teacher at City Primary School, con-curred, saying that teachers in his school are also try-ing to make reading enjoyable by getting their pupilsto read in a friendly environment and that theymake their library lesson interesting by allowing thechildren to read outside, under the trees. He assertedthat reading is for enjoyment and relaxation, so thestudents look forward to the library lesson, as theywill be doing something different from being in theclassroom.



Ellen Kitonga (1984) presented a paper onchildren’s literature in Kenya at the InternationalFederation of Library Associations GeneralConference that indicated reading for pleasure oreven for general knowledge was a low priority formany families and that it was rare for children to beable to indulge in reading outside of school. Studentsprimarily read for utilitarian purposes or achieve-ment (Ng’ang’a, 1993). Kembo (1993) noted thatthe situation is changing, and an increasing numberof people, especially the young, are reading for plea-sure. Oyaro (2005) reported that books are becom-ing a bigger part of children’s lives, at least inNairobi. With the reduction of curricular subjectsusing formal examinations from seven to five in theprimary school curriculum in 2003, students havemore time to read in and out of school. Oyaro inter-viewed eight schoolchildren attending The NationalBook Week, held from September 19–24, 2005, atthe Sarit Center in Westlands Nairobi, to discoverwhat they thought of reading. The children’s re-sponses revealed that encouragement from parentsand teachers influenced their interest in reading. Thechildren liked to read a variety of genres within thebroad categories of fiction and nonfiction. They saidreading on their own improved their spelling, gram-mar, dictionary skills, and writing abilities. Some ofthe children preferred reading to playing with friendsor doing their homework. They also liked exchang-ing or sharing books with friends.

Outside of formal education there are effortsaimed at promoting reading. Nongovernmental or-ganizations are actively involved in promoting read-ing and access to reading materials. For instance, in1996, the first book week festival was held in Kenya.One of the outcomes was the establishment in 1997of the National Book Development Council ofKenya (NBDC-K; Makotsi, 2001). The KenyaChildren’s Book Project, which is under NBDC-K,received funding to support book donations to ruralschools and libraries. Its book donation project pur-chases and distributes books from indigenousKenyan publishers such as East Africa PublishingCompany. For a newspaper article, Oyaro (2005) in-terviewed Atieno Okundo, the director of theNBDC-K. Okundo claimed that a culture of readingexists and that there were concerted efforts aroundthe country to encourage children to read. Thecouncil organizes children’s reading tents throughoutthe year where children are introduced to books andtheir teachers are shown how to care for new booksdonated to their schools. Okundo reported that inthe year 2004, through the support of the RockefellerFoundation and SIDA, her organization established

232 libraries with donated books. The council’s ob-jective is to promote reading in the youngest of chil-dren with the aim of developing lifelong readers.

Makenzi et al. (2003) described the secondphase of an innovative project to promote readinginterest and ability, funded by the RockefellerFoundation. The Reading Tent Project (RTP) wasinstituted in November 1999 as an outreach pro-gram of the Research and Extension Division atEgerton University in Njoro, Kenya. One of the as-sumptions RTP held was that if a society of readersis to be nurtured in Kenya, then children had to beplaced at the forefront so that good reading habitsand skills are inculcated while they are still in theirformative years. The Reading Tent Project has alsomade use of technology in promoting a culture ofreading. The project included computers to listen totalking books, read from the Internet, and to writeelectronic mail messages. Makenzi and her colleaguesfollowed a group of 1,567 students in standards 4and 5 from 10 rural primary schools within NjoroDivision for three consecutive years. The RTP eventsthey attended involved teaching elementary readingskills through educational games, drawing, andpainting. The Reading Tent “creatively repackagedand attractively presented [traditional print] in part-nership with new and emerging information andcommunication technologies...to meet the demandsof modern life” (Makenzi et al., p. 212).

RTP raised a new level of awareness and hopeamong pupils and teachers. The students showed ev-idence of reading with greater zeal and developed alove of exchanging storybooks and discussing storiesread. Emanating from this development, most of theschools proceeded to establish their own libraries us-ing portable carton boxes placed in classrooms with-out shelves.

AssessmentAssessment is an inevitable and necessary area

of concern in the teaching of reading. Literacy andother basic skills, especially in developing countries,have been recognized as critical to judging the quali-ty of educational programs (UNESCO Nairobi/IRA, 2004). Performance on examinations is a de-ciding factor for an individual’s future in educationand eventual participation in nation building (Agak,1995). Most students in primary school want toscore high enough on the KCPE to gain access to agovernment secondary school (Buchmann, 1999).The importance of the KCPE is why many teachershold the view that this end-of-primary-school

examination is the sole determinant of what shouldbe taught (Kiboss et al., 2002).

The KCPE examination of English andKiswahili consists of a cloze passage to test grammar,sentence structure, and reading comprehensionthrough two comprehension passages, one fictionand the other nonfiction. However, performance onthe KCPE has been declining for approximately adecade. The national mean scores in all subjects onKCPE have fallen below 50% as reported by a pri-vate research and development firm (OWN &Associates, 2004). In 1999, the mean score inEnglish was 53.48, whereas it was 42.20 in 2002(UNESCO Nairobi/IRA, 2004). The decline inKCPE scores was a part of a downward trend in edu-cation after the success of the first three decades fol-lowing independence in 1963 (Bedi et al., 2002).The World Bank and International Monetary Fund’sstructural adjustment programs instituted in the1980s drastically reduced the buying power of thestate and households (Assié-Lumumba, 2005),which negatively affected the production and avail-ability of literacy learning materials for the 80% ofchildren attending rural schools. These factors mayaccount for the decline.

The Southern Africa Consortium forMonitoring Educational Quality (SACMEQ) con-ducted a large-scale assessment project that is infor-mative about reading literacy (Nzomo et al., 2001).The project investigated five general areas, and twoof these areas were related to reading: (a) What is thelevel of reading achievement for standard 6 pupils?and (b) Which educational inputs to primaryschools have most impact upon reading achievementof standard 6 pupils? (Nzomo et al.). A reading testwas designed to conform to the reading syllabi forstandard 6 students. Standard 6 was chosen becausein most of the 14 SACMEQ member countries it isthe penultimate class for primary examination (al-though in Kenya it is standard 8). Reading literacywas operationally defined as “[t]he ability to under-stand and use written language forms required by so-ciety and/or valued by the individual” (p. 9). Writingability was deliberately excluded from the definition,and only minimum writing ability was required ofpupils throughout the test. A multiple-choice testcovering three domains of reading (narrative, exposi-tory, and documents) was accepted after trial testing.A national sample of 185 schools was drawn. Withineach school, a random sample of 20 pupils fromstandard 6 was drawn to evaluate the readingachievement for all students.

On the basis of the test results and their associ-ated standard errors, Nzomo et al. (2001) concluded

with 95% confidence that “about 35 percent of stu-dents did not reach the designated minimum mas-tery level of reading and about 77 percent did notreach the desirable level of reading” (p. 75). AcrossKenya there were performance clusters. At the highend came Nairobi, next there were four provinceswith similar percentages (Coast, Central, Eastern,and Rift Valley), and then another two provinceswere at the bottom (Western and North Eastern).Overall, the authors of the report concluded “thatthe reading-literacy levels of standard-six pupils inKenya in 1998 were poor when judged against themastery standards set down by the Ministry’s ownexperts. Within this overall performance, moderatelevels of success were evident in Nairobi whereas ex-tremely poor levels of success were found in Nyanza”(p. 67). Analyses for subgroups of test takers showedthat gender was not a major factor, with girls per-forming slightly better than boys at the mastery lev-el. The factors that did affect performance weresocioeconomic level and geographic location.

The School Based Teacher Development unitunder MOEST (2001) has considered why studentshave problems reading English. Other than physio-logical factors (vision and hearing problems), somestudents lack reading experience and may not be ef-fectively using the three main cueing systems: antici-pating and predicting the meanings of words(semantic knowledge), using word order to makesense of reading (syntactic knowledge), and under-standing the letter–sound relationships to pronouncewords (phonological knowledge). MOEST empha-sized that students having difficulties in any of theseareas will be handicapped in all other subjects andwill continue to do poorly until they can strategicallymake use of the three cueing systems.

Mutuku (2000) studied the effects of earlychildhood experiences on students’ KCPE scores andfound that English and mathematics scores were pos-itively correlated. Students who achieved high scoresin English were also likely to perform better in thecontent areas, which are written in English. KCPE isa high-stakes competitive examination, and the re-sults are used for entrance to secondary school. Acritical examination of the validity of these high-stakes examinations might indicate that they are un-fair assessments, because they rest on thefundamental assumption that those tested have hadsimilar opportunities to learn the skills, facts, princi-ples, and procedural methods that are tested.Furthermore, Mutuku argued that a single measuretaken at a single point in time can never capture thecomplexity of what we must know about the whole



child and how the educational program affects eachstudent’s overall development.

Assessment should identify what a child can orcannot do in order to inform instruction in additionto measuring reading achievement, which is the cur-rent focus of testing. Mutuku (2000) recommendedstructured observational protocols, projects, and oth-er performance-oriented methods to gauge what thelearner can actually do in authentic situations.According to Mutuku, more naturalistic sources ofinformation must be developed about how peoplesaround the world acquire skills that are important intheir lives. This conclusion coincides with Owino’s(1987) earlier study, which did not find a holisticcontinuous approach to reading assessment in a sur-vey of the teaching of reading in English in four pri-mary schools in Bondo division, Siaya District.Teachers typically did not assess students’ ability tocomprehend what was being taught as the lessonsprogressed. No records were kept of pupils’ progressor instructional needs. In Onyamwaro’s (1990) studyon factors that affect the teaching of reading inKiswahili in lower primary classes in KisiiMunicipality, it was recommended that teachers usemore informal assessment procedures and methods,and individual assessment of pupils’ progress shouldbe preferred to group assessment. Individualized as-sessment would enable the teacher to identify and toplan for the different learning styles and reading abil-ities of his or her pupils.

Assessment can inform the teaching of languagegenerally and reading specifically. The task of the pri-mary school educator is thus not a simple matter ofteaching children to read (if such a task can be con-sidered in any way “simple”). Teachers need to findout what each child has achieved and where instruc-tion is needed (Munyeki, 1997). Furthermore, atten-tion to assessment seems critical because of evidencethat there are children in Kenya struggling to readand who would benefit from remediation or othermethods of instruction (Gakunga, 1982; UNESCONairobi/IRA, 2004; Wanyoike, 1978). Children whofail or fall behind in the acquisition of reading arelimited because they face the difficult task of operat-ing, with limited means, in a linguistic and cognitiveworld of increasingly abstract and intentional sophis-tication (Willis, 1988).

It is thus incumbent upon teachers to identifywhere students are struggling so that instruction fo-cuses on those strategies that can lead to readingwith confidence (MOEST, 2001). The module forteachers on teaching English in the primary class-room recommends that teachers consider these as-sessment questions: “Can they read aloud well?;

How is their silent reading?; How are their word at-tack skills?; How fast can they read?; Do they haveany bad reading habits?; and Can they skim andscan?” (MOEST, p. 280). A meeting on “NewDefinitions of Literacy: Implications for Assessmentand Instruction” claimed that such classroom-basedassessment of reading is lacking in Kenya (UNESCONairobi/IRA, 2004). Participants in that meeting,held in September 2004, suggested that assessmentsshould target learners’ developmental strengths andneeds. Models of strategic thinking involved in wordidentification and text comprehension should betaught for reading both English and Kiswahili.

Attendees at the “New Definitions” meeting(from Kenya National Commission for UNESCO,Kenya Institute of Education, university lecturersfrom Kenya and the United States, Kenya NationalExamination Council, and International ReadingAssociation members from the United States andKenya) agreed that reading assessment in Kenya doesnot inform teachers of individual learners’ needs. Theparticipants questioned the system of assessment,which to them has undermined the spirit of reading,led to high levels of dropouts at both primary andsecondary school levels, and contributed to the lackof creativity in learners (UNESCO Nairobi/IRA,2004). During the meeting, it was postulated that theKenya National Examination Council (KNEC),which is the major examining body for primary andsecondary education, has yet to create assessmentsthat inform reading instruction at the classroom level.Given the present primary school pupil population ofabout 7 million in more than 18,000 schools, creat-ing such assessment would require resources thatKNEC does not have at present (UNESCONairobi/IRA). KNEC has tried conducting school-based assessments in the past but failed due to finan-cial and material resources constraints as well asfactors related to nepotism, tribalism, and corruption.

Assessment techniques need to be culturallyand linguistically sensitive in determining the acade-mic achievement and potential of diverse students(Carter et al., 2005) if they are to contribute to theaims of a democratic society within a system of pub-lic education (Musau, 2003; Stroud, 2002). To cre-ate culturally relevant assessments those involvedneed to know enough to distinguish between behav-iors, beliefs, perceptions, institutions, and technolo-gies that are culturally particular versus those that areculturally variable (Carter et al.). The degree towhich assessments reflect the goals set for individualsin a specific cultural context affects the ecological va-lidity of the assessment (Mishra, 1997). Eviatar(2000) argued that culture should be considered a

variable, similar to age or sex, that can be crucial indefining the manner in which higher cognitiveprocesses, such as language, are related to brain organization.

Carter et al.’s (2005) study reviewed literatureon cross-cultural assessments to identify major issuesin the development and adaptation of speech andlanguage assessments for children. They were (a) fa-miliarity with the testing situation, (b) the effect offormal education, (c) language issues, and (d) picturerecognition. The review delineated a list of 10 guide-lines regarding the importance of collaboration withmother-tongue speakers. A researcher or practitionermust also be careful not to miss the different styles ofnonverbal communication, such as gestures and eyemovements, used by children to augment their oralcommunication. Formal assessments should be com-plemented by other measures of the social efficacy ofthe child’s communication abilities at home and inthe community before concluding the child hasreading problems based on language or speech diffi-culties. Greater awareness of cultural variation andbias are needed to develop and administer culturallyappropriate assessment tools to make decisions aboutinstructional intervention approaches (Carter et al.).

The literature on assessment consistently advo-cates that teachers be given special preparation withregard to formative and summative assessment(Agak, 1995; Mutea, 2000; Nzomo et al., 2001). Avariety of assessments need to be used in conjunctionwith KCPE for comprehensive and valid appraisalsof children’s language abilities (UNESCONairobi/IRA, 2004). Other suggestions include im-proving the knowledge base of school inspectors andincreasing the frequency of their school visits(Nzomo et al.). School inspectors sent from theMinistry of Education use such occasions to giveprofessional guidance to teachers on how best to useassessment to identify students’ strengths and needs,much like literacy coaches are doing in the UnitedStates. Local schools need to take more responsibilityas well, because the government does not have thecapacity to test all skills in reading achievement.

We reiterate here that due to cultural variationin Kenya and the potential for cultural bias, new as-sessment tools need to be developed, or existing toolsrequire adaptation in order to improve diagnostic ac-curacy and treatment outcomes of students withreading difficulties in Kenya. It is critical to opera-tionalize equitable and fair assessments within thecontext of cultural diversity (Gay, 1997; Musau,2003; Thompson, 1981), and perhaps the Ministryof Education should consider whether or not tradi-tional and alternative approaches to testing could co-

exist to serve the diverse needs in their classroomsmore effectively. In any event, we agree with thosewho call for assessment in Kenya to include informalassessments of decoding, orthography, fluency, andtext comprehension in order to differentiate instruc-tion (UNESCO Nairobi/IRA, 2004).

Teacher development and placementIn Kenya, preservice and inservice reading edu-

cation is not given sufficient emphasis (Nzomo et al.,2001). The primary-teacher education curriculum isgeneral and broad without concentrations or special-izations. Any graduate from a teacher training col-lege theoretically is prepared to teach all subjects atany grade level in the primary school. Mutuku(2000) proposed that preservice primary teachersneed more preparation in the teaching of speaking,listening, reading, and writing. Further, Mutea(2000) concluded that secondary teachers need morepreparation to integrate the teaching of English as alanguage with reading literature in English. In addi-tion, there is a need for an advanced educationalprogram or degree for the preparation of readingspecialists.

Educators in Africa have argued that the key toeducational quality is the quality of the teachingforce; no educational system can be stronger than itsteachers (Mutuku, 2000). A teacher’s academic andprofessional qualifications are important predictorsof the quality of teaching because the “essence of ef-fective teaching lies in the ability of the teacher to setup desired outcomes” (Muthwii, 2002, p. 44). Thegovernment of Kenya, therefore, takes seriously thepreparation of its teachers and provides three teachertraining options: (a) two-year residential course; (b)three-year inservice programs, with the option of res-idential or distance education; and, more recently,(c) a university bachelor’s degree in education. To becertified as a primary school teacher, one has to com-plete one of these three programs (Nzomo et al.,2001).

Yet, the studies we reviewed document thatmany of those who are preparing to be teachers hadperformed poorly in English on the KCSE examina-tion (Onyamwaro, 1990). This limitation then de-nies them opportunities to pursue careers other thanteaching. Too often primary school teaching is some-one’s final option for a professional career. That situ-ation explains in part why primary teachers needbetter teacher education in reading to develop theirown language skills so they are better prepared toteach and conduct needs-based instruction (UNESCO Nairobi/IRA, 2004).



There is no clear policy for ongoing teacher de-velopment in teaching reading through inservice orshort courses. Nzomo and colleagues (2001) suggest-ed that the Ministry of Education should revisit thecurrent policy of inservice training programs and re-vise it so that all teachers in all provinces receive reg-ular updating of their professional skills throughsuch programs. According to Nzomo and colleagues,few teachers attend inservice courses once they grad-uate from teacher training colleges. In their study,teachers were asked to specify the number of inser-vice courses they had attended during their teachingcareers. The national average was 3.4, but in theNorth Eastern Province the mean was 0.9. It shouldbe noted that when answering the question it is pos-sible that some teachers might have indicated thatthey had attended an inservice course, while, in actu-al fact, it was the inservice course for the initialteacher training that they had attended.Onyamwaro’s (1990) study found that 21 of 30teachers had never attended a course since graduat-ing. In all the research studies we reviewed it was rec-ommended that teachers needed inservice courses oneffective reading and language instruction.Onyamwaro suggested that inservice courses wereneeded to keep teachers abreast of new developmentsin teaching the four language skills. Other re-searchers promoted the idea of teachers engaging increative activities such as writing books and develop-ing reading programs (Kamau, 2000; Munyeki,1997; Nyongesa, 1990). The formation of profes-sional language organizations was also suggested(Nyongesa).

Another concern is the placement of effectiveteachers and reading programs in schools. A majorchallenge facing the government is staffing schoolsthroughout Kenya to rectify imbalances, with someareas being overstaffed while others are understaffed.This imbalance is a thorny issue because teachersfrom certain ethnic groups are not accepted in someareas, and redeploying them to such areas might ac-tually present a security risk (Nzomo et al., 2001).Teacher redeployment is therefore not always a feasi-ble approach for correcting these staffing inequities.This problem has led the government to review itsapproach to teacher preparation so that it is demanddriven, as opposed to the previous practice of re-cruiting teacher trainees to fill the 21 public teachertraining colleges with guaranteed employment.Commencing in 1999, the government has been re-cruiting preservice teachers from those ethnic regionswhere there is need for teachers, in order to postthem to their home areas (Nzomo et al.).

Concluding proposalsThis integrative review has allowed us to dis-

cover what has been written about teaching readingin Kenyan primary schools. Our pragmatic approachled us to consider as many relevant documents as wecould locate both in Kenya and from searching elec-tronic databases in the United States. Based on whatwe have learned, we offer the following proposals forthose concerned about and working on reading edu-cation in Kenya. It is also possible that these propos-als will be useful to others working in multiethnic,multilingual settings.

We propose a multitheoretic approachto teaching reading

In our review of empirical studies and otherdocuments we find that the teaching of reading cur-rently emphasizes the acquisition of functional litera-cy. From the perspective of UNESCO “people areliterate if they can engage in all those activities inwhich literacy is required for effective functioning intheir group and also for enabling them to continueto use reading, writing, and calculation for their ownand the community’s development” (Muthwii,2004b, p. 40). We did not find any indication thatreading is being taught from other perspectives suchas construction of meaning, a sociocultural approach(Muthwii), or a critical literacy approach appropriateto postcolonial Africa (Prinsloo & Janks, 2002). Thisfinding leads us to propose that policymakers, re-searchers, and educators explore ways of teachingreading that draw from several theoretical views ofreading. This change is needed if reading educationis going to teach children to be functional in local,national, and international settings by constructingmeaning within differing sociocultural contextswhile also engaging in critical analysis.

We propose more attention to the childin reading education

In 2003, the Kenyan government abolishedschool fees for primary education, and 1.3 millionpoor children entered school for the first time (UN-ESCO, 2006). The typical primary school teacherhas 40 to 50 students in his or her classroom(Central Bureau of Statistics, Ministry of Planningand National Development, 2005). How can theneeds of children as individuals be given more atten-tion? The research we found focused on methods,materials, and teachers. The importance of children’s

literacy learning was assumed, but we believe that anemphasis on the best reading method or materialscan inadvertently overlook the children themselves.Each child is an individual with abilities and needsthat differ from others in the same classroom. Thequality of teacher–student interaction is of centralimportance, according to research done in the West.For example, it is viewed as the most important fac-tor, accounting for large differences in outcome mea-sures when the same curriculum materials andpurportedly the same teaching methods are used(Akers & Hardman, 2001).

Heneveld and Craig (1996) suggested that re-search on teacher–student interactions will be crucialin developing countries and pointed to the gap in re-search generally, and in sub-Saharan Africa specifi-cally. A recent study of Kenyan primary schoolteachers’ discourse found that teacher-led recitationdominated with little attention given to solicitingstudents’ thinking (Pontefract & Hardman, 2005). Itis common knowledge that rote memorization andrepetition prevail in large classes.

Much of curriculum development in readingshould continue to focus on the introduction of newmethodologies that move away from rote learningand teacher-centered procedures and toward activityand discovery, child-centered procedures. Manyyears ago, Thompson (1981) recommended thismove for other subject areas in Kenya. Large classsizes coupled with insufficient basic resources such astextbooks, paper, and pencils make it difficult forteachers to move away from lecturing as the primarymode of instruction.

We propose more emphasis onmultilingualism in reading education

Because language embodies the cultural valuesof a people, when subject matter is presented in theEnglish language to students in Kenya it perpetuatesan outsider, colonial cultural heritage based on thevalues of Western English speakers’ identity, knowl-edge, skills, history, traditions, behavior, and beliefsystems (Maina, 2003). In other words, Kenyanshave been denied their own culture when schoolsoveremphasize the use of English. Denying or deem-phasizing mother tongues ignores the cultural rootsof students (Makotsi & Nyariki, 1997), resulting inwhat Schroeder (2001) calls cognitive hijacking.Cognitive hijacking contributes to cultural hijacking.We believe that children’s home languages (i.e., theirmother tongues) are rich cultural reservoirs, and the

very essence of education in Kenya should be cultur-al preservation.

On the basis of our review, we conclude thatthe current language policy in Kenya is fraught withproblems, which are unlikely to be solved withoutresearch that investigates how to teach children wholive in a multilingual society to acquire and to main-tain multiple languages both in and out of school.English will continue to be used in schools becauseof the reality that it provides access to certain kindsof employment and further educational opportunity(Muthwii, 2003, 2004a). Policies that recognize andspecify the role of all languages used in the countryand their potential in the realization of the aspira-tions of their users are recommended. These aspira-tions might include the ability to read and write intheir languages; accessing information and knowl-edge in them; and participating in the political, eco-nomic, and judicial systems of Kenya in theselanguages (Agak, 1995; Odini, 2000). To ensure fullparticipation of the masses in democratic practices,efforts to increase literacy in multiple languages mustbe tangible, rigorous, and deliberate. These effortswill, undoubtedly, also require “deep-seated commit-ment among the elite and the policymakers in par-ticular” (Musau, 2003, p. 162) while presentinghuge financial challenges.

The transfer of literacy skills across languages isan underutilized learner competence (Kembo-Sure,2003). In exploring this issue, the goal should be tomake African indigenous languages translatable withother languages suitable as vehicles of modern dis-course (Musau, 2003). Technology could play a rolein realizing this goal because there is computer soft-ware that provides translations between languages.These programs may not be perfected enough nowbut are likely to improve with time, and African lan-guages should be included. Other avenues that offerrealistic and positive possibilities to promote theseefforts, such as the Internet, must be explored too.Schools in Kenya should not only recognize the cul-tural and language differences of the children, butalso make these differences the basis of educating thedifferent population by incorporating different cul-tural contents, achievements, and perspectives withthe school curriculum and teaching strategies (Ogbu,1990). Consistent with what Bunyi (1999) pro-posed, it is our position that, if Kenyans are to func-tion both at the local and at the international level,fluency should be retained in both speaking andreading in the home language and culture as well asan acquired fluency in English. Further researchmight explore ways in which formal education insti-



tutions can either reaffirm community marginaliza-tion or empower minority language speakers.

We propose the development of a strongerbilingual/multilingual literacy education that is in-formed by postcolonial, sociocultural, and psycholin-guistic perspectives. There is currently a movementamong African writers to write in their own lan-guages. Barber and Furniss (2006) explained that

African language writing in general offers an unparalled lab-oratory in which to ask questions about innovation and cre-ativity about new genres and how they come into being;about the innumerable, protean ways in which orality com-bines with literacy; about the changing constitution ofpublics and imagined communities; about the cultural na-tionalism and forms of the imagination that exceed culturalnationalism; and the self-conception and representation ofthe individual through writing. (p. 1)

This movement has the potential to increasethe prestige of minority Kenyan languages alongwith Swahili and English (Sedlak, 1983). It is likelythat this movement will result in the consolidationof the use and development of Kenyan African lan-guages for wider communication (Mazrui, 1996).

The challenges of including reading in otherAfrican languages might seem insurmountable, butKenya must see this process as inevitable. Musau(2003) suggested standardizing and harmonizingsome of the closely related African indigenous lan-guages, an idea that has been discussed at variousconferences that deal with the development ofAfrican languages (e.g., International Association forthe Improvement of Mother Tongue Education). Atthe outset the idea seems attractive, but researchersand all interested in this area should consider its via-bility and the danger of marginalizing some of theethnic groups. There is a potential for marginaliza-tion because language and education are fundamentalissues of power for minority-language speakers livingin globally transformed economies (Stroud, 2002).

We propose reading materials that areculturally relevant and accessible

Culture is expressed through language and ac-tion. Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1986) explained,

Language as communication and as culture are products ofeach other.... Language carries culture, and culture carries,particularly through orature and literature, the entire body ofvalues by which we perceive ourselves and our place in theworld.... Language is thus inseparable from ourselves as acommunity of human beings with a specific form and char-acter, a specific history, a specific relationship to the world.(pp. 15–16)

Language is indeed the soil, the seedbed, of meaning(Birkerts, 1994). The literature by Kenyan authors isan important cultural resource for education. Yettextbooks have been the most important teaching re-source available (Barasa, 1984; Chakava, 1992;Makotsi, 2001; Musau, 2003). Students’ ability tolearn from reading books cannot be assumed.Purchasing Kenyan or any other literature is costly,thus out of reach for many Kenyan children andhouseholds. We propose a broader concept of schoolreading materials be adopted that would include, forexample, environmental print and teacher- and student-generated print, to provide reading materialsfor students across socioeconomic strata.

Studies we reviewed indicated that there aretoo few locally produced and culturally appropriatebooks (Makotsi, 2001). So, alongside the teaching ofreading skills, the quality of the reading materialsshould be assessed and improved. Readability indicesof books are important to identify potential readingproblems which students are likely to face and tobetter match the text and the reader. We concur withBarasa (1984) that teachers need to have a clear con-ception of text–reader compatibility if learning is tobe guaranteed. Meaningful material is learned morerapidly and remembered longer whereas incompre-hensible material is of little educational value(Barasa). Given that availability of books or texts ofsome kind are essential if children are to improvetheir reading comprehension, it is incumbent on theeducational authorities to ensure that children haveaccess to a variety of texts either through school ormobile libraries. This will help especially in Westernand North Eastern Provinces (Nzomo et al., 2001).Recommendations and suggestions are made for fur-ther research toward developing a clearer under-standing of the interaction between young readers inKenya and their reading materials (Barasa, 1984).Publishing houses have a long history in Kenya.They mushroomed alongside missionary work in the1890s (Chakava, 1984). Today, efforts by publishers,such as Chakava, are producing texts in indigenouslanguages. Through book development associationssuch as East Africa Book Development Association(EABDA), cross-border trade in books can bestrengthened, and a culture of reading may becomemore firmly entrenched among Kenyans. More re-search might inquire into efforts to make those textsaccessible to a wider population of Kenyans, espe-cially in the rural areas. For instance, the ReadingTent Project mounts reading activities in differentparts of Nakuru.

Africans are an oral and a practical people;thus, education that focuses mainly on written texts

(particularly in a foreign language) tends to disad-vantage children, especially those in rural areas. It iscritical, therefore, that as Kenya plans to transformits education system it takes into account and re-turns to some ideas from African IndigenousEducation (Lauglo & Narman, 1987; Shiundu &Omulando, 1992; Sifuna, 1990, 2001). Global edu-cation should not be a replacement of indigenousvalues at whatever cost. We would like to see educa-tional reform that will not perpetuate cognitive andcultural hijacking. Kenyan education needs to pro-vide students with a firm foundation and deep rootsin their own environment and mix of cultures, whilestill providing a global education (Stroud, 2002).

We propose capacity building inreading education

The documents we reviewed support the needto improve the quality and quantity of teachers whoare both interested in teaching reading and qualifiedto teach in that area. Further, schools should have atleast one reading specialist who can work with chil-dren and their classroom teachers. Veteran and newteachers would benefit from inservice courses in read-ing instruction and assessment. Such efforts wouldbring teachers together to learn from one another andfrom those who have studied reading education inother countries, strategies that will prepare allKenyans to read at a level that will enable them to ac-complish their day-to-day tasks in life. Teacher prepa-ration and professional development must alsoaddress and situate reading within the larger sociocul-tural and historical realities of education in Kenya.

In our review, many teachers mainly usedteacher-directed methods for instruction. Teachers’conservatism in teaching styles may result from theimages of teaching that are culturally transmittedand deeply internalized (Sifuna, 1990). Teachers maytherefore find it difficult to imagine that knowledge,information, and skills could possibly be transmittedin any way other than through teacher-led recitation(Akers & Hardman, 2001). Sifuna argued that thesesocializing factors have a greater influence in theKenyan primary school contexts, where over 30% ofteachers are untrained. Given these powerful culturalinfluences, it is therefore not surprising that Kenyanprimary teachers, particularly those with less prepa-ration, would draw upon such implicit knowledge,especially when faced with the problem of managinglarge numbers of pupils in the classroom (Akers &Hardman). This area needs to be explored throughfurther research.

Collaborative efforts between universities andother agencies, such as United Bible Societies (www.forministry.com/KECORPORATE/Translation.dsp),interested in the teaching and promotion of mothertongues should be encouraged. Perhaps a secretariatin the Ministry of Education that deals with readingcould be established. Such a body could promote re-search and professional development on reading in-struction suited to Kenyan contexts

We propose more reviews be undertakenon reading in African countries

A valued resource for reading researchers inthe United States and elsewhere are the three vol-umes of the Handbook of Reading Research (Barr,Kamil, Mosenthal, & Pearson, 1991; Kamil,Mosenthal, Pearson, & Barr, 2000; Pearson, Barr,Kamil, & Mosenthal, 1984). All of the research re-viewed within those volumes was undertaken out-side of Africa. We find that far less research onreading education has been done in Africa.Nevertheless, research on reading, and more broadlyliteracy, has been undertaken and will be easier tofind in the coming years through the Internet andbecause of the biannual Pan-African ReadingConference. We encourage others to follow our ex-ample and to locate all pertinent literature and toconduct a review of the state of reading education ineach of the African countries so that the firstHandbook of Reading in Africa can be published forthe benefit of all of us who are working to promoteand improve reading on the African continent.There are enough similarities across nations with re-gard to linguistic diversity, economic hardships, andschooling and assessment practices that research re-sults in one nation on reading may be important tothose in other nations on the continent.

MICHELLE COMMEYRAS is professor of reading education in theLanguage and Literacy Education Department at the University ofGeorgia. She directs the UGA Reading Clinic and teaches preservice,inservice, and doctoral students. Her current research interests includethe state of reading education in Africa, tutoring reading with videogames, and literacy teacher education. She can be reached at theDepartment of Language and Literacy Education Department,University of Georgia, 309 Aderhold Hall, Athens, GA 30602, USA, orby e-mail at [email protected].

HELLEN N. INYEGA holds a PhD in Language and Literacy Education(Reading Education Program) from the University of Georgia in Athens,Georgia, USA. She is a lecturer at Kenya Science Teachers College, apreservice high school math and science teacher-preparation collegein Kenya. She can be reached at Kenya Science Teachers College, PO Box 30596, 00100, Nairobi, Kenya, or by e-mail [email protected].



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A U T H O R S ’ N O T EThis work was made possible through the support of the International

Reading Association’s 2004 Nila Banton Smith Dissemination Grant.Thanks to James Baumann, Rose Chepyator-Thomson, and Andrew R.O.Riechi for the letters they wrote in support of our application for the grant.Thanks to Jennifer Bowser for introducing us to Margaret Makenzi, whoserved as our key informant in Kenya and provided investigator triangu-lation by reading and commenting on one of the final versions of the man-uscript. Also in Kenya we were assisted by Eliud Barasa, Kukubo Barasa,Henry Chakava, Ruth Makotsi, Helen Mondoh, Monica Mweseli,Bernard Njuguna, S.C. Otenya, and Chris Wangila. We further thank ouranonymous reviewers and tracking editor, David Reinking, for guidingus toward a publishable version of our work.

Received January 3, 2006Final revision received October 8, 2006

Accepted October 23, 2006

An integrative review of teaching reading in Kenyan primary schools

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