Phonics Instructional Strategies Used at Lower Primary Schools of Vubwi District, Zambia

Zambia’s literacy levels have been dwindling over the years, and many assumptions have been made to establish the cause. One of the causes could be the instructional strategies used in schools. Therefore, the study was carried out to establish phonics instructional strategies used at lower primary schools in Vubwi district of Zambia in 10 selected schools. A concurrent embedded research design of mixed method approach was used in the study, where the qualitative approach had more weight than the quantitative approach. Lesson observation, document analysis and interview guide were used to collect data from a sample of 33 teachers, 10 head teachers, 2 from cooperating partners and 1 district official. Findings revealed that teachers mixed instructional strategies well, which made them achieve more in one lesson. However, they were inconsistent in mixing these strategies; what they used mostly were the common strategies that were not of synthetic phonics in nature: question and answer, role-play, games, and observation. These were called phonics instructions by the teachers, and yet they were just “auxiliary” or “amplifier” strategies. This showed that teachers did not differentiate between common strategies and phonics strategies. The study recommended that education authorities at the school level should take an interest in knowing the type of instructional strategies teachers were using in school. They should observe and report to the district authority, who further report to the province until the report reaches the Ministry of Education headquarters for further consideration if the methods used were not in agreement with what was prescribed to be taught in schools, so that corrective measures could be provided.