Teacher Preparedness and Utilization of Print- Rich Environment in Rethinking Creative Literacy in Udu Local Government Area, Delta State (Published)
Literacy is an important passport to future learning which can be promoted at the primary school level through adequate teacher preparation and utilization of a print rich environment. This paper examines teacher’s preparedness in creating and utilizing print rich environment for lifelong creative literacy in public primary schools in Oshimili South Local Government Area of Delta State, Nigeria. Three research questions guided the study. It employed a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study comprised three hundred and forty-two (342) public primary school teachers in Oshimili South Local Government Area. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select one hundred and forty two (142) teachers for the study. The instrument for data collection was a 28-item structured questionnaire titled “teachers preparedness and utilization of print-rich environment for promoting lifelong creative literacy” (TPUPLCL). The instrument was face validated by three experts. To establish the content reliability of the instrument Crombach Alpha, was used and a reliability coefficient of 0.78, 0.79 and 0.81 was obtained from the three clusters with an overall reliability coefficient of 0.79 obtained for the entire instrument. Data collected were analyzed using the mean score and standard deviation. The findings of the study was that teachers possess moderate adequate but uneven skills in utilization of print rich environment, they have a generally good but not fully uniform ability to utilize print-rich environments and teachers agreed that they face various challenges in utilizing a print rich environment thus limiting their use of a print rich environment required for promoting lifelong creative literacy program for pupils at the primary school level. Based on the findings, recommendations made among others included that training gaps, professional development needs and adequate funding will go a long way in promoting teachers preparedness for lifelong creative literacy.
Keywords: lifelong creative literacy, print-rich environment, teacher preparedness