ABSTRACT
Research has shown that when children enter school ready to learn, they perform better. Readiness for school would help to reduce repetition and school dropout rates in primary schools. The purpose of this study was to establish pupils’ readiness to learn mathematics at the start of primary school. The study was guided by Ecological Theory by Urie Bronfenbrenner. The theory was selected for this study because it is suitable in understanding school readiness processes and contextual elements related to preparing children for school. Correlation research design was used in the study. The dependent variable was pupils’ readiness to learn mathematics. The independent variables were: Pupils’ school entrance age; gender of pupils; type of pre-primary school pupils attended, and parents’ level of education. The target population was standard one pupils enrolled in primary schools in Kasarani sub-county. Purposive sampling was used to select Kasarani sub-county and standard one pupils. Stratified random sampling was used to select 15% (12) primary schools to be involved in the study. The sample of the study consisted of 15% (123) class one pupils, 248 parents, and 12 class one teachers. Pupils’ readiness to learn mathematics check-list and questionnaire for teachers and parents were used to collect data. The researcher pre-tested the instruments in two primary schools, one public and the other private which were excluded in the final study. Content validity (item analysis) was used to test the validity of the instruments, while Guttman split-half test was used to test the reliability of the instruments which was found to be 0.85. Descriptive statistics involving frequencies, percentages and means were calculated. The inferential statistics used were Chi-square and t-test. Results from data analysis were presented using tables and were organized according to objectives and hypotheses of the study. The results showed that more than 25% of the pupils were not ready to learn mathematics and girls were more ready to learn mathematics than boys. However, the difference in pupils’ readiness to learn mathematics between boys and girls was not significant at p<0.05 level of significance. On the other hand, the relationship between pupils’ family economic class; pupils’ school entrance age; parents’ level of education; type of pre-primary school attended and pupils’ readiness to learn mathematics was significant at 0.05 level. It was recommended that school management should fully comply with education policies by not admitting pupils who are underage. Pre-primary school teachers specifically those in public primary schools should regularly assess children’s readiness to learn mathematics so as to enable them to identify pupils with difficulties in mathematics.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT OF THE STUDY
Introduction
This chapter presents background to the study, statement of the problem, purpose of the study, objectives of the study and the research hypotheses. It also focuses on significance of the study, delimitations and limitations of the study, assumptions of the study, theoretical and conceptual frameworks, and operational definition of terms.
Background to the Study
School readiness has become a growing concern in many countries. (UNICEF, 2012). It is therefore, important to note that before children get ready to learn the subjects taught at school, they need to be ready for school. This justifies the need to look at school readiness before embarking on readiness to learn mathematics. School readiness entails various aspects of the child’s development. School readiness may be defined as the child’s attainment of a certain set of emotional, behavioral and cognitive skills needed to learn, work and function successfully in school (Raforth, Buchenquer, Crissman and Halko, 2004). According to Conn- powers and cross (2011), one current definition is that school readiness means children having the skills to achieve later academic success.
Mathematics education in the early childhood years is key to increasing all children’s school readiness and to closing the achievement gap. Within the mathematics field, preschoolers’ knowledge of numbers and their sequence, predicts not only mathematics learning but also literacy skills (2009, NAEYC).
Readiness to learn mathematics refers to the development of basic mathematics abilities or skills to help pupils to gain knowledge of the subject (Baroody & Wilkins, 1999). For children to be considered ready to learn mathematics particularly in class one, they ought first to have been equipped with the conventional math skills at the pre-school level. Tinajero and Loizollon, (2012), report that early mathematics abilities are widely regarded as important for pupils’ readiness to learn the subject. Early mathematics readiness is critically important in early childhood, since it is likely to determine children’s later mathematics achievement as well as their disposition to the subject (Jochi, Jill, & Williams, 2008, Locuniak & Jordan, 2008)).
A growing body of research also highlights the importance of school-entry-math skills which have been found to influence later academic achievement in both reading and mathematics (Duncan, Dowesett, Claessens & Magnuson, 2008). The skills also help to provide a launching pad for later numeracy learning in complex skills and concepts. Dickerson (2012), says that the development of advanced mathematics skills requires knowledge of mathematics concepts such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. This is in agreement with Duncan, et.al (2008) & Jordan, Glutting and Ramineni (2010) who state that early
numerical skills at kindergarten are predictive of mathematics achievement in later grades.
The major concern in early childhood is whether children are ready to learn school mathematics (Jochi etal 2008). To support children’s understanding of mathematics, it is necessary to measure mathematics readiness in the early years. To be able to establish children’s school readiness, it is important to carry out investigations on readiness for every subject that children are exposed to at school entrance. There is an urgent need to establish readiness to learn, in subjects such as mathematics in which performance has raised much concern.
The Kenyan primary curriculum has not been left behind, when it comes to the need for equipping children with the basic numeracy skills. One of its core objectives is to develop children’s interest towards the subject, and most importantly to furnish pupils from standard one with the basic essential math skills which can help them to learn more complex skills when it comes to the subsequent classes. However we find that this objective has not been fully met, because of the continued dismal performance of mathematics at the lower and upper primary classes. For instance a national survey by Uwezo, 2012 had revealed that more than two thirds of children at the lower primary classes do not have basic numeracy skills. . The report had further shown that pupils at primary school are not acquiring the basic competencies during the early years as it’s required by the national curricula. According to the Education for All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report, at least 250 million primary-school-age children are
not able to read, write or count well enough to meet minimum learning standards (UNESCO, 2012). This may imply that they might not have been ready school.
In Kenya, low achievement in mathematics at primary school level is a long standing problem. The low scores registered in mathematics since independence is of critical concern (APHRC, 2010). Kimani and Mwita, (2010) report that a large part of bad performance in national examinations is contributed by poor performance in mathematics. In their study, they found out that the pupils mean percentage score in mathematics for four consecutive years (2005-2008) was 46.89% which is below the pass mark of 50%.
Recent studies such as Uwezo (2013) an annual learning assessment survey conducted in East Africa found out that many children are in school but they were not acquiring the basic competencies during the early years of pre-primary school. Uwezo (2012) had also found that there were many children in Kenya going to school but they were not learning. The report further reveals that 20% of pupils in standard seven do not have standard two level numeracy competencies and two out of three pupils in standard three fail basic tests in numeracy for the standard two level. This poor performance can be attributed to the fact that the pupils may be starting school without basic mathematics competencies as expected in the national curriculum. To tackle this poor performance in mathematics, several studies have been done in Kenya. Such studies have attempted to establish factors contributing to pupils’ poor performance in mathematics. For example Kananu (2011) in a study on factors contributing to pupils’ poor performance in
mathematics in Isiolo, found out that inadequate teaching-learning resources and culture were some of the major causes. Another study (Aoko, 2012) that focused on teaching methods found out that teaching methods had an influence on pupils’ performance in mathematics in Nairobi, Gachau, (2013) also found out that learners had a negative attitude towards mathematics. Learning is a spiral process, this implies that numeracy competency at primary school level largely depends on the experiential part that prompt readiness. Given the importance of early acquisition of mathematical skills at school, studies on children’s readiness to learn the subject are imperative.
