Thesis:

Influence of teacher improvised instructional resources on learners, acquisition of pre-reading skills in public preschools in Hamisi sub-county, Kenya

Language is a mother of all other learning activities, teachers need to provide adequate materials from the local environment for preschool learners as they learn best by doing activities and manipulating materials. Learning has been ineffective in most preschools with children having difficulties in mastering pre-reading skills despite studies on instructional resources. This calls for preschool teachers to improvise instructional resources on learners acquisition of pre- reading skills. The purpose of the study was to establish the influence of improvised instructional resources on learners acquisition of pre-reading skills in public preschools in Hamisi sub-county Vihiga county. The study was guided by the following objectives, (i) to establish the influence of improvised Visual instructional resources on learners of pre-reading skills, (ii) to investigate the influence of improvised Audio instructional resources on learners acquisition of pre-reading skills, (iii) to assess the influence of improvised Audio visual instructional resources on learners acquisition of pre-reading skills and (iv) to examine the influence of improvised kinesthetic instructional resources on learners acquisition of pre- reading skills in public preschools in Hamisi sub-county. The target population for the study was all the 625 preschool learners and 310 teachers in 155 public preschools in Hamisi sub- county. The researcher used a sample of 16 schools randomly sampled.The researcher used Questionnaires and,Observation checklist to collect data. The research instruments were validated using experts while their reliability was determined by the test-retest method. Data was analyzed by use of Pearson’s correlation. It was established that a significant strong positive relationship existed on the use of improvised visual instructional resources by the sampled preschool teachers and their learners acquisition of pre-reading skills with a mean of 71.98, a significant strong positive relationship existed on the use of improvised audio instructional resources by the sampled preschool teachers and their learners acquisition of pre- reading skills with a mean of 72.07, a significant weak positive relationship existed on the use of improvised audio-visual instructional resources by the sampled preschool teachers and their learners acquisition of pre-reading skills with a mean of 61.52 and a significant moderate positive relationship exists between the use of improvised kinesthetic instructional resources by the sampled preschool teachers and their learners acquisition of pre-reading skills with a mean of 61.74 .Pre reading skills had a moderate mean of 30.86 and standard deviation of 9.471 which implied that the learners score were not spread out as the instructional resource use scores. It is recommended that the ministry of education should develop programs to train all preschool directors of education in all 47 counties who will in turn train preschool program officers incharge of sub counties in their counties then cascade the training to preschool teachers in their at least once per term on how to improvise there after be allowed to demonstrate the skills taught and acquired with adequate monitoring on their effective to teach preschool learners in acquisition of pre-reading skills.Educational policymakers should come on ground to gather information from preschool teachers that would enable them have workable strategies and plans.