Literacy practices as an arena for girls’ development of literacies

Literacy practices play a catalytic role in equipping girls with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to make qualitative improvements on their lives. This paper reports on a qualitative study that identified existing literacy practices and the support available to enable the development of literacies among girls. Interviews and observations were used to generate data from in and out-of-school-girls, teachers, the ward education officer, parents, and religious, traditional and village leaders. The study found that girls had access to a variety of print materials, and used print more than any other literacy materials. Similarly, the engagement with traditional literacy practices like poems, folklore, metaphors, music or rituals was not reported by the participants, which may simply suggest that they do not associate the traditional literacy practices with literacy learning. This implies further that many traditional ways of acquiring literacies, which were part of the cultural heritage and ways of learning language of older generations, are being forgotten and possibly slowly vanishing. To support girls’ acquisition of literacies, it is essential to build the capacity of communities, parents, teachers, religious and local leaders who can help girls fully integrate all available literacy sources into their literacy learning.