Challenges Teachers of English Face in Teaching Reading Phonic and Sight Words

The teaching of English in countries where English is not the first language (L1) poses a challengeto both teachers and learners, especially if they are second language (L2) speakers. The matter is further complicated when English is the recognized main official language of the country. This means that at one stage, all learners in the country have tostart learning English at one point to acquire the official language, which ata certainstage of education becomes the official medium of instruction in all learning institutions. The study investigated and focuses on the challenges teachers faced in the process of teaching reading Phonic and Sight words to fourth grade learners in the selected primary schools of Lusaka district in Zambia. In order to gather reliable information qualitative and quantitative data were collected from teachers and fourthgrade learners through survey, interviews and observation. A questionnaire was administered to 100 learners who had just completed their fourth grade and another questionnaire to 20 fourth grade teachers in five primary schools. Class observations were done and interviews were conducted with the school administrators. Quantitative data was analysedthrough the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), while the thematic approach was used to analyse qualitative data. The findings of the study indicated that some children absconded themselves in the early days of their first grade (grade one) where early reading was introduced hence failed to cope up with reading Phonic and Sight words. The other challenge was over enrolment of pupils in the schools in the early grades because the government schools were few in the area hence teachers failed to pay attention to learners with learning dificulties due to the highpupil toteacher ratios. The other finding from the study was that there was shortage of appropriate quality teaching and learning materials for early grade reading in the primary schools of Lusaka district.