A cross sectional study was carried in Mkuranga District, Pwani Region to find out the parents, teachers and pupils factors influencing low literacy in primary schools. Random sampling was used in selecting the study district from Pwani Region. The technique was then used to select 150 pupils from five randomly selected schools in three wards. Through snowballing sampling, pupils were used to obtain 150 parents/guardians. Purposive sampling was employed to select 42 teachers as all are directly concerned with pupils’ literacy matters. Primary data were collected by means of semi-structured questionnaires. Secondary data were collected by review of related written materials. Descriptive statistics by use of frequencies and percentages were used to analyse the parental and teachers based factors while binary logistic regression was used to assess pupils’ based factors affecting literacy. Results showed that about 28.5% of parent based cases reported poor interaction with teachers on academic matters, lack of support on pupils’ homework (21.1%) and poor follow-up on pupil’s academic progress (16.7%). The highly reported cases by teachers included lack of teaching facilities (32, 5%) and high pupil-teacher ratios (32.2%). Results of binary logistic model revealed that the main pupils factors affecting literacy are truancy, inadequacy coverage of supplementary reading materials, and sex by which girls were 82.5% more affected than boys (p-value<0.1). The study recommends a high need of extension on teacher-parent interaction on pupils’ academic matters and, more government academic provisions, as well as teachers’ involvement in curricula changes. Factors leading to truancy should be highly campaigned against and finally, pupils themselves should ensure large coverage of the required reading materials when provided by educational stakeholders.