Beginning Readers in Arabic and the Distance between Literary and Spoken Arabic

Abstract

Two groups of kindergarten children received a battery of phonological awareness, reading, and general abilities tests across a two-year period. One of the groups received phonological training whereas the other (control) group did not. Results indicated that children who received intervention improved in certain phonological awareness skills tested at the end of kindergarten but not in reading skills tested at the end of 1st year. These findings are in contrast to findings compared to those found by Carlisle (1995) and Lyster (2002) in English, but were in line with the findings found by Ibrahim et al. (2007) in Arabic and support the notion that normal Arab child encounters special difficulties in reading acquisition. The psycholinguistic basis and implications of these findings are discussed.

Share and Cite:

Ibrahim, R. (2013). Beginning Readers in Arabic and the Distance between Literary and Spoken Arabic. Creative Education, 4, 307-314. doi: 10.4236/ce.2013.45046.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1] Abu-Rabia, S. (1997a). Reading in Arabic orthography: The effect of vowels and context on reading accuracy of poor and skilled native Arabic readers in reading paragraphs, sentences, and isolated words. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 26, 465-482. doi:10.1023/A:1025034220924
[2] Abu-Rabia, S. (1997b). Reading in Arabic orthography: The effect of vowels and context on reading accuracy of poor and skilled native Arabic readers. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 9, 65-78. doi:10.1023/A:1007962408827
[3] Abu-Rabia, S. (1997c). The need for cross-cultural considerations in reading theory: The effects of Arabic sentence context in skilled and poor readers. Journal of Research in Reading, 20, 137-147. doi:10.1111/1467-9817.00026
[4] Abu-Rabia, S. (2001). The role of vowels in reading Semitic scripts data from Arabic and Hebrew. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 14, 39-59. doi:10.1023/A:1008147606320
[5] Abu-Rabia, S. (2002). Reading in a root-based-morphology language: The case of Arabic. Journal of Research in Reading, 25, 299-309. doi:10.1111/1467-9817.00177
[6] Abu-Rabia, S., Share, D., & Mansour, M. S. (2003). Word recognition and basic cognitive processes among reading disabled and normal readers in Arabic. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 16, 423-442. doi:10.1023/A:1024237415143
[7] Ball, E. W. (1993). Phonological awareness: What’s important and to whom? Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 5, 141-159. doi:10.1007/BF01027481
[8] Ball, E. W., & Blachman, B. A. (1988). Phoneme segmentation training: Effect on reading readiness. Annals of Dyslexia, 38, 208-225. doi:10.1007/BF02648257
[9] Bertelson, P., Morais, J., Alegria, J., & Content, A. (1985). Phonetic analysis capacity and learning to read. Nature, 313, 73-74. doi:10.1038/313073c0
[10] Blachman, B. A., Ball, E., Black, R. S., & Tangel, D. M. (1994). Kindergarten teachers develop phoneme awareness in low-income, inner-city classrooms: Does it make a difference? Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 6, 1-18. doi:10.1007/BF01027275
[11] Bowey, J. A., & Francis, J. (1991). Phonological analysis as a function of age and exposure to reading instruction. Applied Psycholinguistics, 12, 91-121. doi:10.1017/S0142716400009395
[12] Bradley, L., & Bryant, P. E. (1983). Categorizing sounds and learning to read—A causal connection. Nature, 301, 419-421. doi:10.1038/301419a0
[13] Brennan, F., & Ireson, J. (1997). Training phonological awareness: A study to evaluate the effects of a program of metalinguistic games in kindergarten. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 9, 241-263. doi:10.1023/A:1007979321948
[14] Breznitz, Z. (2002). Asynchrony of visual-orthographic and auditory phonological word recognition processes: An underlying factor in dyslexia. Reading and Writing, 15, 15-42. doi:10.1023/A:1013864203452
[15] Bryant, P., & Bradley, L. (1985). Children’s reading problems. Oxford: Blackwell.
[16] Byrne, B., Freebody, P., & Gates, A. (1992). Longitudinal data on the relations of word-reading strategies to comprehension, reading time, and phonemic awareness. Reading Research Quarterly, 27, 140-151. doi:10.2307/747683
[17] Calhoon, J. A., & Leslie, L. (2002). A longitudinal study of the effects of word frequency and rime neighborhood size on beginning readers’ rime reading accuracy in words and nonwords. Journal of Literacy Research, 34, 39-58. doi:10.1207/s15548430jlr3401_2
[18] Carlisle, J. (1995). Morphological awareness and early reading achievement. In L. B. Feldman (Ed.), Morphological aspects of language processing (pp. 189-209). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Asso ciates.
[19] Cossu, G., Shankweiler, D., Liberman, I. Y., Katz, L., & Tola, G. (1988). Awareness of phonological segments and reading ability in Italian children. Applied Psycolinguistics, 9, 1-16. doi:10.1017/S0142716400000424
[20] Crammond, J. (1992). Analyzing the basic developmental processes of children with specific types of learning disability. In R. Case (Ed.), The mind’s staircase (pp. 285-302). Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
[21] Cunningham, A. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (1990). Assessing print expo sure and orthographic processing skill in children: A quick measure of print experience. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 733-740. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.82.4.733
[22] Da Fontoura, H. A., & Siegel, L. S. (1995). Reading, syntactic and working memory skills of bilingual Portuguese-English Canadian children. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 7, 139-153. doi:10.1007/BF01026951
[23] Dash, U. N., & Mishra, H. C. (1992). Bilingualism and metalinguistic development: Evidence from kond tribal culture. Psychological Studies, 37, 81-87.
[24] de Manrique, A. M. B., & Gramigna, S. (1984). La segmentación fo nológica y silábica en ni nos de preescolar y primer grado. Lectura y Vida, 5, 4-14.
[25] Doyle, A., Champagne, M., & Segalowitz, N. (1978). Some issues on the assessment of linguistic consequences of early bilingualism. In M. Paradis (Ed.), Aspects of bilingualism (pp. 13-20). Colombia: Horn beam Press.
[26] Dunn, L. M., & Dunn, L. M. (1981). Peabody picture vocabulary test— revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service, Inc.
[27] Durgnoglu, A. Y., & Oney, B. (1999). A cross linguistic comparison of phonological awareness and word recognition. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 11, 281-299. doi:10.1023/A:1008093232622
[28] Edwards, D., & Christophersen, H. (1988). Bilingualism, literacy and meta linguistic awareness in preschool children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 6, 235-244. doi:10.1111/j.2044-835X.1988.tb01097.x
[29] Ehri, L., & Wilce, L. (1980). The influence of orthography on readers’ conceptualization of the phonemic structure of words. Applied Psycholinguistics, 1, 371-385. doi:10.1017/S0142716400009802
[30] Eviatar, Z., & Ibrahim, R. (2001). Bilingual is as bilingual does: Metalinguistic abilities of Arabic-speaking children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 21, 451-471. doi:10.1017/S0142716400004021
[31] Eviatar, Z., Ibrahim, R., & Ganayim, D. (2004). Orthography and the hemispheres: Visual and linguistic aspects of letter processing. Neuropsychology, 18, 174-184. doi:10.1037/0894-4105.18.1.174
[32] Geva, E., Wade-Wooley, L., & Shany, M. (1997). Development of reading efficiency in first and second language. Scientific Studies of Reading, 1, 119-144. doi:10.1207/s1532799xssr0102_2
[33] Gibbs, P., & van Orden, G. C. (1998). Pathway selection’s utility for control of word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 24, 1162-1187. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.24.4.1162
[34] Gustafson, S., Ferreira, J., & Ronnberg, J. (2007). Phonological or orthographic training for children with phonological or orthographic decoding deficits. Dyslexia, 13, 211-229. doi:10.1002/dys.339
[35] Ibrahim, R. (2009). The cognitive basis of diglossia in Arabic: Evidence from a repetition priming study within and between languages. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 12, 95-105.
[36] Ibrahim, R., & Aharon-Peretz, J. (2005). Is literary Arabic a second language for native Arabic speakers? Evidence from semantic priming study. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 34, 51-70. doi:10.1007/s10936-005-3631-8
[37] Ibrahim, R., Eviatar, Z., & Aharon-Peretz, J. (2002). The characteristics of Arabic orthography slow its processing. Neuropsychology, 16, 322-326. doi:10.1037/0894-4105.16.3.322
[38] Ibrahim, R., Eviatar. Z., & Aharon-Peretz, J. (2007). Metalinguistic awareness and reading performance: A cross language comparison. The Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 36, 297-317. doi:10.1007/s10936-006-9046-3
[39] Ibrahim, R., & Eviatar, Z. (2009). Language status and hemispheric involvement in reading: Evidence from trilingual Arabic speakers tested in Arabic, Hebrew, and English. Neuropsychology, 23, 240-254. doi:10.1037/a0014193
[40] LaBerge, D., & Samuels, J. (1974). Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293-323. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(74)90015-2
[41] Lyster, S. A. H. (2002). The effects of morphological vs phonological awareness training in kindergarten on reading development. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 15, 261-294. doi:10.1023/A:1015272516220
[42] Manis, F. R., Doi, L. S., & Bhadha, B. (2000). Naming speed, phonological awareness, and orthographic knowledge in second graders. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 33, 325-333. doi:10.1177/002221940003300405
[43] Mann, V. (1998). Language problems: A key to early reading problems. In B. Wong, Learning about learning disabilities (pp. 163-193). San Diego: Academic Press.
[44] Mann, V. A., & Liberman, I. Y. (1984). Phonological awareness and verbal short-term memory. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 17, 592-599. doi:10.1177/002221948401701005
[45] McBride-Chang, C., Cho, J.-R., Liu, H., Wagner, R. K., Shu, H., Zhou, A., Cheuk, C., & Muse, A. (2005). Changing models across cultures: Associations of phonological awareness and morphological structure awareness with vocabulary and word recognition in second graders from Beijing, Hong Kong, Korea, and the United States. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92, 140-160. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2005.03.009
[46] Metsala, J. L. (1999). The development of phonemic awareness in reading disabled children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 20, 149-158. doi:10.1017/S0142716499001058
[47] Meyler, A., & Breznitz, Z. (1998). Developmental associations between verbal and visual short-term memory and the acquisition of decoding skill. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 10, 519 540. doi:10.1023/A:1007915517339
[48] Olfson, A., & Lundberg, I. (1983). Can phonemic awareness be trained in kindergarten? Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 24, 35-44. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9450.1983.tb00473.x
[49] Rayner, K., & Pollatsek, A. (1989). Psychology of reading. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
[50] Saiegh-Haddad, E. (2003). Linguistic distance and initial reading ac quisition: The case of Arabic diglossia. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 431-451. doi:10.1017/S0142716403000225
[51] Sereno, S. C., & Rayner, K. (2000). Spelling sound regularity effects on eye fixation in reading. Perception and Psychophysics, 62, 402-409. doi:10.3758/BF03205559
[52] Shani, M., Zeiger, T., & Ravid, D. (2001). Development of assessment tool for basic processes in reading and writing. Script, 2, 167-203.
[53] Shatil, E. (2002). Shatil’s battery. Qiryat Bialik: Ach Publishers, Ltd.
[54] Stanovich, K. E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 360-406. doi:10.1598/RRQ.21.4.1
[55] Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. (1989). Exposure to print and orthographic processing. Reading and Research quarterly, 24, 402-429. doi:10.2307/747605
[56] Starr, M. S., & Fleming, K. K. (2001). A rose by any other name is not the same: The role of orthographic knowledge in homophone confusion errors. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 27, 744-760. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.27.3.744
[57] Taha, H., Ibrahim, R., & Khateb, A. (2012). How does Arabicortho graphic connectivity modulate brain activity during visual word recognition: An ERP study. Brain Topography, 26, 292-302.
[58] Tunmer, W. E., & Bowey, J. (1984). Metalinguistic awareness and reading acquisition. In W. E. Tunmer, C. Pratt, & M. L. Herriman (Eds.), Metalinguistic awareness in children: Theory, research and implications (pp. 144-168). Berlin: Springer-Verlag. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-69113-3
[59] Wagner, R. K., & Torgesen, J. K. (1987). The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 192-212. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.101.2.192
[60] Zaaiman, H., vander Filer, H., & Thijs, G. D. (2001). Dynamic testing in selection for an educational programme: Assessing south African performance on the raven progressive matrices. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 9, 258-269. doi:10.1111/1468-2389.00178

Copyright © 2024 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc.

Creative Commons License

This work and the related PDF file are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.