Reading
How spoken dialect affects learning to read Standard Arabic.
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Children understand the sounds and structures of their spoken Arabic dialect better than those of Standard Arabic, which directly helps them learn to read Standard Arabic.
How this study connects
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In diglossic environments such as standard and spoken Arabic, children display stronger phonological awareness in their spoken dialect, and these native dialect skills significantly predict their reading success in the formal standard language.
Evidence for the claim as stated.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cross-sectional — Grade 2–10 Hebrew speakers: phonological and morphological awareness plus pointed/unpointed word reading
- N
- N=100 · 20 students per grade (2, 4, 6, 8, 10); 10 girls and 10 boys per grade
- Population
- Native Hebrew-speaking students from second through tenth grade
- Outcome
- Grade-related links among phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and word-reading accuracy/fluency
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How spoken dialect affects learning to read Standard Arabic.
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
100 students participated in the study
A total of 100 students participated in the study: 20 second graders (age: M = 7;7, SD = 3.00 months), 20 fourth graders (age: M = 9;6, SD = 4.00), 20 sixth graders (age: M = 11;6, SD = 3.72), 20 eighth graders (age: M = 13;6, SD = 4.10), and 20 tenth graders (age: M = 15;5, SD = 3.08).
12 different word-level reading tasks were constructed
Twelve different word-level reading tasks were constructed that measured accuracy and fluency of reading SpA and StA voweled and unvoweled real and pseudowords ( N = 110 items per task).
Key findings
Students performed better on spoken Arabic tasks than standard Arabic tasks for all measures. The performance gap between spoken and standard language closed in older students for phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and reading accuracy. However, spoken Arabic reading fluency remained superior across all age groups, and spoken language skills significantly predicted reading success in Standard Arabic.
Methodology
The researchers tested 100 children in school. Participants completed oral tests measuring phonological and morphological awareness in both Spoken and Standard Arabic, as well as 12 different word-reading tasks testing their accuracy and speed.
Limitations
This study used a cross-sectional design, meaning it compared different age groups at a single point in time rather than tracking the same children over years, which limits its ability to prove direct developmental changes. The participant sample was restricted to children from mid-high socioeconomic backgrounds speaking a specific northern Palestinian dialect, so the findings may not apply to other dialects or economic groups. Additionally, the correlational nature of the regressions cannot prove that training children in spoken dialect skills directly causes improvements in standard reading.
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