Reading Arabic texts: Effects of text type,reader type and vowelization

While much is known about Latin orthography little is known about Arabic orthography. This study investigates the effect of vowels on reading accuracy in Arabic orthography. Participants were 64 native Arabic speakers. Four kinds of written Arabic texts were administered: narrative, informative, poetic and Koranic. Three texts of each kind were presented in three reading conditions: correctly vowelized, unvowelized and wrongly vowelized. Results indicated that vowels had a significant effect on reading accuracy of poor and skilled readers in reading each of the four kinds of texts. The results are discussed in light of the concept that more cross-cultural considerations should be made in reading theory today.     

Reading in Arabic orthography: The effect of vowels and context on reading accuracy of poor and skilled native Arabic readers

This study investigated the effect of Arabic vowels and Arabic context on reading accuracy of poor and skilled native Arabic readers reading narrative stories and newspaper articles. Central to this study is the belief that reading theory today should consider additional variables, especially when explaining the reading process in Arabic orthography among poor and skilled readers. This orthography has not been studied: reading theory today is the sum of conclusions from studies conducted in Latin orthography. The subjects were 109 tenth-grade native Arabic speakers, 39 of them poor readers and 70 skilled readers. Subjects had to read Arabic narrative stories and newspaper articles. There were four reading conditions for each text type: vowelized text, unvowelized text, vowelized word naming, and unvowelized word naming. The results showed that vowels and contexts were important variables to facilitate word recognition in poor and skilled readers in Arabic orthography. A new Arabic reading model for skilled readers is suggested.     

Reading skills in three orthographies: The case of trilingual Arabic–Hebrew–English-speaking Arab children

This study is an investigation into theinterconnections among three languages, Arabic,Hebrew and English, each of which has adifferent orthography. Hebrew and Arabic havemore in common with each other than withEnglish; they are considered ``shallow'orthographies if vowelized and ``deep'orthographies if unvowelized. The reading,language, and working memory skills of 70trilingual Israeli-Arab students, aged 14–15,were assessed. Arabic was their maininstructional language in school, and Hebrewand English were studied as required subjects.All these adolescents studied Hebrew from thethird grade and English from the fourth grade.They were administered word and pseudowordreading, language, orthographic, and workingmemory tests in Arabic, Hebrew, and English. Inspite of differences among these threelanguages, the majority of the children showedadequate proficiency in three languages. Asignificant relationship was found between theacquisition of word and pseudoword readingskills, working memory, and syntactic awarenessskills within and across the three languages.Trilingualism of this nature seems not to havenegative consequences (and may even havepositive consequences) for the development oforal language and reading skills in the threelanguages in spite of their differentorthographies.     

Social and cognitive factors influencing the reading comprehension of Arab students learning Hebrew as a second language in Israel

This study investigated the relationship of the attitudes and cultural background of Arab students in Israel to their reading comprehension of stories from Jewish and Arab culture. Participants were 74 eighth-grade Arab students (age 14–15 years) from Israel, learning Hebrew as a second language (L2). An attitude questionnaire, stories from Arab and Jewish culture and multiple-choice questions about each story were used. Results indicated that students scored higher on tasks of reading comprehension with texts from their own cultural setting than with texts from a culturally unfamiliar setting. Furthermore, results of the attitude questionnaire showed that motivation of Arab students to learning Hebrew was primarily instrumental rather than integrative. A conclusion of this study is that problematic social contexts negatively affect L2 learning of minority students. In order to facilitate Hebrew L2 learning, L2 curricula should include Hebrew language texts with content culturally familiar and relevant to the life of Arab learners.     

The role of vowels in reading Semitic scripts: Data from Arabic and Hebrew

This study investigated the effect of vowels and context on readingaccuracy of skilled adult native Arabic speakers in Arabic and inHebrew, their second language. Their reading comprehension was alsotested in Arabic and Hebrew texts as a function of vowels. Theparticipants (n = 65) read fully vowelized and unvowelized lists ofArabic words, and vowelized and unvowelized paragraphs of Arabic.Further, they, read pointed and unpointed lists of Hebrew words, andpointed and unpointed paragraphs of Hebrew. They were also administeredtwo stories, one in Arabic and one in Hebrew, in two reading conditions,a fully vowelized and unvowelized Arabic story and a pointed andunpointed Hebrew story. The results revealed a significant effect forvowels and for context across all reading conditions in Arabic andHebrew. The surprising result was that the vowelized texts in Arabic andthe pointed and unpointed texts in Hebrew were comprehendedsignificantly better. Further, Pearson correlation procedures andmultiple regression analysis indicated no positive significantrelationship between oral reading accuracy results and silent readingcomprehension results. These findings are explained throughcharacteristics of the Semitic languages Arabic and Hebrew, and thetriliteral/quadriliteral-root model is suggested toexplain reading in unvowelized/unpointed texts in Semitic languages.     

The scope of sexual, physical, and psychological abuse in a Bedouin-Arab community of female adolescents: The interplay of racism, urbanization, polygamy, family honor, and the social marginalization of women

OBJECTIVES: This is an exploratory study of the abuse-especially sexual-of female adolescents in a conservative and traditional Bedouin-Arab community in southern Israel. The objectives were (1) to examine the rate of sexual abuse, (2) to examine the rate of physical and psychological abuse, and (3) to develop regression models to predict these forms of abuse. METHODS: : A self-administered survey that measured demographic characteristics and psychological abuse was distributed to 217 female high-school students (aged 14-18 years). Sexual and physical abuse were measured via the Finkelhor's scale [Finkelhor, D. (1979). Sexually victimized children. New York: Free Press]. RESULTS: Sixty-nine percent of the participants (n=149) reported no sexual abuse experiences, 16% reported one or two experiences, 11% reported three or four, and 4% reported more than four. Most participants indicated that they had been physically abused at least once by their father (37.1%), mother (43.7%), or siblings (44%) during the previous month. More than 50% of the participants reported being psychologically abused by members of their immediate families. Mother's age and closeness to mother significantly predicted physical abuse, and marital satisfaction and mother's age significantly predicted psychological abuse. CONCLUSION: This study addresses a topic that has never before been fully investigated--the maltreatment of females in a conservative, tribal Arab community. Although this was an exploratory study, the results attest that female abuse is a serious social problem in this community, and that the rate of abuse exceeds that of other Palestinian groups. These findings demonstrate an immediate need for professional intervention and prevention to address this problem.     

Word recognition and basic cognitive processes among reading-disabled and normal readers in Arabic

This study investigated word identification inArabic and basic cognitive processes inreading-disabled (RD) and normal readers of thesame chronological age, and in younger normalreaders at the same reading level. The studyfocused on the word identification processes ofphonological decoding and orthographicprocessing and the cognitive processes ofsyntactic and morphological awareness, workingmemory, and visual processing. RD children werecompared with normal readers on a battery oftests developed in Arabic on the basis of thoseavailable in English and Hebrew. The presentresults revealed deficiencies among the RD childrenin phonological decoding, in contrast torelative strengths in orthographic processing. These data were consistent with English-languagefindings. The analysis of basiccognitive processes indicated significantdeficiencies in morphology, working memory, andsyntactic and visual processing, with the mostsevere deficiencies observed for phonologicalawareness. The results are discussed in lightof international RD findings and the nature ofArabic orthography.     

Effects of exposure to literary Arabic on reading comprehension in a diglossic situation

Reading difficulties in Arabic in elementary schoolare usually attributed to the diglossia of the Arabiclanguage, whereby the spoken language is totallydifferent from literary Arabic, the language of booksand school instruction. Educators, teachers, andparents still believe that exposure of young Arabicspeakers to literary Arabic in the preschool period isa burden for them, and is not useful. The presentpost hoc study examined the influence of exposure toliterary Arabic of preschool children on their readingcomprehension of literary Arabic stories in grades 1and 2. Participants in the study were 282children, 135 from grade 1 and 147 from grade 2. Ofthe participants, 144 constituted the experimentalgroup, and were exposed to literary Arabic throughouttheir preschool period. The 138 participants of thecontrol group were exposed not to literary but tospoken Arabic during that period. These children weretested for reading comprehension at the end of grade1 and grade 2 and compared with the control group. The results generally indicate better readingcomprehension results for the children who wereexposed to literary Arabic than for the children whowere exposed only to spoken Arabic.