Orthographie, Phonological, and Morphological Skills and Children's Word Reading in Arabic: A Literature Review

• Published in: Reading research quarterly 2015-03, Vol.50 (1), p.83-109
• Main Authors: Ghanem, Reem Al, Kearns, Devin M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0034-0553; 1936-2722

Current Arabic reading instruction places strong emphasis on orthographic skills and little emphasis on phonological and morphological skills. Yet, the role of each skill in reading development in Arabic is not well understood. The purpose of this literature review was to examine the degree to which children learning to read in Arabic use orthographic, phonological, and morphological skills when they pronounce Arabic words. We conducted a comprehensive literature search and located 12 studies that examined the relation between these three skills and Arabic word reading for students in grades K-12. Sublexical orthographic skills were associated with Arabic word reading, especially in reading vowelized text. Phonological skills had the strongest relation with reading Arabic words of the three skills, across vowelized and unvowelized texts, and in grades 1-5. Morphological skills were examined in very few studies, but there was some evidence of association with word reading in skilled readers. We discuss the implications of these findings in relation to the design of two national curricula for teaching beginning Arabic reading.