Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal 13: 147157, 2000. 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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

SALIM ABU-RABIA
University of Haifa, Faculty of Education, Mt. Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel

Abstract. Reading difculties in Arabic in elementary school are usually attributed to the diglossia of the Arabic language, whereby the spoken language is totally different from literary Arabic, the language of books and school instruction. Educators, teachers, and parents still believe that exposure of young Arabic speakers to literary Arabic in the preschool period is a burden for them, and is not useful. The present post hoc study examined the inuence of exposure to literary Arabic of preschool children on their reading comprehension of literary Arabic stories in grades 1 and 2. Participants in the study were 282 children, 135 from grade 1 and 147 from grade 2. Of the participants, 144 constituted the experimental group, and were exposed to literary Arabic throughout their preschool period. The 138 participants of the control group were exposed not to literary but to spoken Arabic during that period. These children were tested for reading comprehension at the end of grade 1 and grade 2 and compared with the control group. The results generally indicate better reading comprehension results for the children who were exposed to literary Arabic than for the children who were exposed only to spoken Arabic. Keywords: Diglossia, Literary Arabic, Reading acquisition, Spoken Arabic

Introduction This study investigated the effect of Arab childrens exposure to literary Arabic on their reading acquisition. The Arabic language is considered a diglossic situation, whereby spoken Arabic is totally different from literary Arabic (Ayari 1996). According to some scholars this diglossia hinders the acquisition of basic academic skills in Arabic in the Arab world during the early stages of learning (Ayari 1996; Rosenhouse & Shehadi 1986). Arab schoolchildren are taught literary Arabic although their mother tongue is spoken Arabic and the discourse of mothers and children is always in spoken Arabic. Literary Arabic differs from spoken Arabic in vocabulary, phonology, syntax, and grammar, which means that these children read a language with which they have relatively little acquaintance. The present post hoc study tested the possibility of exposing children of preschool and kindergarten to literary Arabic and how this affected their Arabic reading acquisition as compared with children who were exposed

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only to spoken Arabic through the same period. It is well established that in regular situations reading stories to preschool children enhances their reading acquisition during their early schooling (Feitelson, Goldstein, Eshel, Flasher, Levin & Sharon 1988; Feitelson, Kita & Goldstein 1991; Reshef 1984). However, the de facto reality among Arab kindergartners is that these young children are deprived of knowledge and skills that are believed to aid transition to literacy (Cochran-Smith 1986; Heath 1982; Mason 1980; Morrow 1988; Ninio 1990; Snow & Ninio 1986). What is diglossia? The classical denition of diglossia was proposed by Ferguson (1959) as a stable linguistic state which includes different spoken dialects and a totally different literary language version, which is usually grammatically complicated, as distinct from the different spoken dialects, and includes a respectable written literature. This literary version is ofcially studied in schools (and is not acquired naturally without formal learning). Further, it is the formal written language for communication, and it is not the language of day-today conversation. Ferguson (1959) considered Arabic a case of diglossia. Somech (1980) addressed the diglossia of the Arab world and stated that it has two language worlds: the elite, educated, and highly civilized world, which is expressed through literary Arabic, and the common daily and oral world, which is expressed through spoken Arabic. Further, according to Harris and Hodges (1981) the term diglossia is used to refer to the presence of a high and low style or standard in a language, one for formal use in writing and some speech situations and one for colloquial use (p. 88). Note, however, that this Arabic diglossia is not universally accepted (see, e.g., El-Hassan 1977). Ayari (1996) complies with the above denition of diglossia and adds that this diglossic situation of the Arab world hinders childrens Arabic-reading acquisition. Since in the rst grade these children are required to study literary Arabic, which is a totally different language from spoken Arabic, they encounter difculties. He adds that unfortunately preschool children are not exposed to literary Arabic because there is almost a consensus in the Arab world that literary Arabic is difcult for them, and they should not be exposed to it before grade 1. Parents, teachers, and educators share this belief. Consequently these children encounter literary Arabic in the rst grade of primary school almost as a second language. According to Ayari (1996), this basically means that children are required to cope simultaneously with reading and writing in a second language (literary Arabic). This author adds that early exposure of these children to literary Arabic, during their preschool period, is the proper pedagogy to enhance their Arabic-reading acquisition.

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Theoretical background Reading skills in the early years of a childs life are essential for the acquisition of knowledge in later schooling. Stanovich (1986) suggested the Matthew effect to characterize this phenomenon: poor readers become poorer and rich readers become richer. Over the years the gap between poor readers and good readers widens, and this highlights the need for early reading intervention programs for poor readers. Later, Stanovich and West (1989) examined the contribution of exposure to print to the acquisition of reading. The overall results indicated that reading uency is a direct function of massive eye exposure to print. Consequently, poor readers are not exposed enough to reading texts and they are not exposed to it in their schools and homes. A few studies (Elley 1991; Elley & Mangubhai 1983; Feitelson et al. 1988, 1991; Reshef 1984) tested possible causal links between reading to children and childrens literary language learning which resulted in bridging the oral-literacy gap. These studies were conducted on Hebrew-speaking kindergartners and rst graders, who, having listened regularly to story readings, outperformed controls on measures of comprehension, and also used a richer vocabulary and more complex sentences in telling a picture story. These ndings suggest that for young children, listening to stories may be a language-learning situation. A similar approach in Arabic diglossia might bridge the oral/literacy gap. A few studies were conducted to test reading acquisition of Arabic among Arab students in Israel. Bashi, Kahan and Davis (1981) investigated Arabic reading among Arab primary schoolchildren. Their sample consisted of Arab students from all areas of Israel: villages, mixed cities, Muslims, Christians, and Druze. The authors concluded that 10% of grade 4 students, 10% of grade 6 students, and 30% of grade 8 students demonstrated poor reading skills at the level of word decoding and reading comprehension. These results indicate the Matthew effect (Stanovich 1986), where the percentages become higher at the eighth-grade level. Consistently, Habib-Allah (1985) investigated reading comprehension among Arab elementary-school students. His survey was a longitudinal study through 1981, 1982, and 1983. Students were administered texts for reading comprehension selected from their primers. The results indicated that 50% of the sample did not comprehend these literary texts. Habib-Allah (1985) believed that this failure was caused by several variables: lack of teachers pedagogical preparation, inadequate textbooks, ambiguous curricula objectives, and lack of successful teaching strategies to cope with the problem of reading acquisition among these Arab primary school children.

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Iraqi (1990) carried out a study depicting ways of interactions of children and parents in reading stories and some habitual patterns of parents helping children in reading stories. In her study, Iraqi (1990) assumed that when children are read to on a daily basis their language abilities will progress. The study covered 294 families. The results indicated that these kindergarten children were told stories from the age of three, but in spoken Arabic, not literary. The rst time these children encountered literary Arabic was at the beginning of grade 1 at their elementary school, when they began learning about reading. Further, there was no difference between children of low, middle, or high socio-economic status. This nding conrms the notion that a strong belief exists among parents, as well as teachers at all levels, that young children in the preschool period are incapable of reading literary Arabic, a notion that seems to be the core problem of this diglossic situation. Tackling this belief seems to be the right strategy to overcome these low rates of reading. Iraqi (1990) in the same study, and as a result of the rst ndings, continued to test the effect of daily reading of literary Arabic stories to kindergarten children on their listening comprehension of literary Arabic and on their oral language abilities. The experimental group of Iraqis (1990) study was exposed to literary Arabic for 1520 minutes at the end of each day for a period of 5 months; the group was compared with a control group of children who experienced the same activities but in spoken Arabic. The results indicated that systematic exposure to literary Arabic enhanced and accelerated childrens listening comprehension in literary Arabic and active literary linguistic oral skills as compared with the control group with the same skills. Iraqi (1990) concluded that kindergarten children will understand literary Arabic if they have the opportunity to experience it. Kindergarten teachers who participated in the experiment changed their old beliefs, and started to use the experimental reading strategy as a daily learning strategy, namely providing exposure to literary Arabic. Further, parents involved in the study showed more interest in borrowing books from the school library in order to read from them to their children. The present study is a continuation of Iraqis study (1990) and extends beyond listening comprehension and oral communicative skills. The present post hoc study investigated the effect of two years exposure of Arab children to literary Arabic during their preschool and kindergarten years on their reading comprehension of literary Arabic in grades 1 and 2, as compared with a control group of children of the same age and grades who were exposed to the same activities during their preschool and kindergarten years but with spoken Arabic as the language of instruction and communication. It was assumed in this post hoc study that children who are exposed to literary Arabic in their preschool and kindergarten period will show better

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reading comprehension of literary Arabic than children at the same age level who are exposed to spoken Arabic in the same period. In addition, the present study tested the effect of literary Arabic over a longer period of time, namely grades 1 and 2, and one year later and two years later.

Method Participants The study was conducted with 282 rst- and second-grade pupils from three primary schools in an Arab village in northern Israel. They were all from a medium socio-economic background. They were randomly divided into two groups: an experiment group of 69 rst-grade and 75 second-grade pupils, who were exposed to literary Arabic during the preschool year and the kindergarten period (two school years), and a control group of 66 rst-grade and 72 second-grade pupils from two other elementary schools, who were not exposed systematically to literary Arabic during their preschool year and during their kindergarten period; they were exposed to spoken Arabic. Measures 1. Two Arabic stories at the rst-grade level were chosen from the rstgrade primer of the Israel Ministry of Education. 2. Two Arabic stories at the second-grade level were chosen from the second-grade primer of the Israel Ministry of Education. Ten multiple-choice comprehension questions were asked about each story: ve at the level of identifying information from the stories (explicit information, Alpha = 0.87) and ve at the level of inference from the text (implicit information, Alpha = 0.82). All stories were adjusted to similar length and academic difculty for each grade group. All stories were about familiar topics concerning daily life at school. Procedure As noted, the experiment group was systematically exposed to literary Arabic for two school years in their kindergarten activities. A teacher described how she and her colleagues systematically exposed their pupils to literary Arabic: There is a daily schedule for these kindergarten children. They have three meetings per day with me and all take place in literary Arabic. The morning meeting which lasts for thirty minutes is when I ask questions and develop a dialogue about daily regular subjects such as the weather,

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the date, and the season. The children are asked to talk about their feelings and experiences of yesterday and/or today. The second meeting also lasts about thirty minutes, and it focuses on the weekly topic that each teacher chooses. In the last meeting we usually sum up our activities of that day, and we play games with the children, sing, and tell them a story. It also lasts for thirty minutes. Of course it takes place in literary Arabic, and the children are encouraged to participate. Children who were exposed to this program in the preschool year and the kindergarten year were post hoc tested at the end of grade 1, and another group was tested at the end of grade 2. A similar daily schedule and activities (meetings) took place with the control group, with one difference, namely the language of communication, storytelling, games, and meetings was spoken Arabic. The silent reading comprehension tests were given to the groups on two different days. The participants were instructed to read the stories carefully and answer the multiple-choice comprehension questions that followed each story. They were also allowed to refer to the text after they had read the stories to conrm their answer. Further, the participants were told that there was no time limit and they would submit their answer sheet only after they had nished. It usually took them about 35 minutes to read each story and answer the questions. Variables and denitions Independent variable: Literary Arabic, which was the language of instruction in the experimental group, and spoken Arabic, which was the language of instruction in the control group. Dependent variable: The achievement of the children in the multiple-choice comprehension questionnaires in grade 1 and grade 2 in both groups.

Results The results of the reading tests are presented in Table 1 according to question type, explicit or implicit, experiment group or control group. A 2 (groups: experiment and control) 2 (question types: implicit and explicit) 2 (grade levels: 1 and 2) MANOVA was conducted. As seen in Table 1, the experiment group performed signicantly better than the control group (Tables 24). The multivariate tests Wilks Lambda indicated signicant effects for question type, explicit or implicit, for treatment conditions, experiment or control

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Table 1. Means and standard deviations of reading scores of experiment and control groups on explicit and implicit question level (N = 282) Tests* Explicit Experiment group Grade X SD N

1 2 1 2

6.17 7.30 4.52 5.59

2.77 2.44 2.54 3.14

69 75 66 72

Control group

Implicit Experiment group

1 2 1 2

2.08 5.12 2.96 3.84

2.49 2.33 2.25 2.66

69 75 66 72

Control group

* Maximum score = 10.00. Table 2. Multivariate tests Wilks Lambda Source of variance F Hypothesis df 1.000 1.000 1.000 1.000 Error df 278.000 278.000 278.000 278.000 p

Implicit/Explicit Experiment/Control Grade 1/Grade 2 Implicit/Explicit Group 1/2 Grade 1/2 Alpha level = 0.05.

372.24 35.36 11.75 17.79

<0.001 <0.001 <0.01 <0.001

group, and for grade level (Table 2). There was also a signicant interaction of question type group grade level (Table 2). This triple interaction means that generally the experiment group comprehended all types of questions at all grade levels better than the control group, except for the control group comprehending better at the grade 1 level on the inference questions type. This pattern of interaction was also replicated in the next within-subject effects procedures. The procedures of within-subject effects indicated signicant effects for question type, F(1, 278) = 372.2, p < 0.001; group, experiment/control, F(1, 278) = 11.0, p < 0.001; and for grade level, F(1, 278) = 29.1, p < 0.001.

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Table 3. Tests of within-subject effects Source of variance F (df = 1, 278) 372.2 11.0 29.1 35.4 11.7 3.8 17.8 p

A B C AB AC BC ABC Alpha level = 0.05. Implicit/Explicit = A. Experiment/Control = B. Grade 1/2 Level = C.

0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.001 0.05 0.001

Table 4. Tests of between-subject effects Source of variance F (df = 1, 278) 11.0 29.0 3.8 p

B C BC Alpha level = 0.05. Experiment/Control = B. Grade 1/2 Level = C.

0.001 0.001 0.05

There was also a signicant interaction of question type group, F(1, 278) = 35.4, p < 0.001; a signicant interaction of question type grade level, F(1, 278) = 11.7, p < 0.001; a signicant interaction of group grade level, F(1, 278) = 3.8, p < 0.05; and a triple signicant interaction of question type group grade level, F(1, 278) = 17.8, p < 0.001 (Table 3). Consistently, the procedure of between-subject effects also indicated a signicant effect for group, experiment/control, F(1, 278) = 11.0, p < 0.001; a signicant effect for grade level, 1 and 2, F(1, 278) = 29.0, p < 0.001; and a signicant interaction of group grade level, F(1, 278) = 3.8, p < 0.05. In sum, the MANOVA results indicated signicant differences in favor of the experiment group results over the control group results in all question types and grade levels but one; the exception was the implicit type of questions at the rst-grade level, where the control group results were better.

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Discussion The important result of the present study is that exposure of preschool children to literary Arabic in diglossic situations enhances their reading ability in the rst and the second grades of elementary school. This expands Iraqis (1990) nding that exposure of preschool children in diglossic situations to literary Arabic enhances their listening comprehension and oral linguistic abilities; another result of the present study is that it enhances childrens reading comprehension of literary Arabic texts. These results accord with previous ndings conducted in Hebrew (Feitelson et al. 1988, 1991; Reshef 1984). These results are also in accord with Ayaris (1996) suggestion that the difference between spoken Arabic and literary Arabic is a diglossic relationship that can be mediated by exposing these students to literary Arabic texts at early ages. This will enhance their reading ability and their schooling achievement. The ndings at the level of implicit knowledge of rst-grade pupils did not match the other ndings, namely the control group results were signicantly higher than the experiment group results only on that type of questions. These inference questions were seemingly difcult for the experiment group and the control group; both results were very low (oor effect), even though the control group results were signicantly higher. Further, in the rst grade these beginning readers seem to be still at the stage of word-by-word decoding and are not yet at the level of automatic word decoding. The results were completely different with both question types for grade 2. The conclusion of the present study is that early exposure of Arab preschool children to literary Arabic texts (stories) enhances their reading comprehension abilities later on in the early stages of their literary Arabic reading (Feitelson, Goldstein, Iraqi & Share 1993). Thus, at the practical level, early exposure can be implemented in kindergarten. Policy makers may incorporate this pedagogy in all preschool years as part of the curriculum. It can also be promoted through educating elementary-school teachers and kindergarten teachers in these diglossic issues and explaning to them the rationale of exposing their pupils to literary Arabic. These issues can be incorporated in teacher development programs. This suggested pedagogy might supersede the old beliefs about the incomprehensibility of literary Arabic to preschool children. It is also recommended that teachers at all levels use literary Arabic as the language of instruction, which will enhance students reading skills in literary Arabic and make it close to and meaningful for students lives.

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Somech, S. (1980). The problem of language in modern Arabic literature. Teaching contemporary Arabic Series. Tel Aviv: Ministry of Education and Culture, Curriculum Center, Tel Aviv University. Stanovich, K.E. (1986). Matthew effects in reading: Some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy, Reading Research Quarterly 21: 360406. Stanovich, K. E. & West, R. F. (1989). Exposure to print and orthographic processing, Reading Research Quarterly 24: 402433. Address for correspondence: Salim Abu-Rabia, University of Haifa, Faculty of Education, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31905, Israel Phone: (Ofce) 972-4-8249137, (Home) 972-4-8226004; Fax: 972-4-8240911; E-mail: Salimar@construct.haifa.ac.il