Early literacy in Arabic: An intervention study among Israeli Palestinian kindergartners

• Autores: Iris Levin, E. Saiegh-Haddad, Nareman Hende, Margalit Ziv
• Localización: Applied psycholinguistics, ISSN 0142-7164, Vol. 29, Nº 3, 2008, págs. 413-436
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Arabic Literacy acquisition was studied among Israeli Palestinian low socioeconomic status kindergartners within the framework of an intervention study, implemented by teachers. On pretest, letter naming, alphabetic awareness, and phonological awareness were very low. Whereas the comparison group hardly progressed throughout the year, the intervention group progressed substantially on all three skills. The diglossic nature of the Arabic letter name system was manifested in children's transition from a mixture of two systems to preference for standard over colloquial names following the intervention. As in other alphabets, visual similarity and adjacency increased letter confusability. The unique features of Arabic literacy are discussed.