Elinor Saiegh-Haddad

Linguistic constraints on children's ability to isolate phonemes in Arabic

The study tested the effect of three factors on Arab childrens (N=256) phoneme isolation: phonemes linguistic affiliation (standard phonemes vs. spoken phonemes), phoneme position (initial vs. final), and linguistic context (singleton vs. cluster). Two groups of children speaking two different vernaculars were tested. The two vernaculars differed with respect to whether they included four critical Standard Arabic phonemes. Using a repeated-measure design, we tested childrens phonemic sensitivity toward these four phonemes versus other phonemes. The results showed that the linguistic affiliation of the phoneme was reliable in explaining phoneme isolation reaffirming, hence the external validity of the linguistic affiliation constraint in explaining phoneme awareness in diglossic Arabic. The results also showed that initial phonemes and initial singleton phonemes were particularly difficult for children to isolate. These findings were discussed in light of a stipulated unique phonological and orthographic cohesion of the consonant–vowel unit in Arabic.

The Linguistic Affiliation Constraint and phoneme recognition in diglossic Arabic

This study tested the effect of the phonemes linguistic affiliation (Standard Arabic versus Spoken Arabic) on phoneme recognition among five-year-old Arabic native speaking kindergarteners (N=60). Using a picture selection task of words beginning with the same phoneme, and through careful manipulation of the phonological properties of target phonemes and distractors, the study showed that childrens recognition of Standard phonemes was poorer than that of Spoken phonemes. This finding was interpreted as indicating a deficiency in the phonological representations of Standard words. Next, the study tested two hypotheses regarding the specific consequences of under-specified phonological representations: phonological encoding versus phonological processing. These hypotheses were addressed through an analysis of the relative power of distractors. The findings revealed that childrens difficulty in accessing Standard Arabic phonemes was due to a difficulty in the phonological encoding of Standard words. We discuss the implications of the findings for language and literacy development in diglossic Arabic.

The Structure of Arabic Language and Orthography

This chapter was designed to promote our understanding of the triangulation, in Arabic, of language, orthography and reading. We focus on topics in the structure of the Arabic language and orthography that pertain to literacy research and practice. It is agreed that the development of basic reading skills is influenced by linguistic (mainly phonological and morpho-syntactic) and orthographic variation among languages. Therefore, the chapter devotes particular attention to these aspects of the linguistic structure of Arabic and to the way this structure is represented in the Arabic orthography. Further, in light of the importance of oral language processing skills in the acquisition of reading, the chapter also discusses Arabic diglossia: it describes the linguistic distance between Colloquial or Spoken Arabic and Standard or Literary Arabic, the primacy of Standard Arabic linguistic structures in the written form of the language, and the effect of this on several linguistic processes in literacy acquisition.

Bilingual oral reading fluency and reading comprehension: The case of Arabic/Hebrew (L1)-;English (L2) readers

The relevance of Oral Reading Fluency(ORF) to reading comprehension in the nativelanguage (L1) and in English -; a foreignlanguage (L2) -; was studied. Fifty universitystudents, twenty-two Arabic and twenty-eight Hebrew nativespeakers, read both L1 and English texts aloudand reported their comprehension on-line.Results showed that ORF was not correlated withreading comprehension in L1. However, inEnglish, the two reading measures weresignificantly correlated. Next, the ORF andreading comprehension scores were each analyzedusing a 2 × 2 ANOVA with repeated measures onlanguage (L1 versus L2) and with nativelanguage (Arabic versus Hebrew) as a betweensubject factor. This analysis revealed a maineffect of language, with both sets of scoreshigher in L1 than in L2. However, a nativelanguage effect was only traced in the ORFscores, favoring the Hebrew native group. Thefindings demonstrate the importance of ORF inadult L2 reading comprehension. Linguisticproficiency and the unique properties ofunvoweled script are used to explain theabsence of a significant correlation betweenORF and comprehension in L1 reading. Diglossia is proposed as a tenable explanationof the lower ORF scores among the Arabic nativesample.

Literacy Reflexes of Arabic Diglossia

The paper offers a conceptual framework of diglossia Ferguson, C.A. (1959). Diglossia-Word, 14, 47–56 as a sociolinguistic phenomenon and discusses some of the defining features of a diglossic context. Then, it describes Arabic as a typical diglossic context with emphasis placed on two features: (a) linguistic distance between Spoken Arabic and Standard Arabic and (b) socio-functional complementarity between the two linguistic codes, with Spoken Arabic the language that all Arabic native speaking children acquire as a mother tongue and with Standard Arabic primarily the language of literacy. These features are argued to have a direct impact on the acquisition of basic reading processes in Arabic. The paper then reviews recent psycholinguistic research addressing directly the effect of diglossia on the acquisition of basic reading processes in Arabic. The evidence reviewed demonstrates that children’s phonological awareness and phonological recoding skills are directly affected by the linguistic affiliation of the target phonological unit (Standard versus Spoken). As such, children find Standard phonological structures that are only available in Standard Arabic significantly more difficult to process than those structures familiar to them from their spoken vernacular. Based on this review, a hypothesis is then advanced that diglossia challenges the acquisition of basic reading processes in Arabic. It is further argued that the socio-cultural context in which Arabic reading acquisition is embedded exacerbates the impact of phonological distance on reading development with children beginning formal instruction in reading with little knowledge about literacy and print. This constitutes a drawback that brings about further frustration and failure.

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

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 childrens 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.

A tale of one letter: Morphological processing in early Arabic spelling

The study examined spelling of the letter ت in Arabic among first-, second-, third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade native Arabic-speaking children (N = 150). The letter is among the most frequent letters in Arabic and it participates in the encoding of three productive morphological entities: root, word-pattern and affix. The letter is also homographic and may represent the default voiceless dental-alveolar stop phoneme /t/ as well as its emphatic allophonic variant [ṭ] coinciding, hence, with the phoneme typically represented by the letter ط. The study tested whether children use morphological cues in spelling the letter in Arabic, and whether morphological processing is different for different morphemes and in different grades. The results indicate that morphological processing is functional very early on in Arabic spelling among children. Yet, morphological processing appears to depend on the specific morpheme targeted, with some morphemes lending themselves more strongly to morphological processing than others. The results are discussed within the framework of the morphological and morpho-orthographic structure of Arabic.

The Role of Phonological versus Morphological Skills in the Development of Arabic Spelling: An Intervention Study.

The current study investigated the contribution of two linguistic intervention programs, phonological and morphological to the development of word spelling among skilled and poor native Arabic readers, in three grades: second, fourth and sixth. The participants were assigned to three experimental groups: morphological intervention, phonological intervention and a non-intervention control group. Phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and spelling abilities were tested before and after the intervention. Participants from both linguistic intervention programs and in all grades made significant progress in linguistic awareness and spelling after the intervention. The results showed that both intervention programs were successful in promoting children’s spelling skills in both groups. Also, older poor readers showed a stronger response to the morphological intervention than the older skilled readers. A transfer effect was found with the phonological training contributing to the morphological skills and vice versa. The results of the current study were discussed in the light of developmental and psycholinguistic views of spelling acquisition as well as the characteristics of Arabic language and orthography.

Acquiring Literacy in a Diglossic Context: Problems and Prospects

Many people still believe, as once was commonly assumed, that literacy simply means knowing how to read and write a particular script. Thus, we divide people into literates and illiterates, and worry about how to teach the latter a skill that would move them into the former class. However, as a result of the work of Scribner and Cole (The psychology of literacy. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), we are now more inclined to talk about “literary practices”, the application of reading skill “for specific purposes in specific contexts of use” (1981, p. 37). The old simple model that assumed that literacy was a result of schooling has been shown to leave out the many cases in which various groups develop literacy skills for particular purposes, and scholars nowadays are as likely to speak about literacies or multi-literacies (See Macken-Horarik and Adoniou (2008), Handbook of educational linguistics (pp.367–382). Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing) as about being able to read and write. This complexity is important when we attempt to understand the problem of the relationship between literacy in a standard or sacred language and literacy practices in the vernacular variety. In this paper, we will discuss problematic aspects of developing literacy in a diglossic situation. We will then describe a project that attempted to address some of these difficulties in the context of diglossic Arabic.

Epilinguistic and metalinguistic phonological awareness may be subject to different constraints: Evidence from Hebrew

The study tested epilinguistic and metalinguistic phonological awareness in junior kindergarten, senior kindergarten and first-grade Hebrew native speaking children (N= 115). The primary aim was to investigate whether childrens epilinguistic and metalinguistic phonological awareness was affected by the position of the target phoneme (initial vs. final). Two epilinguistic phonological awareness tasks (initial and final phoneme recognition) and two metalinguistic tasks (initial and final phoneme isolation) were used. The findings showed that, while epilinguistic awareness for initial phonemes was higher than that for final phonemes, the opposite was true for metalinguistic awareness. The results imply that Hebrew native speaking childrens metalinguistic awareness is predicated on a language-specific body-coda phonological representation. The phonological organization summoned during epilinguistic awareness tasks appears to be essentially different, however. The disjoint pattern of sensitivity for initial and final phonemes in epilinguistic and metalinguistic phonological awareness tasks suggests that the two levels of awareness are subject to different constraints, and supports their psycholinguistic independence.