Effect of Viewing Children’s Movies in Literary Arabic on Kindergartners’ Oral Skills

Abstract

One of the factors influencing literacy among kindergartners, and in particular their expressive skills, is the visual-auditory channel. However, there is no consensus in the scientific literature in everything pertaining to the degree of causality of this contribution to expressive skills among this population. The aim of the present study was to test the effect of viewing movies in literary Arabic on the oral skills of kindergartners whose mother tongue is Arabic. The research design was quantitativeexperimental. The research included 70 kindergarten-age children who were sampled from two kindergartens in the Arab society in the north of Israel, using a convenience sample. The children were aged 5-6 years. Of these, 35 (50%) are boys and 35 (50%) are girls. The research instruments included early literacy tests: morphological awareness, phonological awareness, vocabulary. Oral language skills were tested by a language test after viewing each of the movies. The findings indicate that the research hypothesis, according to which a positive effect of viewing movies in literary Arabic on their oral skills will be found, was supported. Thus, viewing movies in literary Arabic significantly improved kindergartners’ oral skills.