Role of teachers in teaching Arabic letters to young children of UAE: Exploring criteria of Arabic letters teaching

Abstract

An insufficient number of studies investigated the criteria for Arabic letter teaching in schools. Teachers play an integral role in understanding Arabic letters among young children, as it is essential for acquiring reading in the Arabic language early in life. The criteria for teaching letters in a current study include ease of pronunciation, long vowels, short vowels, ease of pronunciation, sound, shape, and letter names. It is important to consider letter teaching as it helps in the early recognition and identification of the language and in performing better academically. The focus of the current study is to explore the orthographic attributes of Arabic letters, how teachers teach these letters, the order and criteria they follow, and the relative difficulty of letter knowledge items within the Arabic alphabet framework. Arabic letter teaching criteria tests were conducted among 80 teachers from Arabic-speaking countries in UAE. These teachers taught Kindergarten, grade 1, and special needs children. The current study’s findings revealed that Arabic letter teaching efforts are dynamic as chi-square results are non-significant, reflecting that teachers’ criteria and order adopted do not depend on teachers’ level of education or their specific area of expertise. Findings show that most teachers who adopt ease of pronunciation of letters in teaching students start with long vowels. Furthermore, results indicated that most teachers introduce Arabic letters, sounds, and shapes when teaching young learners.