Abstract
The present research examined the effect of nature of orthography on the development of reading acquisition among children acquiring Arabic and Hebrew. Speed and accuracy measures were examined in reading texts in Arabic and in Hebrew. It was found that Arabic speakers showed an almost equal control in reading both languages. Furthermore, it was found that the speed of read- ing texts in Arabic among Arabic speakers was 3 times slower than reading Hebrew texts among Hebrew readers. These findings confirm that there is difficulty in identifying and decoding visual stimuli in Arabic. Furthermore, findings of the present research paper emphasizes that reading in Hebrew is faster and more precise than reading in Arabic, beyond mother tongue groups (Arab and Hebrew speakers). In addition, Hebrew readers showed a significant difference in reading in favor of reading in their mother tongue (both in accuracy and speed). In conclusion, findings of the present research suggest that there is an objective difficulty in acquiring reading of the Arabic language, and there is need for systematic intervention among those who face difficulties in the learning process.
Highlights
Reading includes the ability to decode morphemes into meaningful words aiming at understanding the whole text
As the performance in the second language was compared between the two groups of the different mother tongues (Arabic and Hebrew), we examined the transfer of linguistic abilities in the mother tongue to a second language depend on the type and structure of the language
The results for each of the hypotheses presented in the introduction are presented separately, while the main research question was: is the Arabic language more difficult to process and acquire than the Hebrew language?
Summary
Reading includes the ability to decode morphemes into meaningful words aiming at understanding the whole text. This includes skills based on phonological processing such as phonemic synthesis and analysis, as well as. Proof for the existence of skills transfer between languages was obtained in a long-term study by Dufva & Voeten (1999), this study supported the importance of phonological working memory in the process of second-language reading acquisition. Other researchers showed that control of reading and writing skills in the first language facilitates the acquisition of a second language, as there is transfer of acquired reading skills from one language to the other, such as phonological awareness, perception of print, orthographic knowledge and general knowledge (Pang & Kamil, 2004)
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