Abstract
We evaluate a randomized controlled trial (RCT) in the United Arab Emirates of an innovative early-grade literacy curriculum based on insights from cognitive science studies on language acquisition. A key problem faced by Arabic speakers learning to read, particularly those from poorer households, is the difference between the (origin-specific) Arabic dialects used at home and the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) used for instruction. This Arabic diglossia (use of two language varieties) leads students in the Arab world to view MSA as a foreign language (Eviatar and Ibrahim, 2014) and reduces interest in learning. We test a newly developed reading and oral grammar MSA curriculum called Iqra (derived from the Arabic word for “read”) for students entering primary school. Iqra relies on perceptual and statistical learning of language to help students detect visual patterns and probabilistic structure in MSA that they would not learn at home. Practice and systematic repetition of analogic, predictable patterns help transfer information into implicit memory, which is durable and facilitates automaticity (Abadzi and Martelli, 2014; Abadzi, 2018). The curriculum has shown promise in a pilot study in the United Arab Emirates. This study will test the program in a full-scale RCT, including impact on literacy and measurement of the underlying cognitive processes hypothesized in the theory of change.