We will test and revise a newly developed reading and MSA oral grammar curriculum for young students in a small pilot study. The curriculum, called ”Iqra”, derived from the Arabic word for “reading”, was developed in 2017 by the Al Qasimi Foundation of Ras al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates (UAE). It consists of two components: 1) a reading curriculum focused on phonics (Abadzi 2014) and lettername/sounds knowledge (Foulin 2005); and 2) an oral language curriculum focused on the features used in early-grade Arabictextbooks. The curriculum explicitly trains on verb conjugations and other features that differ from the vernaculars (Abadzi,2018). Reading and language are influenced by different functional networks and may benefit from targeted practice. Documents relating to two phases of the project are posted here. The JPAL project was never executed due to design flaws in the curriculum and research methods. DIV project cancelled. View other project materials at https://sourceforge.net/projects/iqra-pilots/
Method: Pre and post test design (intervention group), questionnaire for students and parents.