The Arabic writing system allows for two representations: vowelized or non-vowelized. The vowelized writing, which characterizes the writing in the Koran, classical literature and children's books, includes the long and short vowels and all the vowels, including the vowels that express syntax functions (the final vowels). In non-vowelized writing,…

Research reveals that although the effect of diacritics--the symbols that tell the reader how to pronounce a letter--on reading and reading comprehension was examined in a series of studies, the influence of diacritics on listening comprehension, especially in the Arabic orthography, was not examined. Therefore, this study attempted to examine…

Like many non-native learners, English is a Foreign Language to Omani learners; therefore, Spoken English turns out to be difficult and often problematic. Non-native learners of English face several phonological problems mainly because most languages follow specific, predictable rules of pronunciation, but English does not. There are native and…

The present study explored the influence of short vowelization in Arabic orthography on reading comprehension of different texts, different genres and on different levels, among students of different ages. It explored the influence of short vowelization in Arabic orthography on reading comprehension of texts from the Koran, informative texts,…

The goal of the present study was to investigate the effect of short Arabic vowels on listening comprehension. It is well documented that short vowels affect reading and reading comprehension in Arabic literacy. Since reading comprehension and listening comprehension share many commonalities, it is assumed that short vowels will positively affect…

This study investigates the English spelling of students in grades 2 through 8 in Mainland China. A review of spelling and cross-linguistic research in spelling is presented. The orthographic development of 273 students was assessed "with validated spelling inventories" (Sterbinsky, 2007) to sample developmental features across three…

Students beyond the primary grades who struggle with reading lack basic word attack ability and are thus unable to read new words with accuracy. However, there has been little research that reveals the specific word attack errors students exhibit. In this study, 123 struggling adolescent readers receiving special education services were given the…

All native speakers of Arabic read in a language variety that is remarkably distant from the one they use in everyday speech. The study tested the impact of this distance on reading accuracy and fluency by comparing reading of Standard Arabic (StA) words, used in StA only, versus Spoken Arabic (SpA) words, used in SpA too, among Arabic native…

Language immersion students' lexical, syntactic, and pragmatic competencies are well documented, yet their phonological skill has remained relatively unexplored. This study investigates the Spanish vowel productions of a cross-sectional sample of 35 one-way Spanish immersion students. Learner productions were analyzed acoustically and compared to…