Reading and Writing (2005) 18:559582 DOI 10.

1007/s11145-005-3180-4

Springer 2005

Correlates of reading uency in Arabic: Diglossic and orthographic factors

ELINOR SAIEGH-HADDAD
Bar-Ilan University, Israel

Abstract. Arabic native speaking children are born into a unique linguistic context called diglossia (Ferguson, word, 14, 4756, [1959]). In this context, children grow up speaking a Spoken Arabic Vernacular (SAV), which is an exclusively spoken language, but later learn to read another linguistically related form, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Forty-two rst-grade Arabic native speaking children were given ve measures of basic reading processes: two cognitive (rapid automatized naming and short-term working memory), two phonological (phoneme discrimination and phoneme isolation), and one orthographic (letter recoding speed). In addition, the study produced independent measures of phonological processing for MSA phonemes (phonemes that are not within the spoken vernacular of children) and SAV phonemes (phonemes that are familiar to children from their oral vernacular). The relevance of these skills to MSA pseudoword reading uency (words correct per minute) in vowelized Arabic was tested. The results showed that all predictor measures, except phoneme discrimination, correlated with pseudoword reading uency. Although phonological processing (phoneme isolation and discrimination) for MSA phonemes was more challenging than that for SAV phonemes, phonological skills were not found to aect reading uency directly. Stepwise regression analysis showed that the strongest predictor of reading uency in vowelized Arabic was letter recoding speed. Letter recoding speed was predicted by memory, rapid naming, and phoneme isolation. The results are discussed in light of Arabic diglossia and the shallow orthography of vowelized Arabic. Key words: Arabic, Diglossia, Letter recoding speed, Rapid naming, Reading uency, Shallow orthography, Working memory

Following the understanding that word reading ability predicts reading achievement (Perfetti, 1985; West & Stanovich, 1978), research during the last three decades has been concerned with revealing the cognitive and linguistic underpinnings of word reading (National Reading Panel, 2000). One of the most important achievements of this pursuit constitutes in revealing the primary role of phonemic awareness in the acquisition of basic reading processes (Stanovich, 2000). To read an alphabetic orthography, children must rst understand that the

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acoustically seamless sound stream that represents spoken words can be segmented into smaller component phonemes. Such a metalinguistic insight is a prerequisite to reading because alphabetic writing systems map the oral language at the level of the phoneme (Shankweiler & Liberman, 1972). Ample research evidence has been reported in support of this hypothesis (for reviews, see Adams, 1990; Brady & Shankweiler, 1991; Byrne, 1998; Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Stanovich, 1992; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). Training in phonemic awareness has also been shown to result in gains in reading (for a review, see Bus & van IJzendoorn, 1999). Learning to read requires yet another skill the ability to convert graphemes to phonemes, so-called alphabetic knowledge. Children must learn the mappings between the phonemes in spoken words and the letters that represent them in print. This has been shown to be an important aspect of early word decoding (Byrne & Fielding-Barnsley, 1989; Lovett, Warren-Chaplin, Ransby, & Borden, 1990; Share, 1995; Torgesen, Wagner, & Rashotte, 1997; Vellutino & Scanlon, 1987). Training in graphemephoneme correspondence rules was also found eective in enhancing word decoding accuracy (Ball & Blachman, 1991; Bradley & Bryant, 1983, 1985; Bryant & Impey, 1986; Bus & van IJzendoorn, 1999; Cunningham, 1990; Juel, 1988). Speech perception is another important correlate of reading. Since reading requires the ability to convert graphemes to phonemes, a phonological decit would result in a decoding decit. A phonological decit among poor readers has been attributed to a decit in speech perception (Brady, Shankweiler, & Mann, 1983; DeWeirdt, 1988; Godfrey, Syrdal-Laskey, Millay, & Knox, 1981; McBride-Chang, 1995; Studdert-Kennedy, 2002; Tallal, 1980; Werker & Tees, 1987). Research has demonstrated that phonetic categorization may suer if the perception of phonemes is inaccurate or if their representation is indistinct, underspecied, or unstable (Elbro, 1996, 1998, 1999; Elbro, Borstorm, & Peterson, 1998; Elbro, Nielson, & Peterson, 1994; Fowler, 1991; Goswami, 2000). Recent work has also shown that training in phonemic discrimination may help improve childrens phonemic segmentation skills (Hurford, 1990). Memory is another factor. In order to read, children must be able to retain the phonological representation of orthographic units in shortterm working memory until phonological assembly and lexical access is achieved. This is especially the case when unfamiliar, low-frequency, or pseudowords are decoded, since phonological recoding strategies become a primary reading mechanism. The role of this cognitive skill in accounting for variations in reading success has been widely

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documented, leaving little doubt that poor readers are outperformed by good readers on measures of memory (Abu-Rabia & Siegel, 2002; Brady, 1991; Dempster, 1981; Geva & Siegel, 2000; Jorm, 1983; McBride-Chang, 1995; Siegel & Ryan, 1989; Snowling, 1981; Taylor, Lean, & Schwartz, 1989). The speed with which the names of visual stimuli, such as names of objects, colors, digits or letters, are retrieved from long-term memory (Denckla & Rudell, 1974, 1976; Geschwind, 1965) has also been shown to explain unique variance in reading. This is because it uses a basic facility needed for reading temporal coordination of orthographic and phonological information. (Ackerman & Dykman, 1993; Badian, 1995, 1996; Bowers, Golden, Kennedy, & Young, 1994; Bowers, Stefty, & Tate, 1988; Bowers & Wolf, 1993; Jorm & Share, 1983; Lovett, 1992; Wolf & Bowers, 1999; Wolf, Bowers, & Biddle, 2000; Wolf, Orourke, Gidney, Lovett, Cirino, & Morris, 2002).

Reading in a shallow orthography Alphabetic orthographies vary in Orthographic Depth the regularity and consistency with which they map oral language phonemes (Frost, Katz, & Bentin, 1987; Katz & Frost, 1992; Liberman, Liberman, Mattingly, & Shankweiler, 1980; Turvey, Feldman, & Lukatela, 1984). As a result, the underlying processes that predict word reading uency in alphabetic orthographies with varying degrees of depth may vary. Research on reading in English has established the primary specic role of phonemic awareness in predicting word reading skill (for reviews, see Adams, 1990; Brady & Shankweiler, 1991; Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Stanovich, 1992; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). Recent evidence coming from reading in a shallow orthography, like German or Dutch, however, indicates that memory and processing speed may be stronger correlates of reading success in these orthographies (de Jong & van der Leij, 1999; Landerl & Wimmer, 2000; Landerl, Wimmer, & Frith, 1997; Wimmer, 1993; Wimmer & Goswami, 1994; Wimmer, Landerl, Linortner, & Hummer, 1991; Wimmer, Mayringer, & Landerl, 1998, 2000). As such, the acquisition of phonemic awareness and decoding accuracy is less dicult in consistent orthographies, even for dyslexic children. Therefore, decits in rapid naming and memory are stronger predictors of reading diculties. Vowelized Arabic is considered a typical case of shallow orthography. Although the Arabic writing system is primarily consonantal, with short vowels represented as superscripted diacritics, all diacritics are

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present in the vowelized orthography. Further, these diacritics are regularly mapped onto the phonemes they represent. This makes vowelized Arabic a shallow orthography for reading. The existence of a highly detailed and transparent orthography, one of whose present-day functions is to teach children how to read, makes Arabic especially appropriate for studying the relevance of cognitive-linguistic factors towards reading uency in shallow orthographies.

Reading in a diglossic context Two features dene a diglossic context (Ferguson, 1959). The rst is a dierentiation between the written and the oral modes. The second is a rigid socio-functional complementarity of two separate sets of functions performed by two remarkably distinct, though linguistically related codes. Arabic is a typical case of diglossia. Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the language used throughout the Arabic speaking world for writing and some other socially formal functions, such as, speeches and religious sermons. This form alternates with an array of spoken Arabic vernaculars (SAVs) that are used for everyday conversation. Though SAVs are all linguistically related to MSA, they are distinct and structurally remarkably distant from it. The linguistic distance between MSA and SAV spans the phonological, morpho-syntactic, and lexicalsemantic domains. To illustrate the linguistic distance between MSA and SAV, it is informative at this point to consider specic examples from the domain of phonology. The composition of the phonemic inventory, as well as the syllabic structure of MSA and SAV is dierent. MSA comprises a total of 28 consonantal phonemes and 6 vocalic phonemes: three short and three long. Spoken vernaculars usually have a more complex vocalic system, but a simpler consonantal inventory incorporating a smaller number of consonants. This means that, upon the inception of reading, children are confronted with a set of novel consonantal phonemes that are not familiar to them from their oral language experience. For instance, MSA has three interdental fricatives: voiced /U/, voiceless /h/, and emphatic /U/. All three interdental sounds are lacking in a local " form of Palestinian SAV spoken in the north of Israel. As a result, even when a lexical item is shared by the two forms of the language, this item may acquire dierent, though related phonemic structures in each of the two forms (e.g., MSA/Uahcb/ (gold) versus SAV /dahcb/, or MSA /ha!lcb/ (fox) versus SAV /ta!lcb/). (For a discussion of additional diglossic structures, see Saiegh-Haddad, 2003, 2004).

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The syllabic structure of MSA and SAV words may also vary. MSA does not permit consonant cluster onsets. Complex onsets, however, are very frequent word initial structures in Palestinian SAVs. Similarly, MSA permits complex rime codas in monosyllabic word nal positions. These, however, are very rare in SAV. As a result, complex codas are usually broken in SAV by inserting an epenthetic vowel (e.g., MSA/sahl/ (easy, plain) versus SAV /sahI l/; MSA /hal^/ (snow) versus SAV/ talI ^/, _ _ and MSA /Uaqn/ (beard/ chin) versus SAV /da!I n/, note that the last _ two examples demonstrate a change in both the phonemic and the syllabic structure of the word). Thus, dierent rules and constraints govern the phonological representation of even the same concept in the two varieties of the language. In order to identify a word, the beginning reader must be able to discover the linguistic relatedness between the two forms of the word and to recover the linguistic distance between them. This is a formidable task, especially given the fact that phonological distance is usually compounded by morpho-syntactic distance. Also, because almost all function words and many of the high frequency content words that (s)he encounters have a phonological form in MSA that is completely dierent from their form in the childs spoken vernacular. Despite the potential impact of the diglossic linguistic duality on the acquisition of basic reading skills, this phenomenon has only recently begun to attract attention. Abu-Rabia (2000) and Feitelson, Goldstein, Iraqi, and Share (1993) showed that early oral exposure to MSA, through story telling, was associated with gains in literary language development and reading comprehension. In a more bottom-order concern with the eect of the diglossic linguistic distance between MSA and SAV on the acquisition of basic reading spin-os, Saiegh-Haddad (2003, 2004) tested whether diglossic (distant) linguistic structures interfered with the acquisition of basic reading processes in MSA. Saiegh-Haddad (2003) addressed the eect of the phonological distance between SAV and MSA on the acquisition of phonemic awareness and word decoding accuracy. Testing kindergarten and rst grade native speaking children of a Palestinian Arabic vernacular spoken in the north of Israel, it was shown that MSA phonemes were signicantly more dicult for children to isolate and to decode. The study also revealed that MSA phonemes were signicantly more dicult to operate on when they were embedded within MSA syllabic structures. Saiegh-Haddad (2004) examined the eect of the lexical and the phonemic distance between MSA and SAV on the phonological analysis of children. The study showed that MSA words were signicantly more dicult for kindergarteners to analyze than either SAV or pseudowords. The study also showed that MSA phonemes were signicantly more dicult to isolate when they were

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embedded within MSA words. These results provide initial evidence in support of the hypothesis that linguistic distance interferes with the acquisition of basic reading processes in a diglossic context. The present study aims to explore the relevance of underlying cognitive, phonological, and orthographic factors to pseudoword reading uency in Arabic. Two unique features of Arabic make such an examination so potentially enlightening. The rst is the shallow orthography of vowelized Arabic. The second is the languages markedly diglossic nature. Although vowelized Arabic is considered a clearly shallow orthography with a regular and consistent relationship with phonological representation, the diglossic nature of the language makes this relationship less transparent. This is because the orthography encodes MSA phonological structures that are not within the oral language experience of children. Thus, reading may suer because of unfamiliar phonological structures not present in the childs SAV. How certain cognitive and linguistic processes operate within this contradictory context is the question of interest. To address this question, the study examines the relevance of underlying cognitive and linguistic factors to reading uency in a phonemically diglossic condition, that is, when pseudowords encode both SAV and MSA phonemes. In addition, the study produces independent measures of phonological processing for MSA and SAV phonemes. This will help map out the relevance of phonemic distance to phonological processing in diglossic Arabic, and explore the relevance of phonological skills, along with other cognitive and orthographic skills to reading uency in diglossic Arabic. The rst hypothesis that the present study addresses is grounded in previous research on reading in a shallow orthography (e.g., Landerl & Wimmer, 2000; Wimmer et al., 1998, 2000). Consistent with this research, it is hypothesized that measures of naming speed and memory will be associated with reading uency in vowelized Arabic. Two factors lead to the second hypothesis. The rst is previous research showing that despite high reading accuracy rates, phoneme isolation and decoding accuracy in Arabic are sensitive to the linguistic aliation of the target phoneme: SAV versus MSA (Saiegh-Haddad, 2003, 2004). The second factor is recently reported evidence indicating increasing diculty of second language readers when they are required to process novel phonemesphonemes that are absent from their rst-language phonology (Wade-Woolley & Geva, 2000; Wang & Geva, 2003). In the wake of this evidence, the second hypothesis predicted that phonological processing for MSA phonemes would be more dicult for children than that for SAV phonemes, and that this would be related to their reading uency. The present study tests these two hypotheses.

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Method Participants Forty-two rst-grade Arabic native speaking children (mean age x 83.66, SD 3.77) participated in the study. Participants were all the children enrolled in a randomly selected rst-grade class at an Arab village in the north of Israel. All children came from average socio-economic background. They were all born residents to the same village and spoke the same local vernacular. Independent measures Rapid automatized naming for colors (RANC). Rapid automatized naming was measured using a color naming test that was modeled after Denckla and Rudell (1974). Children were presented with a series of 50 circles painted in ve colors: red, yellow, blue, green, and black. The names of all ve colors followed an identical disyllabic word structure (CVCCVC) in the childrens SAV: /ahmar/, /asfar/, /azraG/, /avdar/, and /aswad/, respectively. All participating chil" " dren could name all ve colors accurately. Children were required to name the colors as quickly as they could. The time it took them to name all the colors was used as an index of childrens automatized naming speed. Short-term working memory. Short-term working memory was tested using the Forward and Backward Digit Span sub-tests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (WISC-R) (Wechsler, 1974). Children were required to repeat increasingly longer strings of random digits forward and backward. The tests were adopted from an Arabic translation of the WISCR and were administered and scored according to the instructions of the WISC-R manual. Letter recoding speed. A letter recoding speed test was developed for the study. Participants were asked to sound out a randomly ordered list of 50 letters, combining instances of 20 letters from the Arabic alphabet. Two types of letters were included in the list: a randomly selected set of letters representing SAV phonemes, and the four letters representing MSA phonemes The test measured the accuracy and speed with

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which children could convert letter symbols into their corresponding phonemes. The number of letters that children could recode accurately per minute using either the name or the sound of the letter was used as an index of their letter recoding speed.

Phoneme discrimination. Two phoneme discrimination tests were developed for the study. In both tests children were presented with pairs of consonantal phonemes and were asked to decide for each pair whether they sounded the same or dierent. Phonemes were presented orally along with a reduced vowel (schwa) following each phoneme ( etc.). A one-second interval was allowed between the two phonemes in each pair. The rst test consisted of SAV phonemes only (10 pairs). The second test consisted of a randomly ordered list of two types of phoneme pairs: one SAV and one MSA, or two MSA phonemes (15 pairs). Participants were required to respond with either Yes, when they thought the two sounds were the same, or No when they thought they were not. Children were given one point for a correct response and a zero score for an incorrect answer. Each participant received three phoneme discrimination scores: a SAV phoneme discrimination score (SAVPD) that corresponded to his/her performance on the former test, a MSA phoneme discrimination score (MSAPD) that corresponded to his/her performance on the latter test, and a total score combining the raw scores that they achieved on both tests (PD) (see Appendix A).

Phoneme isolation. Phonemic awareness was measured using an initial phoneme isolation test that was developed for the study. Participants listened to orally presented pseudoword stimuli and were then asked to isolate the rst phoneme from each word. A total of 20 disyllabic CVCVC pseudowords were used. The test consisted of two types of randomly ordered pseudowords (10 items in each category): (a) pseudowords that were composed of SAV phonemes only, and (b) pseudowords that began with a MSA phoneme. One point was assigned for successfully isolating the initial phoneme, and a zero score for providing an incorrect phoneme(s), or for providing the correct phoneme in a CV syllabic unit. Each participant received three phoneme isolation scores: the score s/he received on the pseudowords that were composed of SAV phonemes only (SAVPI), the score s/he received on the pseudowords that encoded a MSA phoneme (MSAPI), and a total score combining both (PI) (see Appendix B).

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Dependent measures Reading uency. A test of reading uency was developed for the study. The test consisted of a randomly ordered list of 20 pseudowords: 10 words that were composed of SAV phonemes only and 10 words that encoded one MSA phoneme in an initial or a nal position. The inclusion of both types of phonemes produced an authentic phonemically diglossic reading task, in which both SAV and MSA phonemes are encountered. Since diglossic phonemes were the only linguistic structure that was manipulated, pseudoword stimuli were equated on length (three-to-four letters) and syllabic structure (CV-CVC), and were all presented in the shallow vowelized orthography. Participants were asked to read the words as quickly as they could. The number of words that they read accurately per minute was used as an index of their reading uency (see Appendix C). Procedure Children were tested on an individual basis in a quiet room at their school. Data collection took place in May, a month before the end of the school year. Each participant was administered all tasks on the same day. The responses of participants were both tape-recorded and noted on scoring sheets that were cross-validated against the taperecorded responses.

Results Table 1 provides descriptive statistics for all the measures used in the study. Table 1 shows that, with respect to phonological processing for MSA versus SAV phonemes, phoneme isolation for SAV phonemes (x 8.02, SD 3.23) was higher than that for MSA phonemes (x 7.26, SD 3.02). This dierence, despite the stong correlation between the two sets of scores (r 0.89, P < 0.001), was found to be signicant, t(41) 3.34, P < 0.001. Similarly, phoneme discrimination for SAV phonemes (x 13.73, SD 1.08) was higher than that for MSA phonemes (x 9.02, SD 0.71). However, a paired-sample t-test showed that this dierence was not signicant. This may be due to a ceiling level as indicated by the high phoneme discrimination scores. Table 2 provides a summary of the inter-correlations among all the variables tested.

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Table 1. Descriptive statistics of all measures (N = 42). Variable RANC STM LRS SAVPD MSAPD PD SAVPI MSAPI PI RF Mean 49.33 14.38 56.85 9.02 13.73 22.76 8.02 7.26 15.28 15.73 SD 10.20 4.07 17.49 0.71 1.08 1.51 3.23 3.02 6.08 9.56 Minimum 31.00 8.00 24.00 7.00 11.00 19.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 Maximum 72.00 22.00 93.00 10.00 15.00 25.00 10.00 10.00 20.00 35.00

RANC, Rapid Automatized Naming for Colors (time in seconds); STM, Short Term Memory; LRS, Letter Recoding Speed (letters correct/m); SAVPD, SAV Phoneme Discrimination; MSAPD, MSA Phoneme Discrimination; PD, Total Phoneme Discrimination; SAVPI, SAV Phoneme Isolation; MSAPI, MSA Phoneme Isolation; PI, Total Phoneme Isolation; RF, Reading Fluency (words correct/m).

Table 2. Correlation matrix of all variables (N = 42). Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1. RANC __ )0.10 )0.59** )0.11 )0.33 )0.29 )0.19 )0.27 )0.24 )0.36* 2. STM __ 0.43** )0.03 0.02 0.002 0.26 0.29 0.28 0.55** 3. LRS __ 0.21 0.38* 0.37* 0.46** 0.54** 0.52** 0.75** 4. SAVPD __ 0.38* 0.75** 0.24 0.29 0.27 0.17 5. MSAPD __ 0.90** 0.46** 0.50** 0.50** 0.18 6. PD __ 0.45** 0.50** 0.48** 0.21 7. SAVPI __ 0.89** 0.97** 0.36* 8. MSAPI __ 0.97** 0.41** 9. PI __ 0.39** 10. RF __ *P < 0.05; **P < 0.001?RANC, Rapid Automatized Naming for Colors; STM, Short Term Memory; LRS, Letter Recoding Speed; SAVPD, SAV Phoneme Discrimination; MSAPD, MSA Phoneme Discrimination; PD, Total Phoneme Discrimination; SAVPI, SAV Phoneme Isolation; MSAPI, MSA Phoneme Isolation; PI, Total Phoneme Isolation; RF, Reading Fluency.

As to the relevance of cognitive skills to reading uency, Table 2 shows a moderate negative correlation between rapid naming and reading uency (r )0.36, P < 0.05), and a moderate-to-high correlation between

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memory and reading uency (r 0.55, P < 0.001). As regards linguistic skills, a strong correlation was found between letter recoding speed and reading uency (r 0.75, P < 0.001). Similarly, phoneme isolation for both SAV and MSA phonemes was moderately correlated with reading uency, with MSA phoneme isolation showing a stronger relevance to reading uency than SAV phoneme isolation (r 0.41, P < 0.001 vs. r 0.36, p < 0.05). On the other hand, neither SAV nor MSA phoneme discrimination was found to correlate with reading uency. As to inter-correlations among the cognitive-linguistic measures, Table 2 reveals a moderate-to-high negative correlation between rapid naming, on the one hand, and both letter recoding speed (r )0.59, P < 0.001) and memory (r 0.43, P < 0.001). Further, although SAV phoneme discrimination did not correlate with SAV phoneme isolation, MSA phoneme discrimination and MSA phoneme isolation were moderately correlated (r 0.50, P < 0.001). Finally, the results revealed a moderate positive correlation between letter recoding speed and phoneme isolation (r 0.52, P < 0.001). This correlation remained signicant even when independent phoneme isolation scores for SAV and MSA phonemes were calculated, r 0.46, P < 0.001 and r 0.54, P < 0.001, respectively. Next, two stepwise regression analyses were used to explore the relative contribution of cognitive against linguistic (phonological and orthographic) factors to pseudoword reading uency. Due to its ceiling levels, phoneme discrimination was excluded from all the regression analyses. The two regression analyses diered in the order with which the factors were entered. In the rst analysis cognitive factors (rapid naming and memory) were entered rst followed by the phonological and orthographic factors (phoneme isolation and letter recoding speed). In the second analysis phonological and orthographic factors were entered rst followed by the cognitive factors. The order of entry was not found to aect the results of the analysis. Table 3 summarizes the results from the rst analysis in which the cognitive factors were entered rst. As Table 3 shows, despite the high correlations that were observed between reading uency and all the underlying factors tested, Arabic pseudoword reading uency was primarily predicted by letter recoding speed, followed by memory explaining a very small unique variance. As letter recoding speed measured processing eciency, and in light of the strong correlation that was revealed between this measure and RANC, the next regression analysis aimed to test whether the exclusion of letter recoding speed would render rapid naming a signicant predictor of reading uency. The results of the analysis are summarized in Table 4.

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Table 3. Cognitive-linguistic predictors of reading uency: Stepwise regression analysis. Reading uency Predictors Letter recoding speed Short-term working memory *P < 0.05; **P < 0.001. R2 0.56 0.61 F 52.61 31.17 R2 change 0.56 0.04 F change 52.61** 4.77*

Table 4. Predictors of reading uency (letter recoding speed excluded): Stepwise regression analysis. Reading uency Predictors Short-term working memory Rapid naming for colors *P < 0.05; **P < 0.001. R2 0.27 0.33 F 15.06 11.40 R2 change 0.27 0.09 F change 15.06** 5.90*

As Table 4 shows, when letter recoding speed is excluded from the regression analysis, rapid naming for colors emerges as a signicant predictor of reading uency, though explaining a much smaller unique variance than letter recoding speed in the previous analysis, and a smaller variance than that explained by memory. The next stepwise regression analysis aimed to explore predictors of letter recoding speed the strongest predictor of reading uency in Arabic. The two cognitive measures: rapid naming and memory, as well as phoneme isolation were used as predictors. As Table 5 shows, all three factors: rapid naming, memory, and phoneme isolation, were found to explain unique variance in letter recoding
Table 5. Predictors of letter recoding speed: stepwise regression analysis. Letter recoding speed Predictors Rapid naming for colors Phoneme isolation Short-term working memory *P < 0.05; **P < 0.001. R2 0.35 0.50 0.57 F 21.53 19.59 17.45 R2 change 0.35 0.15 0.77 F change 21.53** 11.82** 7.07*

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speed, with rapid naming for colors explaining the largest variance. The following diagram depicts the sources of variance in letter recoding speed and in pseudoword reading uency in diglossic Arabic (see Figure 1). Discussion Two sets of forces operate in the acquisition of reading uency in vowelized Arabic. The rst is the shallow orthography. The second is the diglossic context. Although vowelized Arabic is an obviously shallow orthography, in that the phonological representation of the written word may be transparently recovered from its orthographic form (letters and diacritics), this regular orthography maps a complex diglossic context. As a result of the diglossic context, the orthography often maps onto novel phonological structures that are not familiar to beginning readers from their oral language vernacular. The cognitive and linguistic (phonological and orthographic) underpinnings of reading uency in this contradictory context were examined. The results showed that Arabic pseudoword reading uency, at the end of the rst grade, was best predicted by letter recoding speed and memory. The results also revealed a strong relevance of rapid naming to both letter recoding speed and to reading uency; rapid naming
Rapid Naming

.59**

.36**

Phoneme Isolation

.52**

Letter Recoding Speed

.75**

Reading Fluency

.43**

.55**

Short-Term Memory

Figure 1. Predictors of letter recoding speed and reading uency in vowelized Arabic.

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emerged as the strongest predictor of letter recoding speed. Furthermore, when letter recoding speed was excluded from the regression analysis, rapid naming turned out to be a signicant predictor of reading uency. Letter recoding speed also seemed to capture some of the variance in reading uency that memory explained. As a result, when it was excluded from the analysis, memory explained a larger unique variance. The signicant role of memory and rapid naming in explaining variance in reading uency in Arabic is empirical support to the rst hypothesis of the study, which addresses the relevance of cognitive factors to reading uency in this context. The nding is also consistent with earlier evidence supporting the role of these skills to reading success (Abu-Rabia & Siegel, 2002; Bowers & Wolf, 1993; Geva & Siegel, 2000; McBrideChang, 1995; Wolf & Bowers, 1999; Wolf et al., 2000, 2002), and to reading in a shallow orthography, in particular (de Jong & van der Leij, 1999; Landerl & Wimmer, 2000; Wimmer et al., 1998, 2000). In demonstrating the role of memory and rapid naming in reading uency in Arabic, the results of the study also endorse the Central-Processing Hypothesis (Geva & Siegel, 2000), which stresses the relevance of universal cognitive factors to reading in all languages, and regardless of orthographic depth (for a review, see Geva & Wang, 2001). To test the external validity of the present cross-sectional evidence, longitudinal research that addresses the predictive utility of memory and rapid naming, alongside other linguistic factors, to reading uency in Arabic is warranted. So is research on the relative contribution of these processes to explaining reading achievement at dierent points in the reading acquisition process. These issues are for future research to pursue. Letter recoding speed emerged in the present study as the strongest predictor of reading uency among rst graders. Letter recoding speed captures at least two processes. These are alphabetic knowledge and rapid coordination of orthographic and phonological information. There is clear evidence that alphabetic knowledge is an important aspect of early word decoding (for a review, see Bus & van IJzendoorn, 1999). There is also evidence that letter recoding speed, the speed with which children map graphemes to phonemes, is a persistent skill predicting reading in a shallow orthography (Wesseling & Reitsma, 2000). The results of the study are consistent with this evidence. At the same time, the primary specic role of letter recoding speed in reading uency that the present study revealed underscores the peculiarities of the Arabic language and orthography. According to the tenets of the Orthographic Depth Hypothesis (Frost et al., 1987; Katz & Frost, 1992; Liberman et al., 1980), a given orthography is considered shallow if there is a transparent relationship of the orthographic form of the word to its phonological form. This

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denition is grounded in the implicit assumption that the phonological form of the written word, the form that is recoverable from the letters of the word, is identical with its spoken form, the form that is used by language users. This assumption loses ground in a diglossic context. Vowelized Arabic is considered a clearly shallow orthography. This is because there is a regular and consistent relationship of the orthographic representation of the word to its phonological representation. However, because of the diglossic linguistic context, the orthography incorporates letter graphemes that map onto distant diglossic phonemes that are not within the spoken vernacular of children. This makes vowelized Arabic orthography less shallow than it appears to be. In turn, this implies that characterizing orthographic depth in diglossic Arabic requires a distinction between two phonological representations of a given word. The rst is the written phonological form, the MSA form, which can be transparently assembled from the graphemes of the word (letters and diacritics). The second is the spoken phonological form, the SAV form, which is often related to the MSA phonological form, but is remarkably distant from it, as in MSA /Uaqn/ (beard/ chin) versus SAV /daGI n/ The results of the study showed that chil_ drens ability to map letter graphemes to their corresponding phonemes, and the speed with which this grapheme-phoneme conversion process is executed, is particularly predictive of pseudoword reading uency in diglossic Arabic. Future research should seek convergent evidence form the reading uency of speakers of other dialects of Arabic, and from other diglossic contexts. Evidence on the relevance of this skill to reading real words and texts in vowelized and unvowelized Arabic, as well as its relevance to reading at dierent points in the reading acquisition process, is warranted. Phonological processing (phoneme discrimination and phoneme isolation), especially for MSA phonemes, was hypothesized to turn out a signicant correlate of reading uency in diglossic Arabic. This is because of the diglossic phonological distance between MSA and SAV, and because the orthography incorporates letter graphemes that map onto MSA phonemes. This prediction was not supported, however. The phoneme discrimination scores of children were close to ceiling levels even when the target phonemes were MSA phonemes, and phoneme discrimination was not found to correlate with reading uency, not even when an independent measure of MSA phoneme discrimination was calculated. On the other hand, phoneme isolation was found to be sensitive to the linguistic aliation of the phoneme (SAV versus MSA), with MSA phonemes proving signicantly more dicult to isolate than SAV phonemes. This latter nding replicates previously reported evidence supporting the role of phonological distance in the phonological analysis of children in a diglossic context (Saiegh-Haddad, 2003, 2004).

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The results showed that phoneme discrimination was signicantly correlated with phoneme isolation. A closer inspection of the correlational matrix shows that it was the MSA phonemes that were responsible for the signicant correlation. As such, childrens ability to discriminate among MSA phonemes, or between a MSA phoneme and a SAV phoneme, was correlated with their ability to isolate MSA phonemes. This nding accords with the Phonological Representations/ Phonological Distinctness Hypothesis (Elbro, 1996, 1998, 1999; Goswami, 2000), according to which, a decit in phoneme discrimination makes for less sharp phoneme boundaries, which in turn interferes with phoneme segmentation. The signicant correlation that was revealed between MSA phoneme discrimination and phoneme isolation in a diglossic context may be due to the reduced exposure and experience that children have with the oral representation of MSA phonemes. Impoverished exposure to novel phonological structures may lead to inaccurate or unstable phonological representation, which interferes with the process and outcome of phonological analysis (Nittrouer, 1996; Wang & Geva, 2003). This nding also helps shed light on one of the sources of diculty in isolating MSA phonemes that this study and previous studies demonstrated (Saiegh-Haddad, 2003, 2004). This may be a problem in phoneme discrimination. Although phoneme isolation for MSA phonemes was more dicult than that for SAV phonemes, the study revealed only a moderate correlation between phoneme isolation and reading uency. Further, this relationship disappeared when rapid naming, or letter recoding speed, along with memory, were used in the regression analysis. Although this nding provides counter evidence to the second hypothesis, it is supportive of recently emerging evidence demonstrating signicant shrinkage in the power of phonemic awareness in predicting individual dierences in reading skill in a shallow orthography (de Jong & van der Leij, 1999; Landerl & Wimmer, 2000; Wimmer et al., 1998, 2000). As such, because phonemic awareness is acquired quite easily in a consistent orthography, even among dyslexic children, measures of speed of processing and memory are stronger predictors of reading. Contrary to expectations, the results show that this appears to be the case even in a diglossic context where the orthography maps novel phonemes. In conclusion, the results of the study show that reading uency in Arabic is sensitive to both diglossic and orthographic factors. Diglossic features were not found to impact on reading uency directly. However, they were central to explaining performance on some key processes that underlie reading uency: letter recoding speed and phoneme isolation. Two features of the design undermine

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a strong conclusion. The rst is the highly specic reading condition that the study addressed: a phonemically diglossic context. The second is the specic point in the reading acquisition process that it targeted. The present study examined reading uency in a highly specied context: a phonemically diglossic context. In this context, all pseudowords followed the same syllabic structure and were mainly composed of SAV phonemes. Only half of the words either began or ended with an MSA phoneme. Reading uency in this context was not found predictable by phonological processing for MSA phonemes. This nding must be treated with utmost care and must not be automatically extended to mean that reading uency in diglossic Arabic, in general, is not sensitive to diglossic structures. It only means that reading uency in this narrowly specied reading context, and at the end of the rst grade, is not sensitive to the ability to discriminate and isolate MSA phonemes. The pending question relates to the eect on reading uency in Arabic of other diglossic structures, such as other novel phonological structures, as well as novel morpho-syntactic and lexical structures. This question is for future research to explore, so is the question of the eect of diglossic features on reading skill development at dierent points in the reading acquisition process. Although the isolation of diglossic phonemes was found by previous research to aect the decoding accuracy of poor readers (Saiegh-Haddad, 2003), the reading uency of rst graders at the end of their rst year of formal schooling does not seem to be as strongly related to this skill. Reading in the shallow orthography of vowelized Arabic, and despite the presence of diglossic phonemes, seems to be primarily accountable by the speed of converting graphemes to phonemes, and by memory. Future research should attempt to replicate this study at earlier stages in the reading acquisition process, kindergarten and the beginning of the rst grade, and among poor readers and reading disabled children. It is expected that, in addition to letter recoding speed, memory, and rapid naming, phonological processing for MSA structures will gure more prominently in the reading performance of these reader populations. The primary specic role of letter recoding speed to reading uency in Arabic that the present study revealed has important implications for how we view literacy development in dierent orthographies, and for the factors that a comprehensive theory of reading acquisition should be able to account for. Arabic provides a natural setting for testing the interaction of a set of contradictory forces in the acquisition of basic reading skill development. These are the shallow orthography of vowelized Arabic and the diglossic phonological distance between the oral

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and the written forms of the language. The particular relevance of letter recoding speed to reading uency in Arabic is a by-product of the unique features of the Arabic language and orthography. Appendix A Examples of items on the phoneme discrimination task, classied by phonemes linguistic aliation.
SAV phoneme pairs:
td ss " zs dt " MSA and SAV phoneme pairs: hs U = )z " tU

qk

Appendix B Examples of items on the initial phoneme isolation task, classied by initial phonemes linguistic aliation.
SAV phoneme:
akcm ta: mI ^ _ " da: kI r _ fulu:m sa:bI ! _ " MSA and SAV phoneme: qcli:m ha:fI l _ Ucli:f Ua:hI l _ " R

hcbi:d

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Appendix C Examples of items on the pseudoword reading uency task, classied by item type.
Pseudowords encoding SAV phonemes only:
dcli:f ta:!I r _ " " ctu:l h sa:fI " _h dcli:s Pseudowords encoding an MSA phoneme: Ua:hI l _ " hcmi:l Ua:hI r _ qu^u:r

ha:bI n _

Appendix D Index to phonemic transcription.

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