This study examined oral reading fluency (ORF) of bilingual and monolingual students. The author selected a sample of 510 (258 males and 252 females) native Arabic-speaking sixth-graders (62 bilinguals and 448 monolinguals) in Egypt. The purposes were; (a) to examine oral reading rate, oral reading accuracy, prosody, and oral reading comprehension as indicating factors in ORF, and b) to investigate the impact of bilingual education on students' ORF in Arabic. Participants individually completed the author-developed Oral Reading Fluency Measure. Results indicated a very good fit between the proposed model and the observed data i.e., oral reading rate, oral reading accuracy, prosody, and oral reading comprehension are significant indicators of ORF. Interestingly, results revealed that the bilingual students performed better than their monolingual counterparts on oral reading rate, oral reading accuracy, and prosody but not on oral reading comprehension. The discussion concludes that (a) in addition to oral reading rate, oral reading accuracy, and prosody, oral reading comprehension is a significant indicating factor of ORF, (b) learning a second language, English, has a positive effect on ORF in the first language, Arabic, and (c) the nature of Arabic orthography is an indispensible factor when examining ORF in science of reading.

This study investigated the effect of learning English (L2) on learning to read and spell connected texts accurately in Arabic (L1). The author selected a sample of 83 (38 males and 45 females; 45 bilinguals and 38 monolinguals) native Arabic-speaking fourth-graders in Egypt. Students completed the author-developed Oral Reading Accuracy Measure and Spelling Accuracy Measure. Interestingly, results revealed that the bilingual (Arabic-English) students performed better than their monolingual (Arabic) counterparts on the two literacy variables: oral reading accuracy (ORA) and spelling accuracy (SA). The discussion concludes that learning English (L2) has a positive effect on students' oral reading accuracy and spelling accuracy in Arabic (L1).

The purpose of the research reported in this article is to present the notion of Culture of Traits (CoTs) and to develop a 'Communicative Traits Model' (CTM) in teaching, learning, and assessing of Arabic as a first language. The ultimate goal is to create a shared vocabulary, establish a common language and build a consistent understanding of what constitutes good teaching, learning, and assessing of Arabic. Towards this aim, two complementary dimensions were investigated; An analysis of the origins and nature of the notion of CoTs, of how language learning happens and of how to conceptualize and encapsulate this in a model to create such a shared vocabulary in the teaching, learning, and assessing of Arabic. To validate the usefulness of CTM, the Bahraini teacher candidates completed the researcher-developed questionnaire to survey their views about what has been revealed by the analysis regarding CTM. Results indicated a very positive agreement on the importance of CTM as a clear and a practical framework to teach, learn, and assess the Arabic language not only in writing but also in speaking, reading and listening.

This article reports an investigation into the impact of presenting communicative traits of writing through cooperative learning on trainee teachers' pedagogical knowledge and attitudes towards a 'traits of writing' approach and cooperative learning. Mixed methodologies were used with the participants in a quasiexperimental repeated measure. Forty-two trainee teachers, enrolled in the Bahrain Teachers College, answered the pre and post pedagogical knowledge test and completed the two attitude scales at the end of semester. The results suggest that presenting communicative traits of writing through cooperative learning has a positive effect on the participants' pedagogical knowledge, and also has a positive impact on their attitudes towards communicative traits of writing approach, and attitudes towards cooperative learning. Further implications for teacher education are presented.

Most principles and propositions in the science of reading are derived from research on Latin orthographies, usually, in English while much less is known about Semitic orthographies, namely, Arabic. This study investigated the effect of vowels and type of genre on oral accuracy, oral rate, and oral comprehension in reading Arabic orthography. A convenience sample of 85 children (34 fifth male graders and 51 tenth male graders) was selected from two public schools in Saudi Arabia. The researcher developed two reading measures; the Fifth Grade Reading Measure and Tenth Grade Reading Measure. Each measure has two genres (informational and poetic) and two versions (shallow/vowelized and deep/unvowelized). Each child individually completed the two versions of the measure in his grade. The results revealed that the students read the shallow genres (informational and poetic) more accurately and with more comprehension but less rapidly than reading the deep genres. In addition, the students read the informational genre (shallow and deep) more accurately, rapidly, and with more comprehension than the poetic genre (shallow and deep). The discussion concludes that a) the nature of Arabic orthography, mainly vowels, is an indispensible variable to the literature of science of reading, b) oral reading accuracy, oral reading rate and oral reading comprehension are affected by the unique characteristics of the genre, and c) vowels in Arabic are important to improve oral reading accuracy, and oral reading comprehension for the first grades in primary school and later grades in secondary school as well.