This chapter describes the many initiatives that have been spearheaded by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in an effort to develop the teaching and learning of Arabic in the country. Although there has been unprecedented attention given to Arabic language education in the decade up to 2018, including an Arabic language charter, a reading law, the Arabic reading challenge, the Arabic for life report, and the Arabic award to list just a few, private and public schools are still having some challenges in bringing best practice to the Arabic language classrooms with students still underperforming. The UAE vision and initiatives set in place to develop Arabic language education are to be applauded; however, it is the direction of that vision that needs to be adjusted to focus mainly on teacher preparation and teacher and school leadership training. Teachers and school leaders are the most important piece in the educational fabric and without ensuring that they receive the best preparation and continuous and meaningful training and support throughout their careers, then these initiatives will have little impact on Arabic language education outcomes.

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Textbooks are major organizers of Arabic language instruction in most Arab countries (Faour, 2012). Textbooks approved by ministries of education have traditionally guided teaching of content knowledge, skills, and values to be taught at each grade level (Faour, 2012; Sabella, 2014; Taha-Thomure, 2008). This research is a foundation study into the use of Arabic Language Arts (ALA) standards in six schools in three countries in the Arabian Gulf region (Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates). Fifty-eight teachers used the ALA standards adapted from the Ohio English Language Arts standards (Taha, 2017a) for at least one year. Results of the online survey indicated that 83.5% of teachers found the standards had a positive effect on their teaching, while 94.9% of teachers found that the standards helped them collaborate with each other in planning and finding suitable resources to use. This suggests that well-supported innovations can lead to teachers being aware of and using ALA to improve student learning and instruction. Results also highlight some of the challenges teachers faced to find the necessary Arab language resources that will help them implement a standards-based approach, in addition to the amount of time they needed to put into preparing for the lessons.

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Reading fluency has been defined as the process of automatically associating graphemic and phonetic information in a text with minimal conscious attention if any at all. Research has found that the effect of fluency on reading proficiency is of importance to student learning and that increasing oral reading fluency (ORF) rates has been correlated in several studies to improved comprehension. However, no reading fluency rates (FR) or standards in Arabic have been established to date. This exploratory study begins to examine Arabic language ORF and proposes an initial Arabic reading fluency scale. Thirty-five teachers from six private bilingual schools across three Arabian Gulf countries (KSA, the UAE, and Kuwait), administered ORF tests that comprised of authentic, vowelized, and leveled Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) connected texts on 1003 students in Grades 1–6 in Fall and Spring of the same academic year. Results of independent samples t-test revealed changes in reading fluency between Fall and Spring. Furthermore, the range of FR for these initial data within each grade level was significant. Results obtained, however, appeared to be lower than several of the international ORF charts used for English and Arabic languages. Girls outperformed boys in Grades 1–3, while boys outperformed girls in Grades 4–6. The study has several limitations and several likely implications that extend to languages other than Arabic possibly including the potential importance of extended reading practice and early exposure to text.