FEATURES OF LITERACY THROUGH EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY - THE CASE OF ARABIC

With the increased reliance on educational technology, it is crucial to explore its contribution and efficacy in promoting literacy, how can technology complement and support print-based material, how can assistive technology be customized to maximize its benefits and how can it be utilized in assisting pupils in coping with Arabic complexities?

Due to its orthographic complexity and diglossic nature (the gap between its spoken and written forms), Arabic poses a great challenge for children upon commencing reading acquisition. The current presentation will introduce a research that investigated the features and differences in reading comprehension of different text types (informational vs. narrative) among native Arab fifth graders in two environments: computerized and printed.
The tasks used were especially developed for the research in accordance with the standards of Israeli ministry of education. Four reading comprehension tasks were administered to fifth graders: two tasks were printed (one text is narrative and the other is informational) and the other two tasks were computerized (one text is narrative and the other is informational). Four levels of comprehension skills were assessed (In accordance with PIRLS- The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study): focusing on and retrieving explicitly stated information, making straightforward inferences, Interpreting and integrating ideas and information and examining and evaluating content, language, and textual element. An observational documentation was included by the research team, in addition to a questionnaire filled by the pupils at the end of the research dealing with the perceived gain of each of the environments and what helped them coping with the tasks in each environment.

The presentation proposed will describe the complete research, the features of each environment: printed and computerized, the pupils' performance taking into account their literacy competence: low achievers, between average and above average achievers. Furthermore, an analysis of the pupils' questionnaires. As a summary, the study conclusions and didactic aspects will be discussed.