Language/Reading Curriculum in the Fourth Grade
Reading Policy
Reading is part of the national language curriculum for students in Grade 4. The new curriculum, adopted in 2013–2014, reflects the skills and objectives outlined in the PIRLS framework.
The UAE Ministry of Education national charter of Arabic language outlines the national literacy standards and expectations for all grades starting from kindergarten, including expectations regarding educational standards. The charter includes skills levels, distributions of curricular standards, and assessment criteria. It also provides teachers with guidance regarding teaching strategies and the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in teaching Arabic language.
The educational policy in the UAE establishes principles and guidelines to keep pace with the modern age; it enables students to interact positively with the variables of life and modern demands through the development of new formulas for learning in response to the ambitious aspirations set by UAE educational specialists. General standards have been derived for teaching Arabic according to three main themes:1
- Language skills of reading, listening, speaking, and writing
- Concepts and linguistic knowledge, including grammar, spelling and punctuation, handwriting, and rhetoric and parody
- Concepts and literary knowledge, including history of literature, literary arts, and literary criticism
Students also are expected to apply a variety of reading skills, such as using contextual clues, prediction, previous knowledge, and vocabulary strategies to achieve the highest level of understanding. Through conscious reading, students can acquire an understanding and appreciation of the written language as an effective means of communication and self-expression.
Reading is a complex process through which students can construct meaning and communicate feelings and attitudes with other people in different situations. The reading process requires connecting the psychomotor skills of correct pronunciation and sound reading with the mental skills related to understanding, analysis, and criticism of materials. Making these connections, students then are required to link previous knowledge and personal experience to texts, and respond to reading material aesthetically and critically. Students also are required to understand words in their various contexts, use a variety of reading strategies to adapt to different levels of reading texts, and eventually develop lifelong intellectual reading habits.
Summary of National Curriculum
The national curriculum states that by the end of Grade 4, students should be able to read text aloud, demonstrate their understanding of the text in writing, and analyze literary and informational texts.