A Systematic Review of Studies on Teaching Reading in Arabic to Grades 1–12: Textbooks, Skills, and Learning Outcomes

Abstract

This study presents a systematic review (SR) of research conducted by the author between 1989 and 2007 on Arabic L1 reading in Saudi Arabia. The corpus comprises 14 studies examining the reading product and process skills embedded in reading textbooks for Grades 1-12, as well as the assessment and remediation of reading weaknesses. The studies were organized into three thematic clusters: high school reading, skills developed or overlooked in reading textbooks, and reading assessment and remediation. Results showed that reading product and process skills are insufficiently taught, or entirely absent. The textbooks provide limited explicit instruction in decoding, cohesion, context analysis, text structure awareness, and study skills. Reading questions and exercises mostly emphasize literal comprehension and details. No questions address critical comprehension, appreciation, character traits, comparison and contrast, sequence of events explicitly or implicitly stated in the text, the setting, plot, conflict and resolution, author’s style and mood, and inferring the meaning of difficult words from context. Diagnostic studies reveal early weaknesses in word identification, particularly sound-symbol association and structural analysis. This means that students progress through the grades with fragile decoding skills, and inadequate preparation for the complex reading tasks required in high school and beyond. This SR highlights the need for a coherent, developmentally sequenced approach to reading instruction in Arabic. It provides clear implications for strengthening vertical alignment, improving textbook content and design, enhancing teacher preparation, and expanding assessment practices. Although the studies in this SR were conducted on earlier generations of Saudi reading textbooks before 2007, the operational lists of product and process skills, subskills, and evaluative criteria developed by the author remain a lasting contribution to Arabic reading pedagogy as they were grounded in reading theory, developmental models, instructional methods, and diagnostic principles and therefore extend beyond the specific textbooks analyzed. As textbooks continue to be revised, these conceptual frameworks continue to provide a systematic, theory based reference for developing and evaluating reading instruction. They will also guide future research, curriculum and textbook design, and thesis work, where many researchers, especially young ones, have not received specialized training in reading theory or assessment.