Ras Al Khaimah schools to implement IQRA this year

The eureka for diglossia, which linguists and educational specialists, have attributed to, as a factor to weak Arabic literacy among children – for the longest time, is set to be implemented across private schools in Ras Al Khaimah beginning academic year 2026-2027.

This is the IQRA (Reading, Arabic) Literacy Programme, an outcome of a 2024-2025 trial involving 2,012 “early grade pupils – 941 in 41 classrooms using IQRA and 1,048 in 42 classrooms using regular instruction – spread out in seven public schools and 19 private schools in the emirate.

The Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research (AQF) is the initiator.

Trial partners are Arabic-speaking Greek Dr. Helen Abadzi, a world-renowned cognitive psychologist-education specialist and the Abdul Latif Poverty Action Lab-J-PAL Middle East and North Africa Office, a world-leading research centre.

AQF supports social, cultural, and economic development through high-quality research, evidence-based policy, and community engagement.

It supports research grants, policy papers, teacher development, school improvement initiatives, public events and partnerships with local and international institutions. Abadzi, who worked on the concept and development of the IQRA Arabic Literacy Programme, explained to Gulf Today Arabic Diglossia – the custom of speaking two forms of Arabic.

The daily ordinary usage of the language such as “Emirati Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, and Levantian Arabic” and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the “formal Arabic used in schools and newspapers, official communications, and most written materials.”

AQF executive director Dr. Natasha Ridge said that IQRA is envisioned to address the long-time observed and documented diglossia challenges in the Arab World. Classifying the diglossia issue as “longstanding,” Ridge added that AQF “became particularly interested because early Arabic reading is essential for the children’s wider learning, identity and educational success. Many students need stronger support in the early stages of Arabic reading, especially in developing fluency, confidence, and automatic recognition of letters and words.”

Abadzi who employed Cognitive Psychology – “the study of how people remember various types of information, how they combine knowledge and how they make decisions with it” – or Cognitive Science, in the IQRA framing and execution, said that diglossia, “for young children, means that the Arabic they hear and speak at home is not always the same Arabic they are expected to read and write at school. This creates an added learning challenge, especially in the early years of reading.” Abadzi who had a stint at the World Bank after earning her post-graduate Cognitive Psychology degree from the University of Texas (Arlington), continued: “Diglossia is not bad. It is a natural feature of Arabic. The concern is that many children begin school with limited exposure to MSA. Yet, most reading instruction and textbooks are in MSA.”

The other hurdles are “limited reading practice, limited exposure to printed Arabic outside school, the visual complexity of Arabic script, and teaching methods that may not always give children enough repeated practice to build fluency.”

On the Cognitive Science-IQRA combination, Ridge explained: “A crucial component of our memory is working memory or what you are thinking right now. Very roughly, it keeps about seven items for about 12 seconds, then it gets erased. We must read a sentence fast enough to fit in this narrow window. This means very roughly 45 to 60 words per minute. If we read slowly, by the end of the sentence, we forget the beginning! Because of working memory limits, we must ‘put the reading cart before the horse.’ Initially, the emphasis should be on speed rather than reading comprehension. IQRA aims to build up speed, so that children can fit a sentence into working memory and then comprehend, if they know the language.”

“Another application is that letters must be large and well-spaced to facilitate separation of various letter features. We have developed a special Arabic font that lengthens the connected letters.”

On the 2024-2025 trial, Ridge noted: “The strongest gains were in word reading because IQRA helped more children cross the bridge from recognising Arabic letters to reading Arabic words. IQRA demonstrates that evidence-based teaching can strengthen Arabic literacy for both native and non-Arabic speakers. It offers a scalable model for education systems across the region.”