Special Reading Initiatives
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) government is supportive of reading in schools and has introduced several initiatives to promote reading in the UAE. One such example is the Arabic Reading Challenge, in which all students in Grades 1 through 12 are tasked with reading frequently and writing summaries of all reading material.
The importance of and thus emphasis on reading is clearly incorporated within the Abu Dhabi Education Council logo, in which the Arabic word for “read” is located at its center. The Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) has initiated several projects to promote reading among students and their parents. The Abu Dhabi Reads initiative, an awareness campaign directly linked with the kindergarten and Cycle 1 (Grades 1 to 5) curricula, was organized by ADEC in collaboration with various government entities and community institutions including the Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority, the Municipality of Abu Dhabi City, the UAE Writers Union, the General Authority of Islamic Affairs & Endowment, Sheikh Mohammad Bin Khalid Al Nahyan Association for Future Generations, and the Abu Dhabi Media Company. Commencing in 2013 with the purpose of promoting Arabic and English reading among students and across the wider community, this project was awarded the best local initiative to promote reading in Abu Dhabi in 2016. The initiative includes many society activities such as book fairs, reading sessions, competitions, and free book distribution at various media events and activities. The goals of the campaign are to:15
- Assess Cycle 1 students’ reading and writing skills
- Address students’ individual needs in reading and writing
- Allocate specific time daily for reading and writing activities
- Introduce and improve teaching of reading and writing
- Train teachers to diagnose and respond to studentsʼ reading problems
- Engage talented students in reading enrichment programs
- Discover the talents of creative students
- Identify suitable print and nonprint learning resources to support studentsʼ learning
- Establish links between ADEC and local institutions
- Encourage the participation of university students and preservice teachers
- Apply modern and effective teaching strategies
- Apply action research to improve students’ reading and writing abilities