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Language/Reading Curriculum in the Fourth Grade

Reading Policy

Formal reading instruction is part of the Arabic language curriculum beginning at age 6 during the first grade of primary school and continuing throughout compulsory schooling (through the preparatory stage). Arabic is taught using an integrated curriculum to ensure the unity of the language and achieve balance across various language skills.

Summary of National Curriculum

The curriculum standards Qatar has developed for all subject areas across all grade levels in both public and private schools represent a key pillar in the country’s educational reform.3 These standards identify the educational objectives that students must acquire at each grade level. Additionally, standards are used to ensure that students in Qatar are receiving a high quality of education (similar to that of students living in developed countries), help public school graduates join prestigious universities and compete in the local and international labor markets, guide developers of teaching and learning materials, and inform the design of student examinations. The Ministry of Education and Higher Education manages the Arabic schools that offer the Qatari curriculum.

The Grade 4 Arabic curriculum comprises four strands—Listening and Responding, Speaking to Communicate and Interact, Reading Strategies and Responding, and Writing Strategies and Composing—in addition to Word Knowledge, which is taught by integration into those main strands. Within each strand, the curriculum standards are grouped into topics to which national tests devote different levels of emphasis. Exhibit 1 shows the distribution of emphasis given to topics in the Arabic curriculum for Grade 4.

Exhibit 1: Arabic Curriculum Content and Assessment Weightings for Grade 4

Content Assessment Weightings
Listening and Responding 15%
Speaking to Communicate and Interact 20%
Reading Strategies and Responding 25%
Writing Strategies and Composing 25%
Word Knowledge (taught by integration into the above main strands) 15%

The Arabic curriculum is divided into three major domains: Words and Sentences, Listening and Speaking, and Reading and Writing. The Reading and Writing domain aims to develop students’ silent and oral reading abilities, allowing them to read freely and correctly and thus developing their minds and allowing them to fluently express their ideas. Qatar’s curriculum standards for reading and writing performance for students in schools state that, by the end of Grade 4, students should be able to:

  • Scan texts to identify key sections, paragraphs, and words
  • Identify connective words that signal time and indicate sequence
  • Read correctly, adding or deleting words, or changing the emphasis on letters of a word
  • Read a variety of texts comprehensively and fluently, using the rules of Arabic phonetics, a clear voice when reading aloud, and a reasonable speed when reading silently
  • Perform tasks that promote the acquisition of a broader vocabulary and linguistic understanding
  • Recognize and understand the roles of theme, plot, setting, dialogue, direct and reported speech, rhyme, rhythm, assonance, emotive language, and similes in prose and poetry
  • Identify instructions or procedures, typical language, and organizational features
  • Read, understand, and discuss a variety of nonfiction texts
  • Retell stories or relate information from reading
  • Write continuous texts that link purpose to form, story openings, portraits of characters, short sequences of dialogue, and longer stories
  • Locate, extract, evaluate, and synthesize information within a text
  • Identifythe mainidea of hard copy and electronic texts

According to the curriculum standards for the Arabic language Reading strand, students at the end of Grade 4 should be able to:4

  • Develop reading strategies:
    • Use various strategies to correct mistakes (e.g., intonation, spelling, grammar, context) during reading
    • Train to read aloud using punctuation (e.g., full stops, commas, question marks) to deliver the intended meaning of a text
    • Scan a text to identify key sections, paragraphs, vocabulary, and information
    • Read texts using a computer and the Internet
    • Use alphabetically ordered vocabulary located in dictionaries
    • Identify linking words and understand their purpose (i.e., to link sentences and show sequence)
  • Develop reading comprehension strategies:
    • Identify the key topic in a text
    • Identify the plot and general atmosphere of texts, including poetry
    • Identify dialogue type, the imperative tense, questions, and exclamations
    • Direct and indirect style
    • Rhyme and the use of metaphorical language
  • Nonfiction texts:
    • Identify and distinguish instructions or procedures in a text (e.g., directions)
    • Understand that a clear title may reveal the aim of instructional texts
    • Organize a text in its logical order and use linking words that show the sequence of actions
  • Read and comprehend informational texts:
    • Expand upon knowledge gained in previous classes regarding the features of the informational text
    • Compare texts that provide similar information from different points of view
  • Explain and interpret texts:
    • Read various texts regarding common topics
    • Use cause and effect and its vocabulary (e.g., “because,” “so,” “that is why”)
    • Read and understand key ideas and details in age appropriate texts