• Home

Project to encourage reading of Arabic

The project aims at encouraging the culture of reading Arabic publications among school students. The goal is to revive the culture of reading among students, especially in their native language, which is the foundation of their national identity.

The first step was to provide books for children that are of a high quality of language and combine entertainment with education.

‘My Arabic Library’ series targets primary school students. It attracts children with the colourful layout that is filled with illustrations. Each library contains around 40 interesting stories with five copies of each book, as well as a teacher’s handbook. The series cover many issues such as math, nature, animals, planets, and family.

These books, the preferred choice of several Arab educationalists, have been translated in Arab countries, and are approved by the ministries of education in many countries. The books were evaluated by Arabic language supervisors and teachers of the first cycle before they were used in Dubai’s schools.

This is in line with the directives of His Highness Shaikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, in naming this year as the ‘National Identity Year’.

DSA held a number of two-day workshops in primary schools last August to train around 200 teachers and librarians on methods to support and enrich the curricula using ‘My Arabic Library’ series.

These workshops were held in cooperation with Scholastic, the world biggest publisher for children’s books. The workshops were followed by an implementation of the ‘My Language My Identity’ project throughout the first semester. On analysing the results, DSA decided to implement the project in all public schools.

Officials from the KHDA, UAE University, Ministry of Education as well as school principals and teachers attended the inauguration of the project at the Ibda’a Model School, one of the participating schools in phase one.

• UAE