This paper reports a study of the reading and spelling skills of grades 1-3 Arabic-speaking children in Bahrain. Children were tested on their literacy skills (single word reading and spelling), their ability to decode letter strings (non-word reading) and measures of phonological awareness, short-term memory, speed of processing and non-verbal ability. These tests were included to identify the best predictors of literacy skills amongst Arabic young readers. The results were consistent with the literature based on tests of English-speaking children in that measures of phonological skills (decoding and awareness) were the best predictors of variability in reading and spelling among the Bahraini children. The results are discussed in terms of the literacy experiences of the children and the use of short vowels in Arabic writing.

Despite advancements in empirical studies of developmental dyslexia, progress on methods of dyslexia assessment have been hampered by ongoing debate concerning diverse issues such as the role and validity of IQ in the assessment process, labelling and definitions (Miles, 1994; Stanovich, 1991, 1992). With the emergence of cross‐linguistic studies of dyslexia came the realisation that the manifestation of dyslexia is different in different languages (Goulandris, 2003; Smythe, Everatt & Salter, 2004). It follows that the assessment of dyslexia should consider specific linguistic features of the language spoken by the individual to be assessed. This paper argues for the need of culture‐fair assessment and calls for considerations to be given when assessing monolingual Arabic‐speaking individuals with dyslexia which would take into account the specific linguistic feature of the Arabic language.

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