Reading error patterns prevailing in Arab Emirati first graders

There is a contemporary emphasis on researching the effects of phonological awareness on reading skills though morphological awareness correlates more highly with reading. The purpose of the study was to investigate the patterns of reading errors from a morphological perspective (level of morphological complexity) and lexical category. One hundred and eighty-three Emirati regular education first graders, (54 male and 129 female) were presented with 96 randomly chosen words from the curriculum. Those were classified into lexical categories representing: nouns (43 words, 44.79%), verbs (32 words, 33.33%), adjectives and adverbs (11 words, 11.46%), and function words (i.e. preposition and conjunctions) (10 words, 10.42%). Words were classified into three levels of linguistic difficulty (easy, difficult, and very difficult) according to their morphological complexity. One male teacher participated in data collection to ensure procedural consistency. Nine reading error patterns were identified. Significant differences between male and female students in reading the target words were found. Results also indicated that reading difficulties may stem from a distinct, though interrelated, threefold paradigm: difficulty level of the read words (i.e. morphological complexity), lexical category (nouns, verbs, adjective and adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions), and pattern of reading error (e.g. omission of a letter or a syllable and reading the geminated letter as ingeminated). This study mapped the threefold paradigm (difficulty level, lexical category, and patterns of reading error) in individual students may be helpful in predicting reading errors and delineating the focus and strategies of instructional programs.