Literacy improvement through Science of Reading, play, and AI in the hands of the teacher.

A whole-school literacy programme across private and Charter schools in Sharjah and Abu Dhabi. English and Arabic strands taught in parallel. Play-based instruction in early years. AI put in the hands of the teacher rather than on the dashboard.

The problem.

The sites shared a common profile. Sustained Good or Acceptable inspection ratings, yet Elementary and Middle attainment in English and Arabic sitting at Acceptable, and MAP and PIRLS scores below the international median. Successive inspection cycles had flagged reading and writing as the largest lever on wider attainment. Earlier action plans had focused on tutoring and extended reading time, without changing the underlying teaching of decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Arabic literacy in particular lacked a systematic instructional approach.

What Verdant did.

Verdant deployed its Science of Reading framework across English and Arabic strands, in parallel, from Kindergarten through Grade 9.

• Play-based instruction in early years. Kindergarten and Grade 1 built on structured play, with phonics, phonological awareness, and oral language embedded in activities children experienced as games. Facilitator observation and student workbooks doubled as instructional evidence.
• Science of Reading professional learning. Teachers in parallel English and Arabic strands trained on decoding, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, with fortnightly coaching in classrooms for Grades 3 to 9.
• Arabic Literacy Module. Word, sentence, and text level instruction sequenced for Arabic morphology and reading development, built as a purpose-designed module rather than a translation of an English programme.
• AI in the hands of the teacher. AI was deployed for the tasks teachers already found hardest. Differentiated Arabic reading passages generated for mixed-attainment classes. Formative feedback drafted in Arabic and English for teachers to edit rather than write from scratch. Lesson plans mapped to the framework and to individual student reading levels. Teachers used the tools without prompting because they removed friction from work they were already doing.
• Whole-school reading data tracker. Aligned to MAP RIT bands and PIRLS descriptors. Small-group intervention for students significantly below grade level. Family reading make-and-take programme extending reading culture into the home.

What changed.

Students made two times progress compared to international norms on standardised assessments. Schools moved from tutoring-based support to a coherent Tier 1 instructional model. Literacy recommendations were retired within a single inspection cycle at multiple sites. The Charter school programme in Abu Dhabi delivered an eighteen per cent increase in students on grade level within two years.

Why Tier 1 instruction was the lever.

Most serious literacy issues in the region trace back to Tier 1 classroom instruction rather than to a shortage of intervention. Schools spend heavily on tutoring, extended time, and pull-out support, and the underlying attainment does not move. What moved it here was changing how reading was taught in every classroom, in both languages, and using AI to support the teacher without substituting for the teacher's judgement.