"Jordan has an active and vibrant children’s book publishing sector, enhanced by the many international organizations that are working in education and health to create children’s reading materials. Reports indicate that certain types of books are widely available in Jordanian schools: 99.3% of Jordanian students have textbooks, and 67.6% of classrooms have additional reading materials. Although the quantity of books in many classrooms meets international norms, the mix of book types, including decodable and leveled readers for the youngest grades, is often inadequate for teaching beginning students to read. This, combined with some 30%−35% of classrooms functioning only with textbooks, creates inequities that improvements to book supply chains can address.
The book issue is part of a larger set of challenges that limit literacy. Until recently, teachers have not been trained in early-grade reading techniques that use explicit phonics instruction. Because of this historical lack of an explicit phonics approach, leveled and decodable readers are still an unfamiliar concept in Jordan, and ERMs are not included in the MoE’s textbook procurement system. Because the MoE doesn't procure these kinds of books, they aren't produced en masse, and because they're not produced en masse, they're not procured, which leads to a vicious cycle and a broken chain of supply and demand.
Teaching also has not taken into account the important role of reading aloud to children. This is critical, given the situation of diglossia in Jordan, in which students speak a dialect of Arabic at home but learn to read Modern Standard Arabic when they start school. Exposure to oral Modern Standard Arabic,
which could be provided through reading aloud to children, has been proven to lift literacy rates among Arabic speakers.
Books are too expensive for many low-income families, and reading for pleasure is not common, which leads to reduced demand for books at home. This means that a child’s only exposure to print is during school hours, which are too short a window of time in which to acquire reading skills. The traditional definition of literacy has rested on recitation of Qur’anic texts; only recently has the emphasis shifted toward a definition based on deriving meaning from text. In addition, the content of children’s books can be poor, with serious spelling and grammatical mistakes that reduce public perception of the quality of these books, and may reduce demand. Libraries, which could fill the gap left by lack of books at home, are not very attractive; while libraries in private schools tend to have books and learning resources for all ages, most libraries are stocked with books that either do not interest or address the needs of students or that have quickly eteriorated. Less educated parents tend to give all importance to the textbook and do not encourage their children to borrow and read books for general reading pleasure." (Executive summary, pages 2-3)