The number of native Arabic-speaking students coming to America to study English in
university programs has grown over the past few years, and continues to be substantial. It has
also been noticed by the English Language Institute (ELI) at Sam Houston State University
(SHSU) that these students often struggle more with reading activities in class, completing
them slowly, and having difficulty understanding why their work is incorrect. In addition, it
seems that this group fails reading and writing to a greater extent than listening and
speaking, which suggests an imbalance in the students’ language learning progress. The
purpose of the study is to solve the problems associated with reading and writing in English
that Arabic speaking students currently have using the 'read and copy' strategy. After using
the 'read and copy' strategy for a three week period, participants felt confident that it
improved reading, punctuation, and spelling.