Teach Your Child to Read Arabic in 10 Easy Lessons

How to Teach Your Child to Read Arabic Second Edition

by Umm Sumayyah Quan

Back when my DD was the tender age of 3, we were at the beginning of our homeschooling journey, most of the resources we were using were sensorial and hands on material, and we barely did any book work. So, it was a difficult adjustment to learn Arabic with only using a book, and not all that appealing for a 3 year old. It was a challenge to get her excited about the subject let alone engage her to want to learn which was the main battle. Albeit we were learning Arabic as a second language, I knew my DD was capable since she had learnt how to read English within 3 to 4 months of using the Montessori method and following the Jolly Phonics program. But because of the lack of resources and variety available to learn how to read the Arabic Language as compared to learning how to read English, we weren't progressing as well. Having learning aids and tools really does help speed the process along and create a good understanding of what is to be taught at hand. 

DIY sand tray with chalkboard, DIY sand paper letters,
wooden puzzle, poster designed by Tarbiyyah Islamiyyah.

Here is an overview of how I successfully taught my child how to read Arabic

1. Teaching the Alphabet

• Use an Arabic Alphabet wooden puzzle
• Do crafts for each letter 
• Use play dough to make the letter 
• Use visual aids like posters hung on the wall and flashcards
• Use sandpaper letters (I DIY'ed this simple project by buying a set of flashcards and using PVA glue painted on top of the letter sprinkled a generous amount of sand on to it and dusted it off, the voila your child can feel the formation of the letter)
• Write the letter in a sand tray
• Made a fun video of the Arabic Alphabet, will I will post below.

Having a strong foundation in letter recognition helped making the transition to the next step of joined up script much smoother, she had no problems with identifying each letter in the cursive script.

The video was made when she was 2 years old.

2. Teaching joined up handwriting 

• Teach the lesson in three periods for teaching initial, medial and end of Arabic letters. The purpose of this is to help the child to better understand the written letters in the joined-up form and to allow you see how well the child is grasping and absorbing what you are showing him.

The first period: Recognition of identity
Make the association between the joined up letter shown in a word and the letter's name. 

لم

"This is laam and this is meem, laam meem."
Repeat until you feel that the child understands the association.

The second period: Recognition of contrast

To assure the child understands, say "Point to the letter....."

The third period: Discrimination between similar letters

See if the chid remembers the name of the letter himself. Point to various letters, asking, "Which one is this?" He should be able to say the name correctly. If not help him. Repeat until he is able to do it.


3. Teaching the tashkeel (vowel markings etc.)
Isolate one vowel at a time. Begin by teaching each letter with only with fatha. When your child is able to do it, do the same with each letter with only kasra, adding extra practice with three letter words with both fatha and kasra. When your child is able to read with fatha and kasra, do the same with dammah, this time adding extra practice with three letter words with fatha, kasra and dammah. 

It helps to show your child the shape of your mouth and sounding out the vowel when demonstarting each vowel. I have compiled in my book Teach you Child to Read Arabic in 10 Easy lessons diagraphs that will guide you and child on this stage. 

We also did a lot of practice with matching pictures to words activities and this helped broaden her vocabulary. And become more fluent with reading.

Picture and Words matching activity

This photo shows some that I had DIY'ed, here DD3 was working on the pink, blue and purple series of Arabic words. We doubled our lesson with English too using English words to match the picture.

4. Teach the remaining lessons with the various important rules. 
After passing over the previous hurdle of being able to read simple words with tashkeel, it got a lot easier to teach the rest of the other concepts, and the lesson flowed better. I would make picture and word activities suited to the lesson for practice and mastery. 

In the meanwhile I had always thought to myself wouldn't it have been easier if there was one book which had all this information in, instead of me finding bits here and bits there and DIYing materials for my child to use and putting in hours of research of how to guide my child to become a fluent reader in Arabic as it would aid her in Quran memorization and become more fluent when reading Quran. Well I never got to find a book child friendly enough to achieve this. So, what did I do? I thought about how I could put my computer skills to the challenge to compile and design a book for parents alike, that were in my situation and with children in mind, what they would enjoy and what would make learning a new language fun and enjoyable. A book that was relatable to home-educators following Montessori, and Jolly Phonics style teaching methods. So being inspired by the different approaches to learning, I made up a plan of how the Arabic language was best taught in a step-by-step strategy of divide and conquer, or rather I would say divide and master. Here is the content page that Teach Your Child to Read Arabic in 10 Easy Lessons book follows;

A peek into Teach Your Child to Read Arabic in 10 Easy Lessons

You may notice the book is carefully divided into beginner level to advanced, starting from yellow series-to pink series- to blue series-to purple series through to green series whereby the child is able to read any word from the Quran or Arabic reading book. And each of the 10 lessons is carefully structured with an introduction, reading practice and activities. 

A peek inside Lesson 3 - Pink Series of Teach Your Child to Read Arabic in 10 Easy Lessons

The first book of its kind to use Montessori inspired activities to learn how to read the Arabic Language. Teach your child Arabic in 10 easy lessons IS just that, teaching your child to confidently read Arabic in 10 easy lessons, guiding you and your child step by step of the way and learning Arabic vocabulary along the way.

74 pages of practice, activities, exercises, cut out pages and much more

Get your kindle version on the link below
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1999310802/ref=rdr_ext_sb_ti_hist_1

After all this my DD3 had learnt to read Arabic in four short months using all of the tips, I had mentioned, and to acknowledge her achievements we celebrated with family and put on a small party for her, this was to create that positive association with learning something for the sake of Allah and give her encouragement and motivation to continue doing well. 

A small party with family to celebrate her efforts in learning how to read Arabic.

Rainbow fruit sticks, watermelon slush and party favor gift bags

Her aunt made her a special cake of her favorite things, rainbows, hello kitty and chocolate smarties.

Six layered cake courtesy of her dear aunt.

Please leave a comment below and tell me how you are teaching your child Arabic. Sharing is caring and inspires others.