4 ways to Teach your Child the Connecting Letters in Arabic.

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When I began teaching the Arabic letters in their cursive form, I needed a way that my students could understand and relate to easily.

In lesson 2 of Qawaaida Nooraniyyah, it starts off with two to three joined-up letters. Some children are able to distinguish each letter effortlessly. Without any explicit instructions, they are able to connect clues from the shape of the letter and make a pretty accurate guess. Whilst other children need this lesson to be deconstructed even further.

Having a passion for the Arabic language and graphic design. I was motivated to design worksheets, (which I hope to turn into workbooks in the future inshallah) to teach children how to successfully decode letters within words.

I found that introducing the four forms; isolated, beginning, middle, end, of each letter to be quite effective. Instead of a combination of letters in no cohesive order like some traditional books. I began with similar group letters, like the 3 Big Belly Brothers Jeem, Haa and Khaa
(I characterize these letters to make them more memorable. You can check out my Instagram to find stories that complement each letter). A simple activity I did with the children was to take 4 children and 4 sticky post-it notes. Write the isolated, beginning, middle and end on separate post-its, then stick a post-it on each child. The game was to rearrange themselves in the correct letter order, holding hands according to their arrangement. If only one child is playing the game, he/she can stick the post-it's on to a clean surface in front of them. Arranging them in order of isolated, beginning, middle and end form. Your child can also act out the different forms holding out his/her left hand for the beginning form, holding out both hands for the middle form, holding out the right hand for the end form and keeping both hands down for the isolated form. Using action prompts stimulates the brain and allows your child to really visualise Arabic into something they can relate to and understand.

Other activities that helped reinforce letter recognition in their cursive forms were tracing exercises. Depending on your preference you could try tracing sandpaper letters, writing in sand, chalk and blackboard or shape playdough into the different forms. We did the traditional pencil and paper. Writing it down further helps make an solid imprint into your child's memory. So lots of practice and repetition for this exercise.

Simpler activities were spotting the target letter in short 3 lettered words without their tashkeel. The reason why tashkeel isn't used is that we want to minimize the busyness or distraction from the word and focus solely on the letters.

More advanced activities after if you feel your child is up for the challenge is dictation. You call out a combination of the names of 2 or 3 letters, that he/she has to write down in the cursive form. For example the teacher calls out, "Haa-Jeem-Jeem" and the student writes out either in their notebooks or whiteboard "حجج" allow your child some time to think about it and write it down. Encourage their progress and praise their efforts. My competitive children love to play this game with points. Each letter they wrote correctly got one point each, so they could score as many as three points for a 3-lettered word.

Will you give these games a try? It's a perfect opportunity to spend quality learning time with your children.

DOWNLOAD YOUR ARABIC ALPHABET IN CURSIVE HERE