Teaching your child the Arabic Alphabet

Whether you have plans for your children to read the Quran or if you have a more ambitious goal like having them understand or even speak Arabic, then the first place you are going to need to start is teaching them the Arabic alphabet.  This is something I’ve done successfully with both of my sons and have a program that I think can be applied to any child even those with parents who do not speak Arabic.

The first hurdle:  Can you pronounce the Arabic letters properly yourself? Normally Arabs and non-Arabs alike have two issues with the Arabic alphabet.  One; pronouncing the letters incorrectly, such as   ض ع غ ق ح ه خ  or Two; not differentiating between similar sounding letters such as ع and أ , ص and س , or د  and ض .

If this isn’t a problem for you excellent, if it is then try to find someone to help you out as it is important that you give your children the best start with proper pronunciation. This will not only benefit you in your reading of the Quran, it will remove this small obstacle to helping your children learn as well and save them a whole lot of trouble later on down the road. 

When do you start? 
Every so often once your child is speaking you can test to see if they are ready.  You will need a set flash cards of the Arabic alphabet (the ones we use are featured above) and you will start with three separate flash cards.  The best three to start with are  ب   أ  and  ح  as each three are distinct from each other in their sounds, the part of the mouth used in pronunciation, and their written appearance.   If your child can recognize all three letters separately than he or she is ready to start.

Step 1: Teach your child أ  and ب  .  You can do this in multiple ways.  First show your child أ   pronounce it for him / her, repeat this several times.  Then ask your child while pointing at the card “What is this” if you child responds  أ then move on, and repeat this process with ب . 

Step 2: Once your child can recognize أ  and  ب  separately you want to test them together.  Now rotate between the cards أ  and  بwhile pronouncing each one and pointing to each card.  Then flip through them one at a time asking your child, “what’s this?” when you show each letter.  If your child responds correctly then you’re ready to continue.   Another activity you can do is ask your child to hand you one of the letters, and then the other to test his/her recognition. 

Step 3: The real test is when you add the third letter ح .  This is going to show if your child can differentiate between the letters.    Start again from the beginning  Show your child the   أ  card, and pronounce it while pointing to it, then repeat for  ب ,  and then  ح .  Now point to each card asking your child what it is and God willing they will respond correctly and you can move on, otherwise wait and come back to it next week.

Why all this redundancy of checking?  You don’t want to push your child, especially if you are a really motivated parent hoping to give your child an early start.  Doing so can put too much pressure on the child, disappoint yourself, even allow you to become frustrated and put your child off from future attempts even when they are finally ready.  So just take your time.

Final Sequence: Now that they can differentiate between those three letters.  I would highly suggest that you follow the following pattern.   Although it is tempting to follow alphabetical order, when teaching any alphabet you want to avoid teaching similar letters one after another as to not confuse the child and or deal a blow to their motivation.  In Arabic, there are lots of letters that either A. sound just like another letter, and or B. are written exactly the same as another letter with a variation of a small dot or two or three.   Although it may be obvious to you or me it can be real problematic for a young child who just doesn’t see the difference between ت  ب  and ث , or can't hear the difference between ق  and ك . 

I always teach two new letters at a time. In the same manner as presented above I will introduce two new letters ر  and س for example, and once my son recognizes them I will add them to the group of already memorized letters ( ب  أ  and ح ) and order them in alphabetical orders, and review them in alphabetical order.  This allows for the child after recognizing each letter separately to slowly memorize them again in order without the confusion of similar sounds and shapes during the initial learning curve.

Follow this sequence in your introducing the Arabic letters two at a time after the first three letters (first row, then second, then third, two at a time, left to right) 

 

    ح   ب    أ

ل   ص   د    و   ن    م   ك   ف   ع   ط   س   ر

ظ    ز  ض  ت   خ   ش  غ    ق   ج   ث   ه    ي

Each day before I start a new lesson I review all of the letters that my child has previously memorized, then I teach the two new letters before adding them to the group of memorized letters.  Finally I go through the letters one last time.  It's important to note that at any time you feel like your child is struggling than it is a good idea to stop and review what you have covered until it seems strong enough to continue. 

There are two videos that I think are beneficial that will help you during this process and are good for your children to listen to.  They will not only help your child with the correct pronunciation of the letters but will also help in their memorization of the alphabetical order.

please note in this first video they seemed to have forgetten the letter  ط  in their intro.

This is another good video which just focuses on the alphabet and is good for anyone who wants to memorize the alphabetical order

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Raising Bilingual Children

Why raise bilingual children?

Children who are raised bilingual have many advantages over children who can only speak one language. Languages open up the doors to knowledge, culture, ideas, dawa, travel, friendships, and economic opportunities.  It’s one of those things where you don’t know how much it is worth until you have it.  We now live in a global village, more so than any other time, therefore knowing more than one language is very valuable.   Adding a program to your homeschooling curriculum for your child to grow in a bilingual environment is an excellent choice and we hope this article will help you make the decision that’s right for you.

Why we did it?

We have raised our children to speak both English and Classical Arabic.   English obviously because it is our mother tongue, it’s the language of where we are from, and where we plan to spend our lives.  English is also the language of business, and most modern sciences.  As for Arabic, it is the language of Islam, the Qur’an, our Prophet, and all of the Islamic sciences.   I went through a lot of effort to learn Arabic and I hope that my children won’t have to go through the same hardships.  I don’t want them to have to look at a translation in order to understand the Qur’an, I want them to hear it as if they were alive during the time of the prophet peace be upon him, because it is the language they were raised upon, the language of the Qur’an.  

How we did it?

After reading about different approaches, we decided that I would speak Arabic to my son and my wife, and that my wife would speak Arabic to me and English to my son.   This provided two benefits.  Firstly between me and my wife, she would have someone to practice her Arabic with, and this also allowed my son to hear others conversing in Arabic giving him additional practice.  Deciding on this plan was half of the journey; the rest has been all about consistency.   

Abdurahman was able to practice his English with his mom, his relatives, and eventually his reading programs.   As for his Arabic, my son’s only exposure was through me and listening to me and my wife speak.  This is an important point as many people would think that they would need to be in an Arab country, enrolled in Arabic schools, or maybe even marry an Arab to ensure their child speak Arabic.  It’s not true.  In fact I purposely limited my son’s interactions with Arab children so as to protect his language from being influenced by local dialects. 

Another source of practice for him now is his younger brother. When Nuh was born we would act out his voice in Arabic, pretending that he was speaking to Abdurahman, and in return, Abdurahman would respond to him in Arabic. This became so habitual that by the time Nuh was speaking they preferred to speak to each other in Arabic. This process of dividing the languages between us has proven to be so successful that even if I slip up and speak to my son in English he responds to me in Arabic.

Obviously Learning Arabic is a blessing, but even if you’re a household that speaks English and Urdu, or English and Spanish, or any other language for that matter you never know the benefit that your child may have from it.  And although they might not thank you for doing so if you do, they’ll surely ask why you didn’t, if you didn’t.

What you should do
1. Have to have a plan.   You may try what we’ve done where each parent speaks a specific language.  Some people suggest if you’re living in a country that speaks English for example than inside the home you make a rule where no one is allowed to speak anything but the second language.  Whatever your plan is you need to make sure that the child is getting enough exposure and practice on a consistent basis without mixing different approaches.

2. Stick to the program.  Flip flopping programs is going to be detrimental to the consistency that your child will need in order to make progress.  If you’re not consistent, you may find that either the child blends the two languages, or allows one to become predominant while neglecting the other.

3. Exposure. The child needs to have as much exposure as possible.  You might not be strong in the language you want him/her to speak so he/she may need additional practice.   You can do this by bringing him/her into communities that speak the target language, through social gatherings, clubs, or sports.  This way he/she has a variety of people to practice with. You can also use various online resources, like language podcasts through ITunes, online learning with Café Mocha, or documentaries in your target language. 

4. Listening:  We have the Qur’an playing in our house all day.  Our kids pick up a lot of new vocabulary words and try to make sentences out of them.   Maybe you can find material online to listen to, or documentaries to watch in order to increase child’s vocabulary while learning proper pronunciation.

5. Read to you child.   If you know the language than try to read a story to the child in that language on a consistent basis.  This is another fun activity for your child that will allow him/her to expand their vocabulary, and it allows for the best question of “what does that mean?” 

In closing

We couldn't be more happy with the decision we made.  Our children are both speaking fluently in both languages and continuing to improve.  If you have the ability to do it, think it over and give it a try, you’ll save your child a big headache when they grow up. Trying to learn any language through a classroom environment is less preferable and more difficult than growing up with it.  As with any homeschooling endeavor there are doubters, and discouragers, promoting fears that your child won’t speak until they are 3, or that they’ll get confused.  We haven’t found this to be the case.  We thank Allah that our children have had the progress that they have and we pray more parents are able to try and have the same success.  If you have any questions please let us know, as we would love to help.

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