This school year we are continuing with Alif Baa. Alif Baa is a Arabic curriculum that teaches you how to read, write, hear and produce all the sounds in the Arabic language. It does cover basic vocabulary as well. The Alif Baa curriculum introduces you to the sounds of the different letters of the alphabet before it starts teaching you how to read and write with the letters. Arabic script seems daunting at first, but the further we get into the book the easier it is becoming. Arabic letters change shape depending on where they are in the word.
The curriculum takes you slowly through each letter and comes with a DVD to show you how to write the letters in the different positions of the word as well as to give you practice listening and hearing the different letters. It even specifies in some cases the distinctive place to put your tongue in order to achieve the correct pronunciation of the letter. After learning a few letters it started giving us audio pronunciations of words to write down. The picture above shows my older son attempting to write the Arabic word too-bee from hearing it pronounced on the DVD included in the program. The program isn’t designed for kids so I read it and teach from it. The DVD is a crucial part of the program for us.
