Book Specs:

Hardcover 

64 pages

Dimensions: 20 x25 cm

For ages: 0 - 8 years

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The purpose of this book is to support the child’s first steps toward learning how to read and write, by introducing the Arabic alphabet using the phonics method. It is the first book to employ the “mother tongue-based education” approach to teach Arabic. Under this approach, children learn the basics of reading and writing in the language that they acquire naturally from their surrounding environment; that is the language they are familiar with and effortlessly understand and speak (the spoken a’amiya dialect). After mastering reading in the mother tongue, children would have acquired the basic skills to read in any other language that adopts the same writing system – such as Standard Arabic or FusHa. The premise of mother tongue-based education is that children’s comprehension of the text that is being read (or decoded) is a critical component of learning how to read.

     Accordingly, the vocabulary in this book was carefully chosen to fully overlap between Standard Arabic (fusHa) and spoken colloquial Arabic (a’amiya). All words used in this book are standard Arabic words reported in the Dictionary of Contemporary Arabic «معجم اللغة العربية المعاصرة»  by Professor Ahmed Mokhtar Omar (2008). In some instances, the book presents words with vowels (or tashkeel) to reflect their a’amiya pronunciation instead of their fusHa pronunciation (such as سِلِّم versus  سُلَّم), with the expectation that the child will become familiar with the fusha pronunciation at a subsequent learning stage. The book contains more than 300 words and presents each alphabetical letter with an illustrated scene that includes several words starting with that respective letter. The introduction to the book highlights the science upon which the book is based and offers suggestions on how parents and caregivers can use it according to the child’s age – from his first months until the age of seven years. 

     We hope that this book, with its easy language, vivid illustrations, and interesting themes, facilitates your child's first steps toward learning to read and write, and helps make this journal enjoyable and motivating.

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