Teaching Arabic to Different Learning Styles

Asalaam ‘Alaikum:

After my last post – when I was talking about my daughter being a Visual-Spatial learner, I was asked how I use this knowledge to teach my daughter Arabic. First of all, I just found out recently about her learning style. When I was starting to teach her Arabic, I was clueless and kept trying to find something that worked for her. Alhumdulilah, teaching her Arabic has gone well. Nowadays, her Dad is in charge of teaching her – yes, her skills have gone beyond my abilities, masha’Allah. She now mostly uses books that we have purchased or that we have found online. I’m now have to start working with her sister to sharpen her skills, insha’Allah. Anyway . . . instead of writing a very long message in the comment section of the blog – I decided to instead answer here in order to help any other parents that might be struggling with this.

All of the things I tried to use with my daughter can be found on Yemenlinks and advice is also given on this blog – please check out the old posts. Truly, these are the things I have done and nothing else. Mainly – I have found that if you find ways to make English learning fun – they can also be applied to learning Arabic. The language may be different and some of the rules might be different – but teaching them can be similar (at least in terms of fun methods). I think if you find any methods that work for your child in English – and your child is struggling with Arabic – you should try in Arabic.

If your child has problems with recognizing the Arabic Alphabet – make learning the letters more tactile and visual. Put shaving cream, flour, sand (or something similar) on a baking sheet and have him trace the letters with his finger while looking at a written example. You can also make Sandpaper letters and have your child trace them with their finger. You can learn more about it here. If you need the printables, you need to go to Yemenlinks, click on Arabic Learning Materials, and click on Printable Arabic Materials. Scroll down the list and you should find them, insha’Allah.

I believe there are printables that I created which you can use with a drawing toy. I printed these off and had my daughter put the paper over the drawing pad. She then traced the letters and when she lifted up the page she was happily surprised that her letters looked as nice as they should. She liked that! I also made a fishing game where you put letters with attached paperclips into a box – using a stick with a magnet attached on a string, fish for letters. When they pick one out of the box, have them say its name. Now, there’s nothing that says learning can’t be fun – and there are definitely many ways to make it fun.

You can print off or make your own cards for the alphabet. Play a matching game with your child. Have him say the letters each time he picks up two cards and this will definitely give him practice. Also, I have used my bingo game for the same reason – practice. Pick a letter card out of the bag and have your child name it. If he is wrong, tell him the correct name and then put it back. Pick another . . . and so forth. If it seems to frustrate him – first have a game of name that letter. See how many he can name correctly. Put them in a pile in front of him and only put back those he needs to learn. Let him be excited about how many he knows. After a while – the pile will be full, insha’Allah. We have some boards that have snap-on squares with arabic letters on them. With my middle child, she has trouble learning the letters too. So, I took out one square for each letter and put them in a box. I then have her pick a letter and tell me what it is. If she says it correctly, she gets to add it to her board. If not, I tell her what it is and she has to add it back to her box. Another game we play with this is I will specifically ask her for a letter – and she has to look through the box to see where it is. If she doesn’t recognize it – I take it out and draw her attention to that square. We then put it back and I ask for another letter. The thing is – practice – practice – practice. However, at least with my oldest – practice is a bad word. She hates it. So, I have had to find ways like these to get her to practice (and think it is fun) in order to improve her skills.

One last thing I wanted to mention. Right now my husband is helping me revamp the Yemenlinks site. It might take a while (he is a techie, you know) but I think the wait will be worth it, insha’Allah. Anyway, until he is done, the old website will be there. However, at some point in the near future it will be better, insha’Allah and my newer materials will be added there. We will also be updating the links section as well, insha’Allah. Just wanted you to know that work on more Arabic Learning Materials hasn’t completely died . . . just slowed down. 🙂

For more helpful hints on teaching your child Arabic, feel free to stop by the following links:

Yemenlinks Find all my Arabic Learning Materials posted here. There’s also a list of Arabic Resources in the links section. They will be updated soon, insha’Allah.

Arabic Learning Materials YahooGroup Join the group and ask any questions you might have – members are very helpful, masha’Allah. Also, look through the archives and find lots of useful information that was posted previously, insha’Allah.

Here are some previous blog posts that you might have missed:

Arabic Sandpaper Letters

Arabic Movable Alphabet

Arabic Letter Magnets

Arabic Alphabet Bingo Game

Arabic Movable Alphabet II

Learning Numbers

Making Arabic Materials Colorful & Interesting

Some of my favorite Arabic Learning Links If you have any to add, please let me know!

Asalaam ‘Alaikum,
Sumayyah Umm SAA