Abstract Table 1: Learning Area/Stage and Abjad's Corresponding Supporting Materials Challenges of Teaching the Arabic Alphabet The Abjad Solution: 1.  Colour Families 2.  Hands and Tails 3.  Transformations Overview of the Abjad Product Line A Note About the Abjad Books

Figure 1: The Abjad Letter Pyramid Figure 2: The Difference Between Ba Ta Tha, Nun, and Ya Figure 3: The Difference between Fa and Qaf Figure 4: "Hands and Tails" Figure 5: Joining points of letters and tails Figure 6: Letters without "hands" Figure 7: Transformation of letter Ain Figure 8: Transformation of letter Ha Figure 9: Transformation of letter Kaf

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Abstract

Abjad Ltd. is the developer of a series of quality educational products designed to effectively teach young children how to read and write Arabic. Abjad's Arabic Alphabet Learning System is also suitable for adult education and has been adapted for use with children who have special needs. The product line is designed around a highly accessible teaching system that presents the different letters of the Arabic alphabet in a way that children can easily understand and assimilate. This system overcomes key teaching challenges associated with the Arabic language by emphasizing the underlying patterns and relationships that pervade the alphabet.

The Abjad products and the key alphabet learning areas they address are summarized in the table below:

Learning Area/Stage	Supporting Abjad Products
Introduction to the letters of the alphabet Recognition of basic letter shapes; learning the names of the letters; recognizing the various character forms of the same letter.	Plastic Letters Wooden Letters Prince of the Letters Book+ audio cassette Letters Book + audio cassette Animal Memory Game Animal Poster Animal Jigsaw Puzzle Animal Stickers; Word Stickers CD-Rom
Basic word formation Identifying individual letters in a word; assembling simple words using the plastic letters; learning the phonetic sound value of the different letters in a word.	Plastic Letters Wooden Letters Prince of the Letters Book+ audio cassette Animal Book+ audio cassette Animal Pop-Out Cards CD-Rom
Writing Writing letters using dotted guides; writing letters using Abjad letter outline as a guides; writing basic words using dotted guides inscribed in words; writing words with only Abjad lettering as guides.	Letters Book + pen + eraser mitten Letters Workbook + pen Animals Book  + pen +  mitten Words Book  + pen +  mitten Hamza and the Vowels Book + pen + mitten
Introduction to hamza & short vowels	Hamza and the Vowels Book + tape
Letters; character forms; new vocabulary,	Abjad World Workbook Abjad Colours & Shapes Workbook Abjad My World Workbook

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Challenges of Teaching the Arabic Alphabet

Through the use of modern manufacturing techniques in plastics injection moulding, colour printing, and laser cutting Abjad has been able to develop the elements of an Arabic Alphabet Learning System. This system can - for the first time - address precisely those challenges associated with teaching Arabic that are not fully addressed by the traditional method of teaching.   

Abjad has identified three key challenges that children face when learning the Arabic alphabet, and for each challenge, Abjad system presents a decisive solution:

Challenge 1: Complexity ­ The Arabic alphabet consists of 28 letters.  When learning, children have to distinguish between the many instances of letters that appear strikingly similar to each other (for example, the number and positioning of dots is often all that distinguishes otherwise identical letters). Added to this problem letters with similar character forms at the beginning of a word can have very different forms at the end of a word (compare Ba and Ya) The traditional system does not especially facilitate the comprehension of the similarities and the differences between the various letters. The Abjad system solves all these complexities in a beautifully simple and intelligible way.

Challenge 2: Semi-Cursive Script ­ While it is generally accepted that Arabic is a cursive script, it is perhaps better to describe it as semi-cursive, since not all the Arabic letters attach to a following letter (Alef, Dal, Dhal, Ra, Zain, and Waw do not attach to a following letter ). Under the traditional system children overcome this challenge by performing lengthy drill. Children are given no "reasons" why some letters should join a following letter and why some letters should not. The Abjad system gives this "reason".

Challenge 3: Letter Forms ­ In the Arabic alphabet, the number of character forms associated with each letter varies (contrast English where letters always have two forms; uppercase and lowercase); Letters can have anything from one to four character forms (three letters have 4 character forms; nineteen letters have 2 essential forms; and the remaining six letters have only 1 essential form).  It is a great challenge for children to assimilate all these complex differences. The Abjad system through its stories and unique letter set magically solves this problem altogether!.

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The Abjad Solution :

1.Colour Families

The Abjad Letters overcome the conceptual hurdle of complexity outlined by Challenge1 above by establishing an easily comprehensible scheme of classification through which the letters are grouped according to essential similarities. Based on their orthographic formation, the 28 letters of the alphabet are categorized into seven “families”, clearly differentiated by the colours of the rainbow:

Red letters: The letter "Ha" is unique among the letters in its complexity and variety of forms. In the Abjad system, she is the “queen” of all the letters.
Orange letters: Like the indigo letters, these letters have no “tails”, but unlike the indigo letters, they have "hands" to help them hold onto other letters.
Yellow letters: These letters join to following letters and each has a unique “tail” when found at the end of a word.
Green letters: These letters join to following letters and have horizontal “tails”.
Blue letters: These letters join to following letters and have deeply curved, backward pointing “tails”.
Indigo letters: These letters can not join to following letters since they do not have "hands"..
Violet letters: These letters join to following letters and have deeply curved, upward pointing “tails”.

The Abjad system encapsulates the Colour Family scheme outlined above in the Letter Pyramid, a diagram consisting of the seven layers of letters organized by increasing group size. Each row presents its letters in traditional alphabetical order:

Figure1 - The Abjad Letter Pyramid

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It is a most remarkable fact that the Arabic Alphabet, when arranged according to their inherent characteristics of its letters, forms a beautifully symmetrical 7 by 7 triangle. This is not so much an Abjad invention as it is a discovery. The Letter Pyramid renders the entire alphabet much more comprehensible and intelligible for young children.  It fosters a sense of order, symmetry and harmony, which predisposes children to feel comfortable and confident with the alphabet. 

This rainbow-coloured classification makes it clear that the letters Ba, Ta and Tha are related to each other and that they share the same final form - "hold" the same coloured "tail" -  whereas the letter Nun Ya and the letter Ya  which both look similar to these letters at the beginning of a word are not similar since their colours are different, and therefore, their tail forms are different:

Figure 2: The Difference Between Ba Ta Tha, Nun, and Ya

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Similarly the potential confusion between the letter Fa and the letter Qaf  - two letters which look similar at the beginning of a word - are prevented through the use of differing colours and groupings in the Abjad pyramid:

Figure 3: The Difference between Fa and Qaf

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2. Hands and Tails

A Note About the Abjad Books

Co-ordinated size and colour

The Prince of the Letters picture book represents pictures of the Arabic letters. In all cases where children are being taught an important point the illustrations of the letters are exactly the same scale as the plastic letters. This is a unique Abjad feature! In what other language can children place identically sized and identically coloured embodiments of the letters over equivalent illustrations in a book?

This feature of co-ordinated size and colour is used to maximum effect in all other Abjad books, where all letters and words are the same size and colour as the Abjad plastic letters.
The Letters Book, however, takes the co-ordination of letter size and colour to even a higher level ! This book must indeed rank as one of the most intricately conceived books ever designed to teach the alphabet in any language ! Not only does this book have illustrations of the letters in the same scale and colour as the Abjad plastic letters, it also uses the Abjad typeface for the text of the book.

Unlike The Prince of the Letters, however, each individual letter in each word of the text of this book is also coloured in the same colour as its equivalent Abjad letter ! A child following this Letters Book will be looking at the pictures only (among the pictures are the life-sized Abjad letters which are the subject of the book).

The child - naturally - does not read the text. The parent or teacher, with or without the aid of the audio tape, does this. Why then should the parent or teacher need the text to be colour co-ordinated? The answer is that they do not need this. But, the text of this book deals - exceptionally - with the letters; the very same letters which make up the text of the book ! The parent or teacher can in this case - and this case only - take advantage of the text that they are reading from, to help explain to children what the letters can do ! They can find an example of any letter that they are discussing in miniature - embedded in the text - and point this out to the child.

The coloured text helps to immediately identify the "baby letter" in question. The colour - very importantly - isolates this "baby letter" from other surrounding letters. The fact that the typeface is also identical to the letters being discussed in the pictures prevents any possible confusion that might otherwise arise in the child's mind from the slight differences that distinguish different typefaces. The Letters Book offers a unique possibility to children, the small text of the story - which they cannot read - can act for them as a "bridge", helping them understand how letters are used to convey words and meaning. Co-ordinated size is also an important element in the Animal Book.

The reason here being that the Animal Book dovetails with the Animal Pop-Out Cards. Each of the cards is made up of the same image as each page of this book. Each card has its animal as well as the letter and word stamped out. By pushing out the letters and words from these cards the remaining silhouettes can be used as guides into which the plastic Abjad letters can be assembled. This can even be done with the cards overlaid on the corresponding animal page in the book.

Few educational books, if any, offer such seemingly endless possibilities and support to children using them, as do the Abjad series of books.

Audio

Each Abjad book has an accompanying audio cassette tape which vividly brings to life the stories through narration, music and song. These audio cassettes are important in that they guarantee correct pronunciation of letters, words and sentences. The very best actors and studios have been used for these recordings. Samira Abd al-Aziz - the principal voice in all the Abjad recordings - is one of the best-loved and most widely respected actresses working in Egypt today.

Write On - Wipe Off

Most of the Abjad books have hard covers and laminated pages for durability. Lamination also allows children to practice drawing or writing on the pages using the Abjad pen. Pages can then be wiped clean using the Abjad mitten. Children love to play with the pen and mitten. What better way to encourage them to practice drawing and writing !

The fact that the same page can be wiped clean over and over again, allows children to practice as much as they please. Unlike conventional books, the child can go back and correct any mistakes he may have made, or improve his copying with successive attempts.

Incremental Stages

Each book targets a specific teaching objective. From a general familiarization with the letters; to concentrating on learning all the character forms of the letters; to recognizing simple words; to recognizing the independent phonetic sound values of individual letters within a word; to tracing over dotted lines to write letters; to copying letters without dotted lines; to writing complete words using dotted lines; to becoming aware of the special character of the Hamza and the shorter vowels, etc.

In addition to the specific target for which any given book was produced, it can very often support elements specifically targeted elsewhere. For example, the Hamza and Vowels Book, as well as addressing the area identified by its title, is also a wonderful supplement to the Word Book which uses dotted lines in letters and words to guide children as they trace over the letter forms. The word book, however, only has 28 examples with which to practice, whereas the Hamza and Vowels book has 28 x 3 = 84 words inscribed with dotted lines.

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