Free Printable Arabic Alphabet Chart

Most Arabic alphabet charts show 28 letters standing on their own. That is the version nearly every beginner meets first, and it is also why so many stall around week three: a letter inside a real word usually does not look like the letter on the chart.

This one shows every letter in all four of the shapes it actually takes. It is free to download and print, for your own family or a classroom, with no sign-up. If you would rather have someone guide the process, we teach the same sequence live.

Download the chart (PDF) One page. Prints on A4 and US Letter.

Black-and-white version (PDF) Same chart, no colour fills. For classes and co-ops printing a stack of copies.

What this chart shows that a list of letters does not

Arabic joins up. A letter at the start of a word, in the middle, at the end, or standing alone can look different enough that a beginner does not recognise it as the same letter. Nobody warns you about this, because to anyone who reads Arabic it is too obvious to mention.

The practical result is a learner who can recite the alphabet perfectly and still cannot read a word, then concludes they are bad at Arabic. They are not. They learned one shape out of four.

Each row here gives you all four: on its own, at the start, in the middle, at the end. Reading across a row is the useful exercise. The letter that looks unrecognisable in the middle column is the one to spend an extra minute on.

The six letters that never join to the letter after them

Six letters break the pattern: alif, daal, dhaal, raa, zaay and waaw. They accept a join from the letter before, but never pass one on to the letter that follows. They are marked in gold on the chart.

This is worth knowing early, because it explains something that otherwise looks like a printing error. For these six, the Start form is identical to the On its own form, and the Middle form is identical to the End form. Learners often assume the chart is wrong. It is not.

It also explains the gaps in written Arabic. A space inside what looks like one word is usually one of these six ending a segment, not the end of the word.

How to use it with a child who is just starting

Pin it somewhere the child passes, rather than somewhere they sit down to study. A chart used for thirty seconds a day beats one opened for twenty minutes on Sunday.

Work down the rows in order rather than jumping to the letters in their name, which is the usual temptation. The order is not arbitrary: letters sharing a shape sit together, so baa, taa and thaa differ only in dots, and learning them as a group is faster than meeting them weeks apart.

Cover the first column and see whether they can still name the letter from its middle form alone. That is the test that matters, and it is the one a chart on a wall makes easy.

If you are working through a Qaida with them, this pairs with it directly. Our guide to the Qaida covers the sequence most teachers follow after letter recognition.

What a chart cannot do

It cannot teach pronunciation. Several of these letters have no English equivalent, and the difference between the light and heavy pairs is made in a part of the mouth most English speakers never use deliberately. Reading a transliteration will not get you there. Hearing it and being corrected will.

That is the honest limit of any printable. A chart fixes recognition. Pronunciation needs an ear on the other end.

A second free printable: the monthly Quran progress check

If your child is already in lessons and you do not read Arabic yourself, the harder question is not which letters they know but whether they are actually progressing. This sheet gives you a five-step check you can run once a month, plus a blank log to record it, so you are comparing evidence rather than your memory of how they sounded in March.

Download the progress check (PDF) One page. Includes a blank recording log.

The reasoning behind it, including the five things any parent can judge without knowing a word of Arabic, is set out in how to check your child’s Quran progress when you don’t read Arabic.

A third free printable: the Noorani Qaida progress tracker

If your child has moved past single letters and is working through the Qaida itself, there is a companion sheet for that stage. The Noorani Qaida progress tracker lists all sixteen lessons in the order teachers actually follow, and for each one it tells you what your child should sound like when the lesson has landed and what a problem sounds like. It is built on the same principle as this chart: everything on it works by ear, so you can follow the progress without reading a word of Arabic.

Using these in a class or co-op

Both sheets are free to print and hand out for family, classroom, madrasah or homeschool use. You do not need to ask us. We would rather they were useful than protected. If you republish them online, a link back is appreciated and is the only thing we ask.

Frequently asked questions

Is the chart really free?

Yes, and there is no email form in front of it. The download links above go straight to the PDF.

Will it print properly on A4?

Yes. The page is sized for US Letter with wide margins, so it scales onto A4 without losing anything at the edges. Print at 100% or let your printer fit to page.

Which font is the Arabic set in?

Amiri, an open-licensed naskh typeface. Naskh is the style most Qurans and most teaching materials use, so the letter shapes match what a learner will meet next.

Does the chart include the vowel marks?

No. It covers letter shapes only, which is the first stage. Harakat come after a learner can recognise letters in all positions, and mixing the two at once is a common reason beginners stall.

My child can name the letters but still cannot read. What now?

That is the normal gap, and it is almost always the positional forms plus joining. Work across the rows rather than down the first column, then move to two- and three-letter combinations. If it persists past a few weeks, it is worth having someone listen.

If you want a teacher to take it from here, we teach Arabic and Quran one to one or in small groups to families across the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and the first class is free. You can also see what is covered in the classes we offer free of charge.

There is now a third free printable as well: the Tajweed rules chart, which puts Noon Sakinah, Meem Sakinah, Qalqalah, Ghunnah and the Madd lengths on one page. It suits a child who is already reading and starting to work on how the words should sound.