Free Printable Tajweed Rules Chart, All the Core Rules on One Page

Most children who have been reading Quran for a year or two can sound out the words perfectly well. What slips is everything around the words. The noon that should have been hidden, the meem held for two counts instead of one, the qaf at the end of a verse that lands flat instead of bouncing. None of that shows up when a child reads aloud quickly, which is exactly why it goes uncorrected for months.

This chart puts the core Tajweed rules on a single page you can print and keep next to the Mushaf. It is free, there is no email signup, and you are welcome to print as many copies as you need for your family, your class, or your weekend school.

Download the chart

• Tajweed rules chart, colour version (best on screen, or colour printing)
• Tajweed rules chart, black and white (cleaner on a home printer, no colour ink)

What the chart covers

Five families of rules, which between them account for most of what a beginner gets wrong:

• Noon Sakinah and Tanween, the four rules of Izhar, Idgham, Iqlab and Ikhfa, with the letters that trigger each one.
• Meem Sakinah, the three rules, including the one most commonly missed, Ikhfa Shafawi before a ba.
• Qalqalah, the five echoing letters, grouped by the usual mnemonic Qutb Jad.
• Ghunnah. The nasal sound on noon and meem carrying a shaddah.
• Madd, the four common elongations and how many counts each one is held.

The rule almost every beginner drops first

If you only watch for one thing when your child reads, make it ghunnah. It is the nasal sound held for roughly two counts on a noon or meem with a shaddah, and because English has no equivalent, children raised outside an Arabic-speaking home tend to skip it entirely without noticing. The word still sounds recognisable, so nobody corrects it, and a year later it has become a habit that takes real effort to undo.

It is easy to check. Ask your child to read a verse containing a shaddah on a noon or meem and listen for whether the sound carries through the nose at all. If it stops dead at the letter, that is the gap.

How to use it with a child

Do not hand a seven-year-old a page of rules and expect it to help. What works better is picking one row per week. Put the chart somewhere visible, choose a single rule, and listen for that one rule only during the week. Ignore the rest, even if you hear other mistakes, a child corrected on five things at once stops volunteering to read at all.

Older children can use it differently: as a checklist to self-assess after reading, which builds the habit of listening to their own recitation rather than waiting to be corrected.

What a chart cannot do

Being honest about this matters more than selling you on the download. Tajweed is a listening skill. A chart can tell you that Ikhfa exists and which fifteen letters trigger it; it cannot tell you whether the sound your child is actually producing is right. You cannot hear yourself accurately while you recite. Everyone believes their pronunciation is fine until someone stops them mid-verse.

So use the chart as a reference and a reminder, not as a teacher. The corrections have to come from someone listening in real time, whether that is a parent who reads well, a teacher at the masjid, or a tutor.

If you are not sure where to begin with the chart, start with ghunnah. It is the rule children raised outside an Arabic-speaking home lose first, and the one easiest for a parent to check. We wrote about how to test for it in a single evening.

Our other free printables

Two more, also free and also without a signup:

• The Arabic alphabet chart, letter forms and the six letters that never join to the left, useful before a child starts reading words.
• The monthly Quran progress check, on the same page, a one-sheet record of what your child can actually read and recite, so progress is visible month to month rather than guessed at.

Using it in a class or co-op

Teachers and homeschool groups are welcome to print and distribute this freely. There is no licence to worry about and no attribution required, though a link back is always appreciated if you host it somewhere. If it would be more useful in a different format or size for your setting, tell us and we will make it.

Frequently asked questions

Is this suitable for an adult beginner?

Yes. Adults often find the chart more immediately useful than children do, because the rules are presented as logic rather than repetition, and that suits how most adults learn. Pair it with recitation you listen to regularly and it works well.

Do I need to know Arabic to use it?

No. The rules are written in English, with the Arabic letters shown so you can recognise them on the page. Many parents using it cannot read Arabic themselves and use it to follow along with what their child is being taught.

Which Tajweed tradition does this follow?

It follows the rules as commonly taught in the narration of Hafs from Asim, which is what the overwhelming majority of printed Mushafs and online classes use.

Can we get these rules taught properly?

That is what our online Tajweed lessons are for, a qualified teacher listening and correcting as your child reads, which is the part a chart cannot replace. There is also a broader Quran programme if reading fluency needs work first.

Print it, and start with one rule

Download whichever version suits your printer, put it where your child reads, and pick a single row to focus on this week. If you would like someone qualified listening while they read, our first class is free, tell us your child’s age and roughly where they are, and we will match a teacher.