Heavy & Light Letters / Venn diagrams

As part of their hifz practise and improving their pronunciation, it was suggested to us by a friend to look properly at which Arabic letters are "heavy", which are "light" and which can be either depending on where they are in the Quran.

We started by simply sorting the letters in the alphabet into the three groups: heavy, light, either.

Then I helped them make an A3 poster to help them visualise and so remember the information better (similar to how we made a poster of the "sun" and "moon" letters - which I've not written up a blog post for yet!).

You can download the letters to cut out here.

Next, we practised their sorting skills in terms of a Venn diagram on the whiteboard. I explained how the diagram worked with a couple of examples, then asked them where a letter would go before asking them to tell me a letter which fit into each section.

To check their understanding of Venn diagrams, I drew another one for them to sort the sun/moon letters with. This time, I just asked them where letters went before asking them for examples. Then I coloured in the centre section to emphasise that there are no letters which belong in both categories!

Finally, we recapped the sun/moon letters along with this new heavy/light information by sorting some of the Arabic alphabet using a two-way table, again on the whiteboard, and labelling it as a Carroll diagram.

The heavy/light letters poster is currently on display in our front room and we use it to sing the alphabet to the tune of this song: starting with the light letters, then the in between and finally the heavy letters in alphabetical order (they're kind of arranged alphabetically on the poster!). We sing it through 4 times; first with the letter names, then as if each letter has a fatha, then a kasra and finally a damma. The girls enjoy it as finishing with the heavy letters sounds good! And it's a fun way to practise for them too. 😁

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While we were there, we looked at a Venn diagram in the context of numbers, too! Just to reinforce understanding and to recap our recent work on their multiplication tables. I drew the diagram on the board and asked them where certain numbers would go, then for examples of numbers from each of them which belonged in each section. Lastly, I gave them a number which wouldn't fit in any category and asked them where they thought it would go - M laughed and F said nowhere! As a joke, she pointed in the corner of the whiteboard so I said yes, she was right - if something doesn't fit in any of the categories, then it just goes outside the diagram! And we did a couple more examples to finish.