Iqra: Learn to Read Arabic

Iqra is a simple course that teaches you to read Arabic from the very first letter. It is made for adults, for children and for anyone starting from zero.

You do not need to read to use it. Everything is spoken aloud, the buttons are large and the screens are built around pictures. One big button takes you back to where you stopped.

How you learn
• You go through the alphabet in the order most people know, from alif to yaa, plus hamza, taa marbuta and alif maqsura.
• Each letter is introduced with its name, its sound and its four shapes: at the start of a word, in the middle, at the end, and on its own. Every shape comes with a real word and a picture, so you see it inside a word.
• After each letter you practise with four kinds of short exercise: hear the sound and pick the letter, recognise a letter's shape, match a picture to its word, and build a word letter by letter.
• A wrong answer is fine. You try again until it is right, and nothing locks you out.
• You earn stars for every lesson you finish and see your progress on the course map.

What you will like
• More than ninety words with pictures from everyday life: door, house, sun, moon, book, car and more.
• Choose who reads aloud, a boy or a girl, using pictures only.
• Works without an internet connection.
• No ads, no account and no sign-up. Your progress stays on your phone.

Note: the app uses the Arabic voice installed on your phone (text-to-speech). Most phones already have one. If yours does not, a button at the top of the screen opens the voice settings.

The lessons are spoken in Egyptian Arabic, so Iqra suits people who speak Arabic but cannot read it yet, and anyone helping them learn.

Iqra is made by Ogive.