Reading in Arabic and English at once: finding the balance
Give Arabic the fixed slot with you on four days out of seven in most cases, and never fewer than three, with vowelled books you read in Standard Arabic and explain in your home dialect, and give English the phonics practice the school sends plus a book for fun. Do not mix the two languages in one session.
A two-language reading week — printable
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Your child reads in two languages, and you worry that one will race ahead of the other. Your biggest worry may be that Arabic slips when most of their subjects are taught in English. The answer is not longer hours but a clear split: one language per day, and the fixed slot with you goes to Arabic. Below is a full sample week, what each language needs, how to choose books in each, and what is not worth worrying about. The split, days and minutes we suggest are our advice, not research findings.
- Definition
- Diglossia in Arabic: A child speaks a spoken dialect at home, picked up naturally, and reads and writes Standard Arabic (fusha) at school, which is formally taught. It explains why a beginning Arabic reader needs particular care.
The weekly split: Arabic gets the fixed slot
The rule we suggest: Arabic never drops below three days out of seven, whatever the situation. Then the split changes with the school's language and with the language your child needs most.
| Your child's situation | Suggested split | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The school teaches most subjects in English | Arabic 4 days, English 2, and one day of their choice | The school day gives English a lot of time, so home gives Arabic its time |
| The school teaches most subjects in Arabic, and they are fine in both | Arabic 4 days, English 2, and one day of their choice | Arabic is the language of most subjects; English needs regular reading, not long reading |
| The school teaches in Arabic, but English is harder for them | Arabic 3 days, English 3, and one day of their choice | The harder language gets more days with easier books, and Arabic does not go below three |
| Day | Language | Who reads, and what | Minutes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | Arabic | You read a vowelled story in Standard Arabic, then talk about it in your dialect | 15 |
| Monday | English | They practise the week's sounds sent by the school, then read a short book with words made of those sounds | 15 |
| Tuesday | Arabic | They read a vowelled page of Sunday's story aloud | 10 |
| Wednesday | Arabic | Dialogic reading: they tell Sunday's story from its pictures, and you ask and add a Standard Arabic word | 15 |
| Thursday | English | A book for fun they choose, or a favourite they reread | 15 |
| Friday | Arabic | A new story they choose, read aloud by you | 15 |
| Saturday | Their choice | Any book in either language, even a comic, with no questions | 15 |
Why this order: one Arabic story runs over three days — they hear it, then read it, then tell it — so they meet the same Standard Arabic words three times. English gets two days: one for sounds, one for fun. That is 100 minutes a week in all.
A home reading plan has the questions to ask after reading for each age, and another weekly chart for an eight-year-old taught mostly in Arabic.
What Arabic reading needs
A research review by Asadi and Asli-Badarneh, published in April 2026 in the Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, describes a beginning Arabic reader facing two things at once: a written language that differs from their daily speech, and a script whose vowel marks are later removed. Hence three needs:
Vowelled books at the start
The review says vowelization helps beginners but loses importance with age, and that vowel marks are gradually removed around fourth grade. So choose fully vowelled books in the early years, then around Grade 4 bring in a few unvowelled texts that they read with you.
Standard Arabic by ear before by eye
Read them Standard Arabic stories harder than they can read alone. In a small study published in Brain and Behavior in November 2025, parents of 13 children aged 4 to 5 read Standard Arabic stories with them dialogically at home, three times a week for eight weeks — the child takes part in telling the story rather than only listening — and the children's listening comprehension scores were higher afterwards. But it is a small study with no comparison group, so it cannot show that dialogic reading alone caused the gain; still, it describes a method you can start tonight.
The text in Standard Arabic, the explaining in your dialect
Do not change the book's words into dialect. Read them as written, and if they stop at a Standard Arabic word, explain it in your dialect, then reread the sentence as in the book. The same review notes that in one study children understood stories best in the spoken variety, and that scaffolded exposure to Standard Arabic improved their understanding without removing all the difficulty.
What English reading needs
- Sounds, not letter names. The page “Practising phonics at home” on Words for Life, from the UK's National Literacy Trust, explains that children learn letters and groups of letters by saying the sounds they make, then blend the sounds to read a word. It advises asking the teacher for activities that support reading and writing — so ask, “Which sounds are they learning this week?”
- Rereading favourites. The same page says reading your child's favourite books again and again helps them get to know the story and supports their learning.
- A book for fun. UNICEF says it is important for children to see reading as fun and pleasurable rather than a difficult task, and that comics and graphic novels are reading too. So the second English day has no questions and no sounds — just a book they choose.
- If you do not read English: they read the page aloud to you, then tell you in Arabic what happened in it. If they can retell it in another language, they understood it.
How to choose books in each language
| Arabic | English | |
|---|---|---|
| For a beginner | Short, fully vowelled stories with pictures | Short books whose words are mostly made of the sounds learned at school |
| To check the level | The five-finger check on a page from the middle | The same check, plus one question about what the page meant |
| For you to read to them | Standard Arabic stories a little above their level | If you read English: stories on a topic they love; if not, they read to you |
| For fun | Whatever they choose, even a magazine or a comic | Whatever they choose, even a comic |
The five-finger check, step by step, is in the home reading plan. Words for Life's page “Talk to your child in the language you know best” notes that your local library may have dual-language books to borrow. A book with Arabic and English side by side is good for a day of your child's choice, but we do not suggest it for the fixed slot: the eye drifts to the easier language.
What not to worry about, and when to ask the teacher
- That they mix English words into their Arabic. Words for Life suggests that if your child uses English words when talking to you, you repeat what they said in your language, because this helps them learn words in both. Say the sentence back in Arabic, and do not stop them to correct it.
- That you speak your dialect with them, not Standard Arabic. The same page says it is really important to speak to your children in the language you know best and feel most confident with, and that knowing their first language well helps children learn additional languages such as English. Standard Arabic comes into the house through books; conversation stays in your dialect.
- That reading Arabic takes more effort. The review above describes what a beginning Arabic reader faces: a written language that is not the one they speak, and a script with its own demands. The effort is expected; the answer is a fixed time and vowelled books, not a comparison with the other language.
This plan fails when Arabic becomes “the hard language” that comes after dinner when everyone is tired, and English “the fun language” on a screen. So make the Arabic story the best part of the evening: a story you choose together, with your voice changing for each character. If reading in either language is still very hard for them after weeks of regular practice, talk to their teacher or the school counsellor. How to know your child's level gives a calm way to watch their reading for a week before that conversation. And if a break is coming, calm learning ideas for the mid-year break keep reading going at home without pressure.
Frequently asked questions
- How do I teach my child to read Arabic at home?
- Read them vowelled stories in Standard Arabic, let them tell the story back to you, then have them read a page aloud. A fixed time four days a week does more than one long session now and then.
- Does learning two languages at once confuse a child?
- Words for Life does not warn against it; it says that knowing their first language well helps children learn additional languages such as English. What helps is one language per session.
- Should I speak Standard Arabic with my child at home?
- Speak the language you know best, as Words for Life advises, and let Standard Arabic come in through the stories you read them. Explain a new Standard Arabic word in your dialect, then reread the sentence as in the book.
- When will my child read Arabic without vowel marks?
- A 2026 research review says vowel marks are gradually removed around fourth grade, and that vowelization helps beginners but loses importance with age. So start a few unvowelled texts around then, reading them together.
Sources
Every fact in this post that we did not produce ourselves comes from one of these sources.
- Diglossia and Orthographic Complexity as Multiplicative but not Additive Challenges in Arabic: A Critical Review — Journal of Psycholinguistic Research (Asadi and Asli-Badarneh), 2026-04-04
- Increased Brain-to-Brain Synchronization During Literary Arabic Storytelling Following a Dialogic Reading Intervention — Brain and Behavior (Abu Ghanima et al.), 2025-11-21
- Talk to your child in the language you know best — Words for Life (National Literacy Trust), undated (read 2026-10-22)
- Practising phonics at home — Words for Life (National Literacy Trust), undated (read 2026-10-22)
- How to teach your child to love reading — UNICEF Parenting, undated (read 2026-10-22)
Written with String's editorial team: we use AI for research and first drafts, and a person checks every fact and every source before anything is published. How we write
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“I grew up in a house of teachers.” I spent a year designing the STEM program for one of the largest school groups in Saudi Arabia, have written curriculum by hand, trained robotics coaches and sold software into schools, then left that job to build String in Amman.
