Hayya Beena Naqraa
"Come, let's read together" — a small library of bilingual Arabic-English stories for elementary readers, designed for heritage learners and total beginners alike.
How these stories work
Every story is fully bilingual. Each page has Arabic (with vowel marks to help early readers) and English right alongside. Parents who speak Arabic can read the Arabic aloud while pointing at the English. Parents who don't can read the English and let their child hear the Arabic-shaped script and slowly learn to recognize the letters.
The Arabic is Modern Standard Arabic (what books across the Arab world use), with Levantine warmth in the cultural details — manakish on the kitchen table, an olive tree on the terrace, a balcony where a bird builds a nest.
Choose a tier
Each tier matches a reading level. Move up when your child is ready — the same kid might be in Tier 1 for English-language reading but Tier 0 in Arabic, and that's completely fine.
Tier 0 — Whisper of the Alphabet
Pre-reader picture books — one letter, number, color, or concept per page.
6 stories
Tier 1 — Whisper
Very short stories — 5–8 words per page, every word voweled.
8 stories
Tier 2 — Voice
Short sentences, simple narrative arcs.
8 stories
Tier 3 — Story
Paragraph-length stories with character growth.
8 stories
Tier 4 — Novella
Multi-chapter stories with real emotional weight and Between-the-Chapters reflection moments.
4 stories
Designed for every kind of reader
The vocabulary marks (تَشْكِيل) on every word in Tier 1 make Arabic readable for kids who are just beginning. They fade gradually as the tiers progress — by Tier 3, only the harder words wear their marks, like training wheels coming off.
Strictly secular core. Cultural anchors are food, family, geography, music — never religion. Levantine sensibility throughout.