The Design and Implementation of an Arabic Pronunciation Application for Early Childhood

Learning is not limited to a certain age group or a formal study environment. However, the first eight years, and particularly the first three years, are the most important because the effects of the care and attention provided to the child during this period will continue throughout his/her life. A child's early learning processes develop his/her educational abilities and skills and fosters his/her academic achievements. Preschool can be very beneficial to the development of and learning for children, but there are differences between countries in this area. Preschool programmes of high quality can reduce repetition in the classroom and raise achievement scores for students (Jacobson and Linda 2008). There are many applications in the Middle East that teach children but none link the vowels of the Arabic alphabet characters and sound for each character and the training to select the correct format of the Arabic alphabet (e.g. "fatha," "dama" and "kasra"). This study aims to develop an educational application for children aged 3-5 to help improve their skills and abilities. The application will prepare them for school by teaching them the Arabic letters, pronunciation and the short vowels ("fatha," "dama" and "kasra"). The application also aims to help children communicate and interact more effectively with their external environment by employing several theories about learning skills, such as Piaget's "Theory of Cognitive Development", Dale's "Cone of Learning" and Bloom's "Taxonomy of Cognitive Goals". The application will focus on the first three levels of Bloom's "Taxonomy Pyramid", which are "Remember", "Understand" and "Apply". The application will be designed to aid children with their Arabic pronunciation, aural and oral skills, as well as to train and educate them in preparation for attending school. The expected result is that it will be considerably better than educational books for children's education. Combining education and play in e-learning applications is an important way to attract children.