Arabic Graded Readers by Level: What Exists, A0 to C2

Graded Arabic reading for adults: what a levelled text controls, the series and free sources that exist, and a sample line from each of seven levels.

Published 2026-10-10 · Written by Amaan

Are there graded readers for adult learners of Arabic, and how do I choose a level?

Yes, but few. In print there is the Sahlawayhi series of 24 graded stories. Free online there are Al Jazeera’s news in seven levels and Yale’s Read, Learn, and Play Arabic eBooks. Apps such as Fasaha grade whole libraries from A0 to C2. Choose the level where you meet about one unknown word in fifty, and never more than one in ten.

A graded reader controls vocabulary, sentence length and grammar. In Arabic it controls a fourth thing: how many of the vowel marks are printed.

Reading is comfortable when about 98% of the words are known, one unknown word in fifty. Below about 90%, one in ten, it turns into dictionary work.

For adults the supply is thin: one print series written for adult learners, two free institutional sources, and a small number of apps.

There is no shared scale. Al Jazeera uses seven named levels, Yale uses ACTFL bands, Sahlawayhi its own six, and apps mostly borrow the CEFR labels. Judge a text by a sample line, not by its label.

Fasaha’s library, counted on 10 October 2026: 170 graded texts (30 each at A0, A1 and A2; 20 each at B1, B2, C1 and C2), from about 60 words a text at A0 to about 540 at C2, each with word-aligned audio.

Reading alone leaves little behind. In one study, learners recalled the meaning of 1 word in 28 three months after reading a story, so save the words that repeat and review them.

What is a graded reader, and what does it control?

A graded reader is a text written or adapted so that a learner at a stated level can read it without stopping on every line. The writer holds three things inside limits: which words appear, how long the sentences run, and which grammar they use. Extensive reading, the method graded readers serve, asks for a lot of easy text rather than a little hard text.

The limit that matters most is vocabulary. Hu and Nation found in 2000 that readers needed to know about 98% of the words in a text to follow it unaided, which is one unknown word in fifty. The Extensive Reading Foundation’s guide draws the same line for practice and adds a floor: below about 90%, one unknown word in ten, reading becomes slow and frustrating and comprehension suffers.

Arabic adds a fourth control that most languages do not have. Ordinary Arabic is printed without its short vowels, so the same three letters كتب can be read kataba, “he wrote”, kutiba, “it was written”, or kutub, “books”. A text for beginners prints the vowel marks; a text for advanced readers drops them. A graded Arabic text is therefore graded twice, once by its words and once by how much of the pronunciation it writes down.

Why are there so few Arabic graded readers for adults?

Learners of English can choose from thousands of graded readers. Learners of Arabic cannot. When we searched for Arabic graded readers on 10 October 2026, the results were a university thesis, reading series for children, scanned PDFs and a handful of self-published books.

Two things explain the gap. The first is diglossia. Arabic speakers grow up in a spoken dialect and learn the written language, fusha, at school, so books for Arab children assume a child who already speaks Arabic and needs only the script and the formal register. An adult foreign learner needs the opposite: adult subjects in very few words. The second is that Arabic has no agreed scale for the difficulty of a text. Publishers, universities and apps each level by their own method, so a level 3 from one source tells you nothing about a level 3 from another.

Children’s books are a common suggestion and often a poor fit for that reason. The ideas are simple, but the vocabulary is wide and the grammar assumes a native ear.

What exists: print, free and app sources compared

The table in this guide lists the sources we could verify on 10 October 2026, with what each one says about itself. Where a source does not say which variety of Arabic it uses or how its levels are set, the table says so rather than guessing.

Sahlawayhi, by Ahmed H. Khorshid, is described by its publisher as the first series of graded stories for adult learners of Arabic as a foreign language: 24 stories in six levels of four, each 200 to 400 words, built on gradual introduction of vocabulary and structures, frequent recycling of both, and a large volume of input. It is a book, so a lookup means a separate dictionary.

Two institutions publish free material. Al Jazeera Learning Arabic sorts news articles into seven levels in three groups, from Introductory to Proficiency, and offers a level test and a tool that adds the vowel marks. Yale’s Read, Learn, and Play Arabic offers twelve free eBooks with audio for school and university learners, five for novices, five intermediate and two advanced, aligned to the ACTFL scale and built on comprehensible-input principles.

Among apps, Inklingo publishes free Arabic stories from A0 to B2 with audio on most paragraphs and tap-to-translate; its page does not say which variety of Arabic they use. LingQ is a reading system for more than 50 languages that lets you import Arabic text and audio; its Arabic page states neither a variety nor a levelling method. Fasaha grades its own library from A0 to C2 in fusha and is described at the end of this guide.

How do you find your level without a test?

A level label is a promise, and the promises differ. A faster check is a sample: read the opening line of a text at each level and stop at the first one where you would need to look up more than one word.

Then apply the two numbers from the research. If you know all but about one word in fifty, the text is easy enough to read for volume. If you are missing more than one word in ten, step down; you are no longer reading, you are decoding. Between the two is study reading: workable when a lookup costs one tap, exhausting when it costs a paper dictionary.

Count the vowel marks as part of the level. A fully vowelled text at B1 can be easier than an unvowelled text at A2 for a learner who has not yet built the habit of supplying the vowels. If you can, read a text first with the marks and again without them.

What do A0 to C2 mean for an Arabic text?

CEFR, the European framework behind the labels A1 to C2, describes what a learner can do, not which words a text may use. So every Arabic source that borrows the labels sets its own boundaries. A0 is not one of the six CEFR levels; teachers of Arabic use it for the stage before A1, when the learner is still acquiring the script.

Fasaha’s own numbers show what its levels mean in practice. Counted on 10 October 2026, the library holds 170 graded texts: 30 each at A0, A1 and A2, and 20 each at B1, B2, C1 and C2. A typical text runs to about 60 words at A0, 130 at A1, 200 at A2, 280 at B1, 230 at B2, 500 at C1 and 540 at C2, about 43,000 words in all. Every one has word-aligned narration, about seven and a half hours in total. Beside them sit 219 stories of the prophets at B1, also narrated.

Each text can be shown with all its vowel marks, with a minimal set, or with none, so the second kind of grading described above is a setting rather than a different book.

Does reading with audio help?

Listening while you read helps with something specific to Arabic: it supplies the vowels the page leaves out and shows where one word ends and the next begins. For vocabulary, the evidence is more modest than enthusiasts claim. In 2008 Brown, Waring and Donkaewbua compared reading, reading while listening, and listening alone, using graded stories. Learners picked up some words in all three modes, but most words were not learned. Three months later, tested without prompts, they recalled on average the meaning of 1 word in 28 from either reading mode and none from listening alone.

Two lessons follow. Words that came back more often in the story were learned more often and forgotten more slowly, which is the argument for volume: read enough that the same words return. And one meeting is not enough, which is the argument for keeping the words you looked up and reviewing them.

Where Fasaha fits, and where it does not

Fasaha is a graded reader for fusha inside an app. Its library is written for learners at seven levels, each text is narrated and aligned word by word, and a tap on any word opens its meaning, root and pattern without leaving the line. Words you save return for spaced review in the sentence where you met them. Beside its own graded texts the library carries two classic readers with the same word-aligned narration: Stories of the Prophets (Qasas an-Nabiyyin), 219 stories at B1, and Al-Qira’ah ar-Rashidah, 43 lessons at B1 to B2.

It is not a library of everything. It does not import your own books or web pages, it teaches no spoken dialect, and its graded texts were written for the app rather than taken from published literature. If you want paper, Sahlawayhi is the series written for adults. If you want levelled news at no cost, start with Al Jazeera Learning Arabic.

One opening line from each level

The first sentence of the first text at each level in Fasaha’s library, as it appears in the app. Read down until a line stops you; your reading level is the one above it.

A0: about 60 words a text, 30 texts: أَنَا اِسْمِي عَلِيّ وَأَسْكُنُ فِي مَدِينَةٍ سَاحِلِيَّةٍ هَادِئَةٍ. — My name is Ali, and I live in a quiet coastal city.
A1: about 130 words a text, 30 texts: يَومُ الجُمُعَةِ هو يَومُ السُّوقِ في حَيِّنا. — Friday is the market day in our neighborhood.
A2: about 200 words a text, 30 texts: أُخَطِّطُ مُنذُ فَترةٍ لِلقيامِ بِرِحلَةٍ مُمَيَّزَةٍ، وَأَخيرًا اتَّخَذتُ قَراري. — I have been planning a special trip for a while, and I have finally made my decision.
B1: about 280 words a text, 20 texts: يَسعَى كُلُّ إِنسانٍ طَموحٍ إلى تَحقيقِ النَّجاحِ في مَسارِهِ المِهْنيِّ، وَلَكِنَّ الكَثيرينَ يَعتَقِدونَ أَنَّ النَّجاحَ مُجرَّدُ حَظٍّ أَوْ مَوهِبَةٍ فِطريَّةٍ. — Every ambitious person strives to achieve success in their career path, but many believe that success is merely luck or innate talent.
B2: about 230 words a text, 20 texts: فِي ظِلِّ التَّحَوُّلاتِ التِّقْنِيَّةِ الْمُتَسارِعَةِ الَّتِي يَشْهَدُهَا الْعالَمُ الْيَوْمَ، تَبْرُزُ الْمَمْلَكَةُ الْعَرَبِيَّةُ السُّعُودِيَّةُ كَلاعِبٍ رَئِيسِيٍّ فِي مَجالِ التِّكْنُولُوجْيَا الْمُتَقَدِّمَةِ، مُسْتَنِدَةً فِي ذٰلِكَ إِلَى رُؤْيَةِ ٢٠٣٠ الطَّمُوحَةِ. — In light of the rapid technological transformations the world is witnessing today, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is emerging as a key player in the field of advanced technology, supported by its ambitious Vision 2030.
C1: about 500 words a text, 20 texts: حِينَ تَقِفُ تَحْتَ قَوْسِ سَاحَةِ الرِّجِسْتانِ الشَّاهِقِ فِي قَلْبِ سَمَرقندَ، وتَرْمُقُ القِبَابَ الفَيْرُوزِيَّةَ وَقَدْ غَسَلَهَا شَفَقُ المَسَاءِ، لا يَتَمَلَّكُكَ شُعُورٌ بِالوَقُوفِ عَلَى أَطْلالٍ غَابِرَةٍ فَحَسْبُ، بَلْ تَشْعُرُ بِأَنَّكَ فِي مَرْصَدٍ فَلَكِيٍّ لِلتَّارِيخِ، حَيْثُ كَانَتِ النُّجُومُ تَهْدِي القَوَافِلَ قَدِيمًا، وَتَعُودُ اليَوْمَ لِتَهْدِيَ نَوْعًا آخَرَ مِنَ العَابِرِينَ. — When you stand beneath the towering arch of Registan Square in the heart of Samarkand, gazing at the turquoise domes washed by the evening twilight, you do not merely feel as though you are standing upon ancient ruins; rather, you feel you are in an astronomical observatory of history, where stars once guided caravans and now return to guide a different kind of traveler.
C2: about 540 words a text, 20 texts: تَجْلِسُ الرَّسَّامَةُ أَمَامَ لَوْحَتِهَا الرَّقْمِيَّةِ، تُحَاصِرُهَا دَهْشَةٌ مَشُوبَةٌ بِالرِّيبَةِ؛ فَقَدْ وَقَعَتْ عَيْنُهَا لِلتَّوِّ عَلَى عَمَلٍ فَنِّيٍّ مُنْتَشِرٍ فِي فَضَاءِ الشَّبَكَةِ، يَحْمِلُ بَصْمَةَ رِيشَتِهَا، وَتَدَرُّجَاتِ أَلْوَانِهَا، بَلْ وَانْحِنَاءَاتِ ظِلَالِهَا الْمُمَيَّزَةِ، بَيْدَ أَنَّ يَدَهَا لَمْ تَخُطَّ مِنْهُ مَلْمَحًا وَاحِدًا. — The painter sits before her digital canvas, gripped by a wonder tinged with suspicion; she has just laid eyes on an artwork circulating online that bears the signature of her brush, her color gradients, and even her distinct shadow curves, yet her hand never drew a single feature of it.

Graded Arabic reading for adult learners, as each source described itself on 10 October 2026.
Source	What it is	Levels	Audio	Word lookup	Cost
Sahlawayhi (Ahmed H. Khorshid)	Print series written for adult learners: 24 stories of 200 to 400 words	Six levels of four stories	Not in the book	None; use a dictionary	Paid
Al Jazeera Learning Arabic	News articles for learners, on the web	Seven named levels, Introductory to Proficiency	Not stated on its home page	A tool adds the vowel marks; no tap lookup stated	Free
Read, Learn, and Play Arabic (Yale)	Twelve eBooks on comprehensible-input principles; variety not stated	ACTFL novice, intermediate, advanced	Audio eBooks at each level	None stated	Free
Inklingo	Short stories on the web and in an app; variety not stated	A0 to B2	On most paragraphs	Tap to translate	Free to read on the web
LingQ	Reading system for more than 50 languages; lesson library plus your own imports; variety not stated	Not described on its Arabic page	Lessons with matching transcripts	Tap a word for a definition	Free tier, then paid
Fasaha	Library written for learners in fusha: 170 texts and 219 stories	A0 to C2	Word-aligned narration on every text	Tap a word for meaning, root and pattern	Free to start, then paid

Are there graded readers for adult learners of Arabic?

Yes, a few. Sahlawayhi is a print series of 24 stories in six levels written for adults. Al Jazeera Learning Arabic publishes free news articles in seven levels, and Yale’s Read, Learn, and Play Arabic offers twelve free eBooks with audio. Apps such as Fasaha and Inklingo grade their own libraries.

What level do I need before I can read real Arabic?

Comfortable reading needs about 98% of the words on the page known. Native news and books reach that point late, so most learners spend a long time on graded text first. Use the same test on any native text: more than one unknown word in ten means it is too early to read it for volume.

Are Arabic children’s books good for adult learners?

Often not. They are written for children who already speak Arabic, so the ideas are simple but the vocabulary is wide and the grammar assumes a native ear. Texts written for foreign adult learners control the vocabulary instead.

Should graded Arabic texts have vowel marks?

At the start, yes. The marks tell you how each word sounds and which word it is. Real Arabic is printed without them, so they should come off in stages. A reader that can show full, minimal or no marks on the same text lets you practise that step.

Is there an app for reading Arabic by level?

Fasaha is built for it: 170 graded texts from A0 to C2 and 219 stories, each with word-aligned narration and a dictionary on every word. Inklingo offers free stories from A0 to B2. LingQ lets you import Arabic text and audio of your own.

Does Fasaha teach dialects or let me import my own texts?

No. Fasaha teaches fusha, the written Arabic of books, news and the Qurʼan, and works with its own library, Arabic Wikipedia and Arabic-captioned videos you add by link. For importing arbitrary text, LingQ is the better tool.

Sources

About Fasaha

Fasaha is a reading-first Arabic app. Every word in a story, a podcast, a video or an article opens into its meaning, root, pattern and family, and can be saved for spaced review.

Available on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android.
Interface languages: English, Arabic, Turkish, Russian, Uzbek, Spanish, French, German, Indonesian, Malay, Urdu, Italian, Portuguese, Bengali and Kazakh.
Free to start; Premium opens the complete library and the stores handle billing.
Library counted on 10 October 2026: 170 graded texts from A0 to C2 and 219 stories, all with word-aligned audio.
Teaches fusha, Modern Standard and Qurʼanic Arabic; it does not teach spoken dialects.

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