Where a Student Should Begin with Tajweed
Before rules and terminology, a student needs a correct ear and a patient teacher. A few thoughts on the first months.
Students often ask me which book they should start with. My answer is usually that the book matters less than the ear. Tajweed was carried from teacher to student by listening long before it was written down, and that order still holds.
Spend the first weeks listening closely to a single reciter and repeating short passages after him. Do not rush to the whole of Surah al-Baqarah. A handful of verses returned to every day will teach more than a page read once.
The makharij come next: knowing where each letter is formed, and feeling it rather than only naming it. A teacher who listens to you weekly will correct in one minute what a book cannot explain in ten pages.
Finally, be patient with yourself. Accuracy arrives slowly and then all at once. What looks like no progress for two months is usually the ear learning quietly.