There is just so much to do that time flies without us realising. Before I know it, the week is over, a new week is beginning and we're all frazzled trying to complete the homework that the imam, the piano teacher and the Sheikh had given the week before. Now that's the major bits. There's still bits and pieces that we have to complete like preparing for the 100 days of school celebration etc.
Coming up with a system and a set time for them to complete their work, was good but I needed to find a way to help the kids become independent Quran surah memorisers without me having to be physically present all the time. I wanted them to be able to start learning on their own and then I would come in to either make sure that they were doing it right and to fine tune their pronunciation etc. Basically, I wanted to check that they were doing it right but not have to be there all the time while they were learning.
When I was teaching, we had to go through this particular course to understand what Multiple Intelligences Theory was about. I had fun learning about myself in that course. I came to identify and understand my preferred methods of learning and preferred methods of delivery when I was teaching. Now that I have to teach my kids at home, I find that the information is coming in handy to help my kids learn faster and better.
The challenges were quite a few:
- was that we are non-Arabic speakers. So unless we read the translation of the surahs, we wouldn't know what the surahs meant. Which also means that we wouldn't be able to pick out mistakes in pronunciation just by listening.
- While I can read the Quran, the kids are still in the process of learning how to read it. So I needed to find a method of changing the arabic sounds to English phonetical forms so that they could sound it out. I think it's called transliteration.
- And finally, I needed to find a way for them to be able to hear how it's read so that they could emulate and check. And for my more auditory kid, it'll help with the memorising.
- Z was auditory and because she is younger, needed a more interactive method to help her remember the surahs. R was kinesthetic and visual which meant that unlike other kids, staying put in one spot like using a table and chair was not going to make memorising easier but a lot more difficult. (Here's where Multiple Intelligence comes in useful!)
So, here's what I did and InsyaAllah (God willing), it'll be useful to you as well.
What Did I Have To Do?
- Find resources that meet your comfort and your child's needs.
- Make sure that the resource is easy for your child to use.
- Make the resource fun and user friendly.
- If your child chooses to use other methods besides the ones you have come up with, allow it. Yeah I know it makes u feel like all that time that went into preparing the materials was wasted. But the important thing is that the child enjoys learning and you could always find some alternative uses for what you have created. Just remember it is never a waste. I bet you'd have learnt something while preparing the materials!
- Learn the surahs a little at a time. Give the child a clear expectation. For example, let's just learn the first 2 lines first and then we'll have a cookie break. Something to make accomplishing the task not seem daunting and worth accomplishing.
- Review the learned lines at moments when they are not doing very much eg. in the car on the way to school. Or while walking to the park.
- Make the surah meaningful by explaining the meaning of the lines. You might need to simplify the meaning at times for the little ones just so they understand what the main idea of the surah is about and not necessarily every line. If you can make every line easy for them then go ahead!
- Let the child choose how he wants to do as he leanrs.
- R will hold the transliteration on slips of paper and walk around as he memorises it. And then come back to the youtube video when he wants to listen to it or check if he has the pronounciation right.
- Z prefers listening to the audio over and over and over again. And she likes the lines to be broken up into little parts on post-its so that she can re-arrange them into the right order as she listens to the audio. Then she uses the post-its to check if she can remember her lines by saying out loud and finding the matching parts on the post-its.
ONLINE RESOURCES:
- This is an awesome website which has the Arabic version, the transliteration and a line by line repeat of the surah available all on one page. However, it was useful only for the following surahs because that was all that was available in this format. Check out MountHira.com.
- Al-Fatihah
- An-Nas
- Al-Falaq
- Al-Ikhlas
- Al-Masadd
- Al-Nasr
- Al-Kafirun
- Al-Kawther
- Al-Maun
- Al-Quraish
- Al-Feel
- Al-Humaza
- Al-Asr
- Al-Takathur
- For the following surahs Al-Qaria and Al-Adiyat, I used Quran4theworld.com which basically functions in the same way as MountHira.com but has these additional surahs.
- For Al-Bayyinah, I used this beta.globalquran.com.
- At this site, remember to check the transliteration box in the left hand options.
- The limitation to this site is that it has an audio function which reads the whole surah and not each line.
- And it was a little too fast for the little ones to follow.
- Also, the transliteration may require you to adjust accordingly to make it easier for the kids if they are using it to read for example, "tiyahumu albayyina" would be clearer if it was presented like this "tiyahumu albayyina" where the letter in red should not be pronounced.
- And to make up for the lack of audio aid, I found this youtube clip which made it easy for the kids to pause after each line because the pictures changed with each line
- and read by Sheikh Mishary Rashid which had a good speed and rhythm for them to follow.
