Sometimes while teaching our children we have to think how the child we are teaching will learn something best and tailor our teaching to that child's style of learning. So for example, even though I use standard books to teach my children from...I try to explain any specific concepts in other ways too. My eldest son found learning to read in Arabic from a Qa'idah very straightforward. But to make it easier for my second son to really memorise and learn the different vowel markings (harakaat) in Arabic (fat-ha damma and kasra) and be able to instantly read a letter of the Arabic alphabet with any of the markings on it, I quickly folded and cut up some paper and put the different letters with the different markings on them, on the pieces of paper. I could even write different forms that the letter 'haa' ( ه) and other letters come in, so that he could recognise that letter instantly anywhere he sees it. Since using the home-made cards...he has returned to reading from the Qa'idah and finds it much easier to instantly recognise what is written. So sometimes taking time-out from the usual books can be beneficial.
12 comments:
Assalamu 'alaykum wa rahmatullah
Another great tip - where's my pen? I've got to write this stuff down! hehe
Do you come up with these ideas yourself, spur of the moment? Or do you find them in books? Or from other parents? Or a combination of all the above??
If they are your ideas (and all good is from Allah), then i seriously suggest you compile them into a small book for Muslim (and even non-Muslim) parents. It would be so useful to have something from an Islamic perspective, especially with early learning Islamic studies.
I also love the way you are so interactive with your kids. I don't think many parents, even mums, put in so much time and effort. It must require a great deal of patience though, subhanallah! May Allah make your children a source of reward for you, Ameen.
Take care sis... xxx
Wa'salam
AWRB
I am finding your blog an interesting read. I just wondered what your thoughts were about teaching children things like alphabets from a young age. Some schools of thought (Steiner) suggest waiting till they are older, say at least seven before embarking on this. There is a hadith on a similar concept that you should play with children till that time.
Dear Dr. Afrosa,
Assalamu Alaikum
I have actually personally never read a narration from the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam saying that he actually said that we should play with our children for seven, teach them for seven and be their companion for seven. I wonder if anyone could tell me if there is actually a narration. Insha Allah I will ask a scholar.
I think it is a narration attributed to Ali radi Allahu anhu and so it could be taken as advice or as a wise saying.
I wish I could leave teaching my children till they are older but there were some things that made me get my eldest son into learning about these things from a young age and since then....my second son, seeing his brother reading, would insist that I sit and teach him too. I do so in a gentle way. I know I shouldn't over-burden them and so we do a little but do it every day, even if it is just repeating something we've already done.
Here are some reasons why I started teaching my children to read from a young age:
- I felt that it was a good idea to get children into a habit of spending time concentrating every day, so that if they were older and not used to it they may find it hard to actually settle down and do so.
Maybe if I hadn't they would of their own accord settle and want to learn by that age...I don't know.
- My personality is such that I just want to teach them as soon as they seem to show interest. Don't know if that is a good thing all the time...
- Since my five year old has started to read...he just loves carrying books everywhere with him...even to bed!
- We don't live the carefree life that our parents did...(my father in law said he learnt to read the Qur'an, but apart from that he spent his years up to the age of about 9 I think, fishing, hunting, swimming, flying kites etc etc!!! Then he went to school. Sounds great but the way we live in the UK nowadays we wouldn't let our kids out that freely so there is less 'outdoor' stuff for them to be busy with which inevitably means they will be indoors most of the time...so reading becomes an extra indoor activity.
- My mum taught me to read the Qur'an when I was 4 or nearly 5 years old and I completed reading the Qur'an by the age of 5 or 6...and it didn't seem to do me much harm!! I was a straight A/A* student (Alhamdulillah) and I don't think it hampered my creativity as I am pretty creative too. (Maybe if she'd delayed it I would have been more creative! I don't know.)
I think we need to balance that with play and outdoor activity....which is why I want to take my kids to Egypt on a regular basis...they can play outside freely!
I don't think it is necessary to learn to read that early. But I don't think we can say that it is definitely harmful either...maybe other people can comment.
Fatima
Dear sister,
Regarding the narration about playing with children till they are seven I heard this from a sister who gave a talk. So I would like to apologise for using it, I should have looked it up before referring to it.
As to your other points - it makes great advice, Allhamdulillah.
I think the key is to not burden the child and set up 'goals' or compare to others... but rather go at their pace. A child's measure should not be how many letters or numbers they know, as similarly in adult life we know that success is not about degrees or grades but much more.
Assalaamualikum wa rahmatullahi wabarakatuhu
It is difficult to strike the balance I guess. Some people who push their kids academically too much at an early age often find they burn out when they get to the age when it really counts. On the other hand, I have a friend who is a veteran teacher and she says it is obvious when you come across whose parents have literally just played with them for 7 years because they really struggle to get into a routine for things like 11 plus exams etc. Each child responds differently and the key is not to pressurise them. I agree with sister Fatima's point about picking up on things when they show an interest. Having tried both with my kids (pressure and no-pressure), I have found you are more likely to get positive results with gentle encouragement and stopping when they are not interested.
As a side point, I think it is crucial to develop kids in all ways: the sahabah were so knowledgeable and would weep in the nights out of fear of Allah. In the days they were businessmen, skilled horsemen, physically active and fit. I must say I find often the physical development gets neglected in the drive to develop kids academically (esp in indo-pak culture). Sister Fatima mentioned taking kids to trampolining. Or I find taking them regularly to a good park is very good too. Gently encouraging them to do daring things like monkey bars etc does a world of good for their self-confidence too mashallah. May Allah help us all to give our kids a good Islamic upbringing.
Dear Dr Afrosa and Umm Umar
Assalamu Alaikum...I think it has become very common for people to quote that saying, but (having checked with a scholar) there is no such hadeeth of the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam). The scholar also pointed out that, even if a sahabee did say it, it was just a suggestion and a reflection of their times because at that time, the number of literate people were still few.
I think Umm Umar is right...physical development and activity is so important, which is why I take my kids out to the communal garden outside our block almost daily. Alhamdulillah it is pretty large and has lots of interesting trees and shady bits. I just let them run around and play as they wish with sticks and leaves and maybe with a ball.
I actually spend only about 10 minutes formally teaching my 3 year old from the Qa'idah and maybe an hour with my 5 year old. The rest of the day they are free to read, play, ask me to read to them, visit family or a park... Like I said....I do a little but daily. 'The Well Trained Mind' book talks about this too and suggests the same.
Assalamu 'alaykum wa rahmatullah
I want to teach my neice who will be 3 in july inshaAllah. She has memorised 75% of the arabic alphabets. But have not yet learnt to identify the letters.
Do you think I could start teaching the Qaidah to her straight away or should I get her to memorise all the alphabets and teach her to recognise them first?
Is 10 mins a day enough teaching time?
You could get a poster with all the letters on it and teach them to her from that or you could go directly to the Qa'idah as the first page is just the alphabet. Just keep repeating that page until she has got it and use a blackboard or whiteboard or paper to write the letters sometimes one at a time at random to ask 'which letter is this?'
Another thing I did which my kids loved and made them understand that each letter has a sound, was an alphabet book I made with them! I'll post something about it soon insha Allah.
Fatima
Jazakallahu khair Fatima.
Look forward to meeting you and picking your brains when you present at the parenting class at Lewy House inshaAllah.Be prepared though - as I have told quite a few sisters about your great blog marshAllah and they are all keen to meet you inshaAllah.
Wasalam
Jeasmin
Wasalam
Jeasmin
Assalamualykum
JazakAllahukhairn Fatima for a fantastic blog masha'Allaah.
I would to like add my tuppence worth! I have read about the montessori, unschooling (john holt), and the well trained mind, methods of homeschooling etc etc
There are many methods of teaching and of homeschooling. Each child is an individual and thats why homeschooling can be so excellent as you can use a different approach with each child if you need to.
I know sr.s who use the well trained mind and r very structured and others who unschool. they all have more than 1 child and some are finding that what worked with the first doesn't always work with the second or third etc. generally though i would say if your child no matter what age shows an interest in somthing you can explain or show them, but always in a relaxed no pressure way. Always try to answer their questions too.
my dd from 2 and a half showed interest in a poster that had pics and alphabet for arabic and another for english. we would play a game with her. this is a house, this is a book, hatha kitab and show the card only 9 cards to begin with. then we would lay them out on the floor and ask can you find the... once i put the posters up we would show her the flash card and ask her to find it on the poster on the wall, so she got to run over to it and find it. (bit of physical fun!)
as she got older i would sometimes stress trying to 'teach' her and she would become stressed trying to please me. i noticed she would stop learning and would start saying is that right mum? is that right, when just before she was doing fine. so i stopped and let her take the lead. alhumdullilah she would ask for a sheet to do or her sticker book or she would ask to play on the lap top as we had the arabic linguaphone on there and u can see and hear the alphabet, we also have dk learning cd's like colours and shapes, letters/ numbers etc. so now most of her learning is self directed. we did use jolly phonics for a while and also 100 easy lessons to reading, which i did not really like but she enjoyed it. we only did up to lesson 45 or so, but thats because we have loads of books in the house and she likes to read those or have them read to her. i bought her first book before ahe was born, not because i wanted to teach her to read but because i love to read and wanted her to love it too.
alhumdullilah we would read her that book over and over from 4 months (even now we sometimes read it she is almost 5).once she could crawl she would go get it from the book shelf. but i read alot about reading to kids even after they can read and i think it makes a hughe diff. if ur child never sees u read, not even for pleasure then they might not be too interested in reading either. likewise with all the other things if they see u act in one way and tell them to do something else they might rebel.
lead by example is soooo true when it comes to children.
i was worried about the arabic side of things as neither of us are fluent in arabic, but alhumdullilah though it is taking a little longer i can see the same signs i could see for her breaking into the englsih reading, like pretending to read or speak in arabic etc.
same with urdu, we made a little mistake there! as i have found the best approach is for 1 parent to speak always in 1 lang and another in another lang and the children become fluent in both, i have seen this with many of my friends children mashaAllaah even 1 sr. whose children have picked up 3 langs. like this as the grandparents speak another lang.
i have found abajad.com letters over here where we live and insha'Allaah this will help as both the children like to link them. they are letters u can connect in arabic to each other to make words and sentences and they are magnetic. check out their website. i have found naturalparenting.com/ org (can't remember the site!) helpful, and also found both the well trained mind and the john holt info helpful too. i think we need to ask ourselves what are our goals? what do we want and what do we want for our children? this is why we started homeschooling. After we sat down and discussed it as many ppl kept telling us why isn't she in nursery at 2 and half! and she will pick up arabic in school just put her in, i did not feel comforatble with the thought of handing my child over to strangers at 2 or at 5 so they are home with us alhumdullilah. we have a rebounder which they also get to jump on for fun, we count steps as we walk and thats how they learnt their numbers as it was fun. we play physical games like running around the furniture or bouncing on the rebounder and i was taking them to the park almost everyday while the weather was nice, it is now getting a bit hot alhumdullilah.
we also joined muslimhers@yahoogroups and that was also helpful as many sr.s on there have experience and suggestions too i thought i would mention it incase anyone is interested.
JazakAllahukhiarn
the one thing i have been a bit strict with is quran, alhumdullilah to begin with i play a tape of juzz amma as much as poss. then she started going to someone to learn but even he alhumdullilah plays with the kids and keeps it relaxed and friendly, for a while she was kind of bored and didn't want to do it but now we sit together after dhur and do 5 or 6 ayahs and same before bed and she likes this a lot, i think it makes a big diff when mum or dad are involved.
but i know another sr. who unschools and she basically makes the quran come alive (sort of) if her dd or ds ask a question eg. where does rain come from she will look up the ayahs in the quran and tell them what it says then she will look in an encylopedia and tell them more about it. so you could say the basis of her curriculum is the quran masha'Allaah i am aiming for something like this, insha'Allaah.
we also use www.reciter.org
takecare sorry its soo long
wasalam
Your sr. in the Emirates
Dear Umm M
Assalamu Alaikum
Are you my husband's friend's wife in Abu Dhabi by any chance? Anyhow, nice to hear from you!
There are different ways to teach our kids and I think we can take the good from different methods and situations. I like to have 'structured' sessions - and then leave the rest of the day for child-lead learning. My son is for example reading the Qur'an. He reads about a page day at the moment. Keeping it up every day, has shown him that after a period of time he will 'achieve' something. He realises this when he completes a long surah...he feels satisfaction at having read so much and sees the benefit of daily reading. Also he does a Kumon book of addition nearly every day. That has built his addition skills really well, over time and has meant he has progressed steadily. I find some structure good. After all, we are the parents/teachers/guides, so how can we expect a child to know what is useful to them all of the time? Also, there are so many things that my mum really encouraged and almost 'made' me do which I am grateful for now, but wasn't so keen on then...for example she taught us to read in Urdu...which I found a bit boring as a child but as I grew older, I valued that skill more as I saw that it was useful and enriching.
You were worried about your kids' Arabic and you live in the UAE?! Are you telling me there aren't any good places for Arabic for the kids there? Maybe not for that age huh?
The earliest I left my children in a nursery was my eldest son, at 3 and a half years old, when I left him in Raodatul Fus-ha in Cairo. I felt that the sisters who worked there were so good ma sha Allah that I didn't feel worried. They were like khalas (aunts) rather than teachers. I suppose you have to feel that sense of trust with the person you will leave your kids with....
Fatima
Assalamualykum i don't know if you remember me, but u came to my house ( i met u through a sr.) we lived in walthamstow at the time and you forgot your sons jacket. i was pregnant at the time and your first son was still fairly young. you advised i listen to the stories of the prophets by imam Anwar Al-Awlaki. Jazak'Allahukhairn for that i now have almost all his cds and listen to them over. My br.s sr.s and their children all like to learn from listening to those cd's too, alhumdullilah.
there are some places here that i would have poss. put my dd into but either i found them when she was too old for it or it was too far away for me to drive her there, though they have buses i would not put her on one at the moment. also we did try a place for a few weeks i was in class with her on/ off and i could see she was getting confused and muddled due to the teachers methods. so alhumdullilah we have a tutor and home ed.
anyway i am ( umm mar'yam) can u delete my name off here before publishing this?
take care
assalamualikum
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