Quran : recitation and hafalan for our children

Salam'alaykum. Post menarik untuk dikongsi bersama. Insya Allah. Merayau-rayau ke BMc, terbaca buat kali ke-2 semalam. 1st time baca still young dan buat macam 'tak de kaitan' je. Huhu... (^_^)

Posted by: "Juli Herman"
Mon Aug 14, 2006 8:44 pm (PST)
waalaikumsalam warahmatullah

Sis elisa, how old are your kids?

I will try to answer these questions based on my experience. Ummuhanis, this will insyaalah answer your questions and concerns too. A friend of mine asked me the question concerning how long and patience too

When to start:

I started teaching my kids iqra when my oldest, sakinah is 3. I used Iqra and even to this day I still think iqra is the best because the tajweed is already ingrained in the lessons. I also started the glenn doman thing when she was three.

Where:

I did it on the couch, in our living room we had a big whiteboard in the wall facing the couch. When she had trouble remembering or reading a letter, I wrote it on the white board and repeated it to her every day until she got it.

Since I started it when she was 3, nura (my second) was 2, I started it on her too. Hamzah then was only a baby.

A TIP:

The tip to do it is as with any ibadah or action in life : consistency even if only for a 5 minutes.

My biggest difficulty was having enough patience to do it for 3 children each with different kerenah. The solution: do iqra with each child for 5 minutes, BUT DO IT CONSISTENTLY if possible at the same time everyday (some children love structure in their life. they feel secure).

Time:

The besttime, well kalau nak ikutkan, lepas subuh but since budak kecik lagi it's up to you. I had a baby too when I started with sakinah so I think I did it when he was napping. Squeeze it in whenever you can, try to make it fun by praising the child a lot, hugs, kisses. and doing it for just a few minutes BUT everyday will lessen the boredom insyaallah.

A Balance:

As for serba salah, you can give a choice : nak baca sekarang ke atau pukul --- nanti? let them choose. kalau keras jugak, just call them and buat jugak. Balance between drilling and giving them choices. My husband suka tanya "Who wants to read to me?" I keep telling him, "JUst panggil je, jgn tanya camtu"...and we never agreed on it, but somehow we got the kids to read

Who does it:

Both my husband and I did it. when I burned out, he did it, when he burned out I did it. I think it mattered a bit because our teaching methods were a little different, but overall you do your best (don't burn yourself out by doing it yourself, so yes, both hubby and you should do it)

Discipline:

No, don't use rotan. A somali friend was telling me how diaorg menghafal dirotan bila silap, and kesan rotan tu still ada. I personally don't think we should do that but that's my opinion. I don't want to associate Islam with harshness but not too much laxity either, so find a balance. Explain to them why it's important, read the Quran a lot yourself so they develop a love for it.

What would help: (esp sis elisa since you're in saudi you have opportunity to have them learn arabic. I envy you) I think one thing that would hel is if they know arabic. Sbb I realize that when they are able to read a word, and they don't know what it means, cam bosannya. But sometimes when we read surah and they read the Iqra and the word is kebetulan the same on as in a surah that they know, their eyes lit up, they recognize it. So hafalan should be hand in hand with the reading.

HAFALAN:

For hafalan, what I do is secara tak sengaja I did this when they were toddlers. Bedtime, I don't read them stories, I read them the three quls. and also some other short surahs, while they're on the bed, sambil tu usap2, kiss etc. After a while they seem to catch on to the surah and interject when I recited, and after a while, what i did, was to sya the first part of each ayat and let them sambung. They were able to sambung. I was surprised and it was only then that i realized they secara tak langsung terhafal surah2 tu. They were about 2/3 yrs old at the time. Oh btw, I want to share with you ada budak 4 thn kat sini (org syria) knows half of yasin, masyaallah!

Do it when kids are small their brains are like sponges! seriously! To me, let them have the Quran in their hearts than those barney or nursery rhymes songs (my opinion) because they will develo a love for Allah that will help keep their hearts pure insyaallah. Kdg2 yg susah kita nak ajar anak2 kita sbb hati diaorg dpt dot dot hitam tu sbb kita tunggu sampai diaorg besar baru nak ajar ini itu psl islam, but to do this we have to live a life of Islam in its entirety (to me this is no music) except occasionally halal music (ni pun not too much), read quran a lot, (parents hafal quran etc)

Iqra/ Muqaddam:

I personally did iqra and not muqaddam because the method is different. I didn't want to confuse them and I still think Iqra is better. Maybe different kids different approach?

Ambience:

I just did it on the couch. I guess it's up to you if want to lay out the sejadah.

Extra Help:

SInce I have three kids and sakinah is obviously advanced than her siblings, when I couldn't handle it I employ her as my helper. I said, "Sakinah, can you do the abata (what we call the Iqra in our hoursehold) with nura?"

So she would teach them and then I would have one less kid to teach and more time with the other one.

More on Hafazan:

I did that thing with the kids when they were toddlers (bedtime surah reading) right? but then we moved, my schedule got messed up and I slacked off on their memorization such that they forgot it. (still kicking myself over this) so we taught them again. The method we used (my husband did more of the hafazan with them than I did, I was too exhausted with homeschooling by then and didn't want to have anything to do with the kids anymore) was to say a phrase of the ayat have them repeat it until they get it. I also noticed that each child has different strengths. Nura is more audio: she can tangkap is she listens to it often enough. Sakinah and hamzah on the other hand not so audio, so struggle skit la.

What sakinah did was to read it, and repeat it herself. Once when I sent her to summer school at the masjid, her teacher told her to write it down and that seemed to also help her (masa ni dia dlm 6/7 thn and her arabic writing was much better than her rumi..hmm) this year she used that method at times, even when helping her siblings (I was surprised actually).

We stumbled upon reciter.org and told the kids to use that. Now that they can all read arabic (quran) with tajweed etc, they can do it themselves. A tip I learned from a mother is to with hold any 'fun' until they do what they're supposed to do. For example,

"Sakinah, you cannot read until you memorize two more ayah."

They spend their time reading. Btw I don't let them watch TV anymore (been for months now, no major complaints, but I explained at length why I forbid them) This is my opinion and my approach, I am aware of the discussion about it (pro and cons) and I'd appreciate it if people do not use this as a base from which to attack this choice of mine. I battled with this decision but I'm at peace with it now alhamdulillah, and by the Grace of Allah, He has made it easy for me alhamdulillah by making the kids insyaallah understand why. I stress the purity of their hearts a lot to them. Not that I don't let them watch it at all, but only some videos that I approve. Computer games they play, but I only let them go to PBS.org and even that they know not to do it too much, so that's why they spend their free time reading (you don't know how many library books we check out-and this is also a problem that led to me posting that petition for more islamic fiction weeks ago), creating stuff from odds and ends in their room (as a result bilik bersepah!), doing Paint on the computer, imaginary play, drawing, writing stories, and creating toys, games. So I withhold this from them until they memorize what they need to for that day.

Sakinah has finished memorizing juz amma in time with the end of her summer school at the masjid this year, albeit she still has some rought spots in some surahs. What i did was I painted on three paper cardboards.

1. I painted an apple tree with as many apples as there are surahs in Juz amma.
2. beads - as many as there are surahs
3. morning glories on vines - as many flowers as there are surahs.

I write the name of each surah they have memorized on each apple/flower/bead. So when they're done with juz amma, it will be a homemade certificate with a lot of love.

This is also the time when i celebrate (we don't celebrate birthdays) with cakes. there are many occasion for dishing them cakes and gitfs (sakinah won a speling bee early in the year and I still owe her the cake) believe it or not.

What I also noticed is when the parent is also immersed in Quran, memorising, reading, the kids follow suit. I find my children reciting surah yusuf (part of what i am memorizing) since I play sa'd ghamidee's recitation out loud in the house so much and in the car too when they're playing. terkejut jugak and made me think (surah yg diaorg kene hafal susah plak nak hafal, yg aku hafal pulak yg diaorg pick up). Nura would ask me,

"Ummi can you recite surah yusuf when we pray maghrib?"

or sometimes just whenever.

Another thing I do is the somali subcis: you sit in a circle, i did this with nura and sakinah while waiting to pray asr at the masjid recently. I told them each of us will read 5 ayat and go round continuously. I would start at random (pick any surah at any starting point). I did ghashiyah since they both memorize it. So we did that and they enjoyed it! That's a way to do it without putting too much pressure on them.

Or, pick any starting point and they will pick up from there (make this into a game where they get points competing with each other etc).

Ni tapi, after they have memorized the surah la helping them memorize the surah was the difficult part for us. But if your kids are still young do the 'bedtime session' I did. Insyaallah they'll get it just like that after a number of times.

Oh, I also leave reciter.org playing when they go to bed, and plan nye jugak nak keep it playing at subuh, just before they bangun, so that they sleep and bangun will be full or quran. We also try to recite any part of the surah whenever (in place of chanting a song that gets stuck in your head, you know how sometimes irritating that can be? especially when I was trying to stop listening to music almost 8 years ago) you're working in the kitchen etc, so they always hear you doing it and they pick it up.

I also sometimes hear them chanting their surah to each other (I think this is the benefit of having them immersed in Quran and getting rid of all extra distractions like TV, games, pokemon, toy idols that they would talk and rave about). Also, talk to them about the meaning of the surah that they are memorizing so they know it inside out. my kids are always pestering me to tell them the story of yusuf together with my recitation of the surah. Haa now I'm kebelakang because my memorization is so lembab, that I told them, "I have to memorize them first before I can tell you"

I'm also listening to yasir Qadhi's tafseer of surah yusuf

you can find it here: very beautiful anf full of lessons masyaallah you would not expect:

http://audioislam.com/?subcategory=Tafseer

and go to tafseer surah yusuf by yasir Qadhi.

What I did with sakinah was to do her quran reading after subuh (since dia dah start bangun subuh with us), tp nura dgn hamzah belom lagi. This is not memorization, readingand memorisation are two different things.

With Hamzah, insyaallah we're going to send him to the masjid every day after this (he's 6 ) utk buat hafazan dgn imam masjid who is a hafiz. Sakinah and Nura I will teach myself insyaallah. I will also send them to a sister who can teach them arabic insyaallah starting this school year.

Sis elisa, since you are living in saudi I'm sure you have lots of opp to send your kids to hifdz school if you want. I really want to do that for my kids but so far these are the only opp we have here as of now.

Hamzah was so hyped up about diong his surah memorization this summer school. He was bristling with utmost excitement and joy (of course ada la moment2 dia merajukla tak nak hafal la susah la, alasan la) at his memorization. Baru td he asked me.

"Ummi can you wite at takweew in my suwaa thing?"

He memorized surah takweer and told me to tambah tu kat homemade certificate dia.

So to sum it up, have them choose a reciter they like listening to. My kids chose Abdul
basit (reciter.org) despite loving Sa'd ghamidee's surah yusuf (he is too fast though in surah juz amma, so that's why) let them hear it a lot. It would help a lot if you have all youf kids do the same surah (we had a lot of trouble because the teacher was assigning the kids different surah so every day masa summer school we had to work with each kids different surah a certain number of assigned ayat-whooo stress jugak, but very rewarding in the end alhamdulillah). Hubby kept saying,

"Kita dua je, nak kene ajar tiga, org lain anak sorg, parents dua org, dah la lain2 surah lak tu sorg satu."

So tu yg I told each of them, "Turn on reciter.org, you know what to do."

COmputer ada 2 kat rumah ni so while two of them work by themselves, sorg work with me. You won't believe how exhausting it is! I kept thinking apesalla anak aku ni susah sgt nak hafal, anak org lain senang je? but after a while i said to myself, takpela we do the best we can and leave the rest to Allah. sakinah sampai nangis2 la susah nak hafal and I told her the only one who can help her is Allah, and every time semayang or almost everytime she would prolong her sujud. Kesian tgk. Tp i notice after getting used to memorizing everyday it does get easier for them alhamdulillah.

And many ppl of knowledge say : Quran ni mudah nak hafal and Allah even mentinoed it in the Quran (i don't remember whcih ayah), it's just kita nak ke tak nak or Allah kasi ke tak.

Well, this is a VERY long email, I hope you read it all the way through. I'm so excited writing about this topic because after I took that class ulum al quran my perception and attitude of the QUran changed. and I want to share this with as many people as I can, and in my zeal, I might have sounded 'harsh' (refer back to the email about world cup) but that's where I was coming from, because I was realizing with disgust at myself that our focus sometimes on the wrong things in life. I'm happy to be able to talk about this and share this, and all I shared above is not to brag (May allah protect me from that) but to share and hope that more people will be able to embrace the Quran fully in their life and so we can produce a future generation of Qurra insyaallah!

Everything good is from Allah and everything bad is from my own shortcomings. Please forgive me. If you need more clarification let me know. I'll be morethan happey to help insyaallah. Other ummis or abis who have any other tips please share so we can benefit from each other. I'm taking another almaghrib class insyaallah : history of the khulafa. All hyped up about it!

wassalam,
juli


Actually, haritu teringatkan soalan Abu Uwais pasal 'Muslimah Era Globalisasi', walla tajuknya pun bukan main lagi. Ana 'ter'cakap (that mean tak sengaja) yang nak 'product'kan anak-anak generasi Quran bukannya senang tapi it must begin from now and starting from parents. Waduh! Terasa Gunung Everest menghempap kepalaku. Nak anak-anak yang hafiz/hafizah, tapi mak ayahnya masih 'caca merba' lagi (ana le tu). Even belum pun 'ke arah' parenting tapi persiapan je la kan, bukan senang kena mujahadah. And nasihat from Abu Uwais wa Ummu Uwais memang benar-benar bernas... Alhamdulillah.

Coz them hafiz/hafizah, so environment yang mereka masukkan dalam rumah tangga tu penuh dengan warna-warni kalimah toiyibah. Insya Allah. Tak sia-sia 'ter'jatuh chenta dengan si Uwais tu, lalalalala (^_~) Even ada beberapa sahabat yang hafiz/hafizah tapi kenapa la perlu ana ask this ques pada golongan ummi-abi yerk? Wallahua'lam, maybe coz the topic is recitation and hafalan for our children.

This article credit from ukhti Aini, tQ much-much-much 4 sharing. (^_^)