as salaam 'alaikum,
SubhanAllah (All praises are due to Allah/God.) This is where it all began for me.
I remember watching an infomercial for Your Baby Can Read, in December of 2008 (?) and thought it was too good to be true that babies can and do learn to read. I recorded the infomerical, and showed it to my husband, and promptly ordered the kit for a "trial period only!".
In the meantime, I googled "baby read arabic" and came across the video "Lila 19month arabic baby reading", and read the description, and had no idea what it meant at the time:
"Uploaded by samsulbakhtiar on Sep 9, 2007
Alila 19 months learning arabic baby reading, using glenn doman / shichida methode
I also saw the following video of the same Muslim family in Indonesia:
Diva 3 years old baby reading - Uploaded by samsulbakhtiar on Sep 9, 2007
Diva 3 years old from Indonesia learning to read using Glenn Dorman Methode.
<![CDATA[<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/qnN7Uk3K9qU&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/qnN7Uk3K9qU&rel=1</a>]]>So, I googled "glenn doman / shichida methode." and was delighted to discover that IAHP is in my area.
I promptly called them and ordered the "How to Teach Your Baby to Read" program:
http://www.gentlerevolution.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=G&Category_Code=K2 .
It arrived within days, and I read the book, watched the DVD, and was eager to get started. Shortly thereafter, I received the YBCR products, read the enclosed materials, watched the 1st DVD, and realized that it is Doman method (steps 1 - 2 and some of 3) all prepared with multi-sensory approach and phonics added in.
As I was research online, the early education methods, I soon discovered BrillKids and registered on January 11, 2009. It was so nice to find many other mothers and fathers, to support me in my new endeavor of teaching my then 18 month old children how to read English. So, I decided to use YBCR while I prepared Doman method English materials using LR. I also obtained the Doman Math program kit, and used Little Math because it was easier to use the computer than shuffle cards.
Once I had those two programs working smoothly, is when I decided to try to teach Arabic using Doman method and downloaded all of Nohayo's wonderful materials. But I soon realized that it is best to begin first with a reader, such as al-Qai'dah al-Nooraneeyah. Since I had just completed a teacher's training course of Noorani, I promptly contacted my teacher, Sheikh Muhammad ar-Ra'ee, and described what I was doing - hmmm, he thought I was a little crazy! because it is well known that babies do not read!
But I insisted and he was kind and gracious enough to give me permission to convert his publication (that I learned to teach), to the Doman method format via LR. I spent so many days and nights working on it; splitting soundclips for countless hours, and began teaching them Noorani Lesson 1 when they were 2 years 4 months.
Noorani English Lesson 1 .cat file
http://forum.brillkids.com/downloads/?sa=view;id=8321Noorani English Lesson 1 Daily Playlists (5 sets of 5 cards for 10 days)
http://forum.brillkids.com/downloads/?sa=view;id=8322I kept preparing materials for each lesson (17 total, plus 2 addendum's), month after month, and even experienced a computer crash for 3 months!
There were many times I wanted to give up, because it was more time consuming than I realized, although easy, and I wondered when would it end (there are a lot of syllable patterns and almost 500 words and phrases from the Qur'an taught in Noorani)? But I kept at it - determined that I would finish what I started, insha'Allah, and I had come too far to give up now! I also had to adjust to their new schedule when they began a full-time Islamic Montessori program last fall. I now teach them Noorani (5 minutes) and Qur'an, in the mornings after breakfast, and when they return home from school. And now they are they are about to begin Lesson 12 Shaddah, and have a few more lessons that are very short to complete Noorani in it's entirety, insha'Allah. Traditionally, this is when the student begins sight reading, spell-reading, and reciting directly from the mushaaf / Qur'an, and then memorizing the lesson.
However, I noticed that when they were learning Surah al-Kafiroon at the beginning of January 2011, for Qur'anic memorization in pre-school (via talqeen, listening to and repeating only) that they were mispronouncing words with incorrect vowels (saying "dee-nA-kum" instead of "dee-nU-kum). This is a major mistake in reciting Qur'an, because it changes the meaning of the word. And that is when I adapted my teaching method, and began teaching them the short suwar by spell-reading individual Qur'anic words in the surah; and then joining the words together by spell reading them with applied tajweed rules, for the ayah/verse - which is the methodology of Noorani, once it is completed. And they have now been sight reading and reciting directly from the mushaaf since the first week of January 2010, masha'Allah. I only regret that I did not video record more of this wonderful adventure we have had since the very beginning.
And it is amazing - even to myself - to listen and see my precious little birds, masha'Allah, being able to visually read and properly recite with tajweed, the Qur'an beautifully, masha'Allah:
http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-signing-speaking-foreign-languages/young-girls-a-and-b-sight-reading-and-reciting-surah-100-al-'aadiyaat/msg69976/?topicseen#newhttp://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-signing-speaking-foreign-languages/young-girl-a-sight-reading-and-reciting-surah-094-al-sharh/msg69966/?topicseen#newAlhamdulillah for that YBCR informercial, these two youtube videos (and I also sent them a thank you note!), and BrillKids!
ASA
Ayesha
Digg
