Monday 17 March 2008

We’re Getting There!!

Just an update on my Quran lessons (struggles) with Little Lady. After a very difficult start, a few weeks when I wanted to give up (shaytan reeeeeally pushing it) and about two weeks when the thought of coming home from work and doing an hour with her were really getting to me – we’ve had a break through!

Our last lesson was short, sweet and without any mistakes. She has mastered the alphabet and the variations of the letters and how they join together after much practise and has just learned the vowel sounds (fathah, kesra, dhammah or as we South Asian’s are often taught zabar, zer, pesh). I explained the effect of the first vowel sound on each letter of the alphabet, not doing a very good job of it and wondering if we would have to learn each letter with its new sound one at a time. She read through the whole alphabet with the new sound at a stroke and straight through the exercises too. I sat through the whole reading with my mouth open. I think we both really enjoyed that lessons and I am actually looking forward to the next one.


She is also learning the names of Allah (Allah, Rehman, Raheem, Al-Malik, Al-Quddus, As-Salaam and al-Mumin so far), which she seems to manage fairly well. Our sticking point however has come with memorising. I don’t want to overload her, but I am trying to help her memorise Al-Fatihah. She knows audhu-billah and Bismillah, but keeps forgetting the first line of Al-Fatihah. I’m not sure how to proceed. Break it down? One line a week? Or just get her to recite the whole thing once every day. I would love advice or ideas from anyone about what would be a good approach to starting memorising of Al-Quran.

1 comment: