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So much fun can be had with
our children when they are young. Sometimes,
it can get so frustrating when the traditional
learning in a school environment seems to
undermine that joy and to make learning
difficult. Here comes the role of the Qur'an.
one of the benefits of memorizing the Qur'an
is that it does exercise the "memory
muscles" and comes in very handy for
other life skills. as the children get older.
In this regard, the month of Ramadan
represents a golden opportunity.
When my daughter was growing
up, what was important to me was that she
enjoyed her childhood and whatever she learned
at school; if the latter had been worthwhile,
it would not have been confined to
"behind the desk"! This is what most
children do in most schools: sit behind a desk
and learn about things out of context (i.e.
life). Reading, writing, and saying the lesson out loud are
but other forms of memorizing —
reinforcement.
To help give meaning to what
my daughter was memorizing from the Qur'an,
one of things I used to do was to share the
meaning of the verses and think of examples
from life. In this way, the words took on
meanings that she could relate to.
Instead of having my daughter
sit and memorize, I would suggest learning the
verses after each Prayer time. Being young,
she resisted the idea, but as time was short
and she had other homework to do, it actually
became one of the remaining means by which she
could spend time memorizing. Given that the
positions that one goes into when praying, the
idea is actually quite logical, because the
positions increase the blood circulation to
the brain, stretch the spine, vitalize the
nervous system, and increase concentration.
To cut a long story short, my
daughter accepted to spend time learning the
verses of the Qur'an straight after each
Prayer time. To her surprise, she found that
she learned more quickly! To this day, my
daughter has spent time after each Prayer time
reading the Qur'an when she is at home.
Another suggestion is to play
a tape with the relevant verses; the children
can be doing something else and memorizing
subliminally while the tape is playing. Also,
if the recitation is in tajweed (the science
concerned with proper recitation of the Qur'an
that is not just about pronunciation as
understanding is equally important), a person
(child or adult) is more open and receptive.
One more suggestion is to use a tape recorder
to let your children record themselves saying
the Qur'an, as this can help to make the
experience of learning more interesting, and
they get to listen to their mistakes and
correct them when they listen to the same
verses recited in tajweed. If your children
learn by heart and record five verses daily,
they will be able to listen to themselves as a
form of revision by the end of the week; you
can talk about the lessons in those recorded
verses.
If your children like nature
and enjoy interacting with, for example,
birds, you can share memories and stories with
them from the Qur'an. In this way, you bring
the Qur'an into meaning, by relating it to
life as it should be.
Allah says, (Do they
not see the birds, constrained in the middle
of the sky? None withholds them but Allah;
most surely, there are signs in this for a
people who believe)
(An-Nahl 16:79).
Ask your children how do
airplanes stay up in the sky? Do they always
have to move to stay up or can they seem
motionless like birds? What makes birds stay
up in the sky? Together, you can make up a
story that goes with this verse and then talk
about what your children remember about the
birds.
Allah says, (And to
each one — Prophets Dawud [David] and
Sulayman [Solomon] — We gave wisdom and
knowledge. And We made the mountains and the
birds celebrate Our praise with Dawud)
(Al-`Anbiyaa 21:79).
How does a bird praise and
worship its Creator? Most people would say
they have no idea, or they would say,
"Birds sing." Together with
children, parents can get up and act out how
we pray, for this is how we worship our
Creator, Almighty Allah.
In this way, your children's
imagination is not excluded from the learning
process, and when they learn anything from the
Qur'an, they might just wonder! Sometimes as
parents, we do not know the answer, but it can
be much more fun finding out with our
children.
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