Reading Progress!

Insha Allaah I would like to share with all of you Maimoonah's reading progress so far. As you know I teach her to read using Glenn Doman's Method. And it has been about one and half years since I started using this program.  Please read my post here about the Program Insha Allaah!

Innal Hamdalillaah! Indeed All praise is due to Allaah alone and Allaahu Baarik lahaa now Maimoonah can read well!  I stopped flashing or writing words when we have completed around 9 months of doing this program and from that time onwards up until now she learns to read new words through books.

Since you all know we have no libraries here we have managed to collect some books for our small Home Library, by the Mercy of Allaah. Now that she has learnt to read the thirst of reading new books is developing and its best that she is exposed to lot of reading materials. So these are some of the books that we have in our Home Library.

  

Alhamdulillaah she can now read cyclopaedia such as this.

Also story books such as this..

 

And reads even the Tafseer of the Qur'aan every now and then Alhamdulillaah! I need to get the Tafseer with big letters to make it easy for her Insha Allaah!. Of course as she is only 4 years old she would love to read a small book and finish it fast as the attention span is limited. But she would read bigger books with me, meaning if I read one page she would opt to read one page, so we take turns and finish reading the book.

During circle time I put a small book something like the picture below everyday in the basket for her to read. And while she is eating she would ask me to read aloud the book she likes.

Just a note on how she reads entirely new words, is that she would try to read that  just as someone who knows phonics, I really do not know how. Then when I correct her she would remember that and read that word when it occurs somewhere else. This is how the reading progresses.

She reads only English fluently like this, as for Arabic since I was not competent enough I did not follow this program with her. But we started learning Arabic with usual letter by letter method and she is catching up but slow, the reason for slowness is that she is a visual learner and even now the Learning Roots Word flow flash card words she reads faster than the letter by letter reading method. So for Arabic its a mix so far. She can read fatha and kasra and dhamma words even though she gets confused with different forms of letters when joined together. But I do not want to stress her and we would go slow Insha Allaah!

As for me this method has worked well so far and Alhamdulillaah enabled me to teach her Islaam with ease. Since she already knows to read Allaah has made it easier for me to teach her the basics. If you see the Islaamic Studies worksheets I make for her you would sometimes wonder isn't it too much for a 4 year old. But it is made because she could read and answer independently with comprehension masha Allaah!. I feel more than anything learning to read at a young age has helped her in her dheen and she loves reading the stories of the Prophets by her self and every day she has questions to ask the famous question being "Why is Ibraheem's alaihissalaam father a Mushrik, why did Muhammad's sallaahu alaihiwasallam's Father and Mother die as Mushrik"? All these questions are asked with tears in the eyes. And you can see her reading these parts whenever she remembers this matter.

So far I do not see any disadvantage in this method, but having said this each child is different and I do not say that this is the best method for reading, rather this method worked well with Maimoonah and all what is stated is my opinion and my experience so far.