Is it too late to learn the Quran? This 73 year old woman has just done it!

I saw this beautiful post on facebook of a lovely woman who is 73 years old and has just finished learning the Quran. Her story really moved me and I wanted to share her journey. She describes her learning journey and persistence and one thing that struck me was that she would repeat an Ayah from 100 to 150 times to memorize it!

She says: When outside I would have my small Quran with me to memorize. It never left me.

You can read her full story here:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10157303503252894&id=686077893

May we never leave the Quran and always read it, understand it and teach it.

Quran App Review: Memorize

There are so many ways that you can help kids memorize the Quran, but one great way that works for us is the memorize app. The girls have downloaded it on their iPads and the great thing about it is that they can listen to the ayat and track their progress. Here's my daughter's review on what she likes about it:

Memorize has been very useful for me in memorising the Quran, and its features have assisted me greatly. It is laid out so that you can track your progress by simply ticking off the ayat that you have memorised and completed. I like that you can listen to the sheikh reciting the ayat so that you are able to understand how they are read. Another aspect that I find to be practical is the fact that you can change the speed in which the sheikh reads the ayat, which is very helpful. My favourite feature is that you can make playlists within the surah for the sheikh to read so that you can focus on specific verses. The only negative comment I have for this app is that only Juz 30 is free; you have to pay for the full version of the app. Other than that, this app is amazing!

Teaching our kids the Quran: Strategies and Resources

One of the priorities of many Muslim Parents is to teach their children the Quran. We all recognise its importance, and many of us having not learnt it ourselves hope that it will be our kids that will raise our levels and dress us in the crown that parents of Quran learners wear.

Not all the kids are the same though, so the question that many parents keep asking each other, ‘how much has your kid learnt?’ when they are only three can sometimes be more of a pressure question than encouragement. Some kids have an amazing ability to grasp sounds and letters.

But most kids are not like that. They may not be able to even articulate words at 3 yet alone learn whole surahs. So what should our Quran learning strategy be for our kids?

The first strategy is to understand what kind of learner your child is and to teach him in that way. Children may learn best visually, by doing things with their hands (kinaesthetically), or by listening (auditory) or by a combination of many techniques. My own daughter is a very visual learner. She loves to see pictures, read stories and imagine things in her mind. Teaching her to learn surahs from the Quran meant that I chose Surahs that could be shown through pictures. Naturally we started with Surat Al Fil. 

I want to share with you this great site that is dedicated to illustrating ayat (verses) of the Holy Quran using lego.

The blogger uses lego to ’illustrate’ scenes and incidents narrated in the Quran. He then takes a photograph of these scenes with the relevant ayah (verse) added in. This may help children to associate the verses with their meanings InshAllah. Helping children to recreate similar images will make the Quran much more alive in their minds.

http://readwithmeaning.wordpress.com  

Another way is the traditional method of listening to a sheikh and repeating after him. This software is one I particularly like because you can select from a variety of reciters and verses and repeat them for children to learn.

http://www.houseofquran.com/qsys/quranteacher1.html

For those of you who have ipads/iphones this is an app that I bought for my daughter for $0.99 that has all the surahs for juz' amma with the voice of Mishary Rashed. It highlights the words as they are read and is very easy to use.

http://download.cnet.com/Memorize-Quran-for-Kids/3000-20415_4-75361021.html   

Finally don’t forget to make it fun! Track your kids progress through a fun chart, and offer incentives every time they learn a new surah.

Looking forward to seeing other methods and strategies that anyone else is using :)

Visual Quran: Surat Alfil

Here you will find the link to the visual Quran Series. Below is the link for Surat Alfil. 

Please note that I do not own the copyright for the illustration:

http://www.4shared.com/account/file/TkqF_eNh/story_of_the_elephant_surah_an.html