Ad-Duha

The Ad-Duha Institute has added new articles to their Fre-Zone so that they may be helpful to newbies to homeschooling, Insha Allah.

Ad-Duha FreeZone...


New Home School Guide: This guide, intended for those considering home schooling, offers general information on home school options, answers to frequently asked questions, and tips for success.

New Cursive Handwriting Worksheets: From beginner (single letters) to advanced (full-page practice).

New Handwriting Worksheets: Make your own handwriting worksheets! Choose your own vocabulary or sentences and choose whether to add illustrations.

New Standard Subject Worksheets: Math, Science, Social Studies, Spanish, and much more!

New Subject Index: You can now search the FreeZone for resources by grade level AND subject. For example, all resources for First Graders are under one heading and all Arabic resources (regardless of grade level) are under one heading.



The following features have been added/updated on the main Ad-Duha web site...

New Enrichment Course Evaluations: This new section gives evaluations of single subject enrichment courses (in addition to full curriculum package evaluations).

New Updated World Map: See an updated listing of all the states, provinces and countries where Ad-Duha has students (bottom of page).

New Testimonials: what parents have been saying about Ad-Duha this year.

Learning to Read

In the Name of God, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful

Sometimes its interesting and sometimes daunting. When you are so interested and passionate about a subject, as in the education of your child that you go against the norm in order to save him from unnecessary influences and provide him, Insha Allah with what you believe is good for him in terms of being a necessary area of knowledge that is often neglected in schools or more importantly because you believe that would help your child serve in the path of Allah, Insha Allah.

Every day, i read more and more about methods of teaching a certain subject or topic and how to cover it in a manner that your child learns for life, retains it and can relate it to real life. Sometimes different sources are so different in approach that you are left confused.

Alhamdulillah, I have also come to the realization that no one method is right or wrong or complete. One needs to try different methods and pedagogies and look for cues when it comes to things that are explained differently in a source.
A very important example has been from my life's experience.

I read about using phonics solely or using words recognition first. Some books talked about helping children memorize whole words from cards while others suggested using the approach where the word family is more important than individual letter sounds.

Alhamdulillah Allah guided me to use all methods simultaneously and i can see now that it was the best method because i could use whatever my son was more receptive of at a particular moment.The method was not important but my son enjoying learning was.

The best i believe is to start with individual letter sounds- the phonics approach. help the child read any and all words no matter the length. whether single or multiple syllable. You could hide extra syllables with your finger and then show it after the child has read the previous syllable. Then read the syllables together. When you encounter a word that doesn't follow phonics rules, tell your child that its a funny word or is spelled in a funny manner and enjoy it. Your child will not be confused by the exceptions and will instead consider the growing list of funnily spelt words amusing. eg. are, was, picture where the 'ture' sounds like 'cher' or 'ght' words where the 'gh' is always silent eg eight, weight, night, right, or sign where the g makes the i sound long.

The trick is to cover those words that your child finds interesting, it could mean that he learns to read 'adventure' before learning 'she'. Then there is a whole list of 'e' words where the 'e' does not have a short-vowel sound, eg. he, she, we, me, be.

When using wordlists, its important to try not to cover all words on the list, better ways of helping your child are to read books and get some decodable books from, Starfall, Readinga-z or the Oxford Reading Tree books from the Oxford University Press available on Amazon, too that are excellent, and read To and then, With your child. He might know how to read but when he asks you to read, do that! He will learn that its something thats enjoyed and will also learn to read words correctly.

The guide available at I Can Read is very helpful in deciding which books to add to your child's library by either purchasing them or just borrowing from the library.

Also, samples available at EPS could be enough to help you know what needs to be covered/taught and sometimes even how.

There are other books that people find useful when teaching their child to read. I have not used these books so I do not know what and how they teach but I have heard some really wonderful and not so wonderful things about them so it is just a matter of what helps you teach according to your teaching style as well as your child's learning style.

Some of the resources that people have found useful are


Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Phonics Pathways

Alpha-Phonics

Reading Made Easy

The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading

Pathway Readers

Explode the Code Workbooks


Other Reading Resources some of which I have used are:

Bob Books

Educational Insights, Phonics Readers

Fun Phonics- These follow a systematic phonics pattern.

Readers-Very Easy to Use but not systematically phonic.

Oxford Reading Tree -Excellent! This really helped my son get hooked on reading.

Primary Success Publications

Progressive Phonics-Lots of leveled readers with workbooks and activity ideas. Affordable!

Reading A-Z- Lots of levelled readers , decodables, write-in books, color-in books, many of these books cover across subjects. Wonderful and affordable!

Starfall- Wonderfully Excellent!

StudyDog Reading Program

The Elson Readers

Teach a Child to Read- Very useful and helpful lessons for teachers :).

Stories from the Quran and Related Books

In the name of God, the Most beneficent, the Most merciful

We have been reading The Greatest Stories from the Qur'an by Saniyasnain Khan, Goodword Kids. The fist story is about Creation. He likes to hear that Allah said 'Be' and everything came into existence. Allah can do everything. He tries to imagine how powerful and great Allah must be.

He loves the story of The Garden in Paradise and how Satan tempted and deceived Adam and Hawwa (Peace be Upon Them Both). I try to tell him what Satan must have whispered and how they got deceived. Something like 'There must be something special about the tree, which is why Allah doesn't want you to go near it. Try the fruit. A little wont hurt.'

Its particularly interesting to him to learn that Satan says things to everyone and tempts them into doing wrong and we think we're thinking these things but actually Satan is sitting on our heads whispering in our ears to misbehave or try something that our parents have told us not to or Allah doesn't like us to do. He can relate to Adam (Peace Be Upon Him) and Hawwa (Peace Be Upon Her)at some level, I think.:).

He also liked the story of Nuh's Ark (Peace Be Upon Him)and thought it was funny that people used to ask stones and idols for things and prayed to them and worshiped them.

We are also reading Studies in Islam for Grade One by Abdul Aziz, Kazi publications . We just finished the first lesson on Tauheed. He has already memorized more than half of the Surahs in the grade one book, Masha Allah. I am thinking of making a chart or table of the Surahs memorized , the subject of the Surah and study it in detail and then he can draw a picture related to each Surah memorized and studied in his Surah sketchbook.

Another book we have just started is I am a Muslim for Kindergarten by Susan Douglass for Social Studies. We read the story Allah is the Greatest about Prophet Ibrahim(Abraham)(Peace Be Upon Him). We also read the story of The boy and the dates about truthfulness. He liked the story a lot. We have not studied this book in sequence because i think this book is a bit advanced. Some of the lessons and stories would be better understood by a child who is about 2 years older but the stories and activities are still interesting , so he enjoys them. The whole whole series of these books- for Kindergarten till Grade Six is really fantastic, good to read and easy to understand and has a lot of fun activities that can go along with it to enhance History and Geography.

We are thinking of adding to these books, Insha Allah. We mailed GoodwordBooks for suggestions for a five year old and they promptly responded, Masha Allah.

We will Insha Allah buy

My First Quran Storybook

My Quran Friends Story Book which is part of a set of two books in the My Quran Friends Gift Box

The other book in the set is

Goodword Book of Quran People for Kids

Learning to Skate

In the name of God, the most beneficent, the Most merciful

Chusy was reading his book- Wheels by Annie Cobb. Suddenly, he started asking for skates. It was 1130 pm and we didn't know how he had got this idea. He showed us the picture of the skates in the book and said he wanted to try. He asked his dad to get him a pair. I told him he already had them and I would take them out the next day. He didn't want to wait. So we took out the skates his Ammi and Abbu ( my mom and dad) had got him the year before. He tried them on. They fit him well. We weren't sure how to start. I told him to hold the arm of the chair and just practice standing. Then, we helped him move around the house. After about an hour an a half, we were exhausted. Not he. He wanted to continue. After much explaining that he needed sleep to be able to skate the next day and promising that he could do it tomorrow, we finally went to bed. We had to get up for suhoor. After that we went to bed again.
He got up early and put on his skates before washing his face, lol. I told him he had to have his breakfat before he could start.
Well, it didnt take too much time to finish his breakfat, lol. He was in them again. This time he ddidnt want to stop. he started balancing and moving around the house and kept at it the whole day minus lunch and snack breaks. His dad saw him skating when he came home from work. Masha Allah, how fast kids learn!

Getting Started and Choosing a Curriculum

In the name of God, the Most beneficent, the Most merciful

When I first started homeschooling, I did not know which curriculum I would be using. I had initially thought of the purchasing regular school books used here.

Chusy has an uncle(who is his really good friend ,too) who is just 19 months older than him and thus a grade ahead. He started school at 27 months. So, I had access to all the books prescribed in his school. I liked some of the books while thought some were really unnecessary.

He had quite a few books for each grade which had worksheets/ activities that covered a very broad range of skills. Like for Pre-K, he had a counting book with a poem on the left page and a grid on the right for each number. The poem was too difficult for a 3 year old to understand the concept while I thought kids really do not need to fill pages with numbers in order to learn them. Then after every ten numbers, like after the number 10, there were counting exercises and activities like arranging in ascending and descending order which involved understanding quite a lot of things which according to me were not right for the age group. This book was called Counting from 1-100. I used the book with Chusy but he was not interested in filling up pages.

He learnt to write and recognize numbers way before he was 3 but he never wanted to fill the book. He did not even understand the poems that went something like a monkey had a party and he was alone and he was one, then a donkey came and there were animals two. I stopped using the book. But he can still write his numbers very neatly Masha Allah. He can do all those activities, too. What was the purpose of introducing so much at that age is what I fail to understand.

The same happened with handwriting books. He never filled books with uppercase and lowercase letters . He just learnt to write the uppercase ones when he was 3 (on his own) and then lowercase letters a few months after that. He always preferred unruled paper and still did until very recently when he started writing in lines.

He learnt to write some lowercase letters a couple of months back because he wanted to. I never made him. And, he can write just fine, Alhamdulillah. Then there were picture books for Pre-K, K1 and K2. Chusy never found any interesting. The activity books had some nice ideas but a large portion of the book was really unnecessary or plain uninteresting for the age levels those books were for.

This led to the conclusion that we really didn't need to use those books.

I just happened to see the same little boy's books for grade one and they are soooo many of them!
He has books for Science, Social Science, General Knowledge and Environmental Education apart from the ones for Grammar, Phonics, Reader, Poems and Handwriting for English, Handwriting and Reader for Second Language, and a Big book of Maths(this was really nice). I really didn't understand why a 6 year old needs so many books and so much busy work.

Anyway, this has led me to the conclusion that we didn't need to purchase the same books to stay at grade level, which is important for us. We(hubby and I) understand though that we need guidelines but if we just focus on Reading, Writing and Arithmetic with all Science and History being Islam based, covering a topic including what the Qur'an and Sunnah say about it and read stories on those topics while focusing on Hifz , we're good, Insha Allah.

So now, we have stopped consulting school books and focus on topics by grade level and use them sometimes for oral discussions or experiments as well as to understand how it all goes back to the perfectness of the Creator. One example of that is we talked about how we have five senses and we talked about how we feel and what happens when we touch something hot and how signals travel from the sensors to the brain and back and why we need to eat brain foods to keep the brain working and how his bones could break if he falls and that bones help us walk otherwise we would just be lumps. And how Allah has made everything so perfect. I think he enjoys and retains the information better when we talk and do things rather than our answering question and writing those question and answers from science and social science books. This does not mean that we do not use books at all, In fact we use a lot of books but they're different one(not textbooks) and that topic deserves a separate post.:)

13 Reasons to Continue to Homeschool

In the name of God, the Most beneficent , the Most merciful.

We all have our reasons to start homeschooling and continue to do so. Here are some of the benefits we see, by the grace of God:

#1. More flexibility to study what Chusy is interested in , for however long, at whatever time.

#2. One-on-one tutoring, nothing can compare this to any schoolroom.

#3. A Customized education. Being able to take our teaching styles, his learning style as well as his interest and talent, strengths and weaknesses. Focusing on what is more important for us.

#4. Less Peer Pressure. Being saved from the largely negative effects of being in a group of 'cool' (immature) kids who are influenced by popular culture and fads. Thus more peace of mind for us.

#5. More Opportunities for Character Building and Moral Education as part of the all round development taking place along with academics.

#6. No 'Homework' related Anxiety that is very much a part of a school going child's daily life. All work is school work or homework AND fun.

#7. More Spontaneity in Studying all that interests us. A little question about thunder can trigger a whole discussion about the water cycle and the speed of sound as compared to that of light. :)

#8. More Control Over outside Influences thus protecting the innocence of our child, preparing him as and when we deem him ready to know about concerns and issues in a non threatening environment according to our beliefs.

#9. Curriculum encompasses our faith and beliefs as well as family values. We can build all our lessons and topics, especially Science and Geography around our faith. How it all goes back to the Creator and His will and how perfect it is. He can ask as many questions about God, death reward and punishment and they will be answered.

#10. No Superficial Grades to test the 'intelligence' of the child. I, the teacher know how much he understands and what he needs to work more on. He can take his time and he wouldn't fail.

#11. Precious Hours are saved each day which would be spent traveling to and back from school.

#12. Costs are minimal as compared to sending him to school. Here we buy what we need and not useless books prescribed by the school every year and half of all of which go unused. We can purchase packages of the curricula we like for 2 or 3 grades which also saves cost. No transportation fee either.

And, last but definitely not the least,

#13. Watching your child learn something new is the best experience a parent can have.

I'm sure there are many more reasons why people choose to home educate. Please do tell me yours..:)

How we came to the conclusion that homeschooling was for us.

In the name of God, the Most beneficent, the Most merciful

Have been toying with the idea of home education for some time now.
Started out by looking out for Alternative schools. Spent hours and hours looking for schools on the internet. Mailed a few, visited some and then shortlisted some that seemed viable. This ws when my Chusy was just 4 months old. I know, too early for schooling to come to mind.

Joined an Alternative education list and did a lot of research. Started visiting schools when Chusy was 2 and a half. The one we chose was a Montessori Pre-school and the lady who was in charge was a good talker. She said the right things at the right time and we were sold. After about a month of paying half yearly fee, we started feeling Chusy was not happy. He would cry in the mornings and say he didn't want to go. A little talking about what he felt helped us realize (in good time) that we needed to stop this. Our resolve was hardened by the chat we had with the in charge. Can't believe how we could have been so blind as to send our Chusy to school at that tender age even when other kids in our apartment complex had been going since they were younger than 2 years of age. That was the last time our Chusy went to any school in this city.

We were under a lot of pressure to put Chusy in school since he was 3 , which is the latest for kids here to start school here. What we saw in Chusy helped us fight that pressure. He was happy at home. He learnt to speak complete grammatically correct sentences when he was 27 months old. This is late for kids to start talking, but then the process takes longer for kids who start early.

He started pointing to pictures of objects in his book correctly even when he wasnt yet 2. he started recognizing letters at around 2 and a half and could tell the sounds of all letters. He started writing letters(uppercase ) when he was 3 -on his own. With a little help from me, he started reading 2 letter words at the same time and 3 letter words at 3 and a half. He knew his colors and numbers since he could speak. We knew he didn't need to be burdened with homework and unnecessary comparison with other kids at that age. We didn't need teachers to grade his work for us to know how much he knew.

We decided to wait for another 2 years-much to the horror of our relatives and neighbors. We were told we wouldn't be able to get him admitted to any 'good' school and he had to take his board exams in Grade 10 and 12 and wouldn't get into college. We think its too early and presumptuous of anyone to think that a child who does not attend preschool or is not in school by the time he's 5 will not be able to get into college. We have decided to give homeschooling a try and to continue until at least Grade 3. God Willing.

Learning to Ride the Bike

In the name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most merciful

I wonder how kids learn things so quickly. It's just amazing!
Chusy learnt to ride the bike without support wheels and balance it 2 weeks before his 5th birthday. He just took a little bike at a relative's place and started riding it on his own. He was obsessed with it after that. All he wanted to do the whole day right after he got up till he went to bed( he didn't want to) was ride the bike. Hubby got Chusy's bike's support wheels taken out and fixed a stand. He would just ride and ride and ride, the whole day.

At times when he wasn't riding, he would be drawing bikes in his sketchbook complete with the street and the lane markings on it. He would label it 'bike'.

Turning Five

In the name of God, the Most beneficent, the Most merciful

Chusy turned five today, Alhamdulillah, Masha Allah.
We told him that it was his birthday and he was now five years old. We thought he would be happy to be five(he thinks he's really big,:))He didn't understand.

He couldn't understand how he was 4 years old yesterday and now suddenly he's five. He thought the word 'birthday' meant party just like the parties other kids have on their birthdays. We tried to explain that birthday is the day one is born.

Then, we packed our bags and went for a trip.....down Memory Lane.

We talked about the time when he was born, how he was inside mama's tummy. We talked about how tiny he was and how he was crying. He was so aware of his surroundings and would look everywhere when he heard anyone speak when he was very tiny. how he had gone on a cruise on lake Tahoe in Nevada when he was only 6 weeks old and needed a diaper change and we'd forgotten the diaper bag in the car.

We also remembered how it was. He used to get up so frequently at night that we couldn't get enough sleep and I really believed that I would never ever be able to get a good night's sleep.

We remembered how we had traveled 18 hours around the world when he was 40 weeks old.

He found it fascinating to hear about the time when he was less than 4 months old, he used to make this funny sound as if blowing something away, as if trying to talk. He used to love being surrounded by his doting extended family, Masha Allah.

We remembered the time he had first started to crawl, stand up and then walk when he was just 8 months old.

This is how we spent our son's 5th Birthday. Just like any other day, except we talked about his milestones and other nice things we remembers. There was no talk of party, cake or presents.

Its remarkable how kids who are not exposed to the TV/ commercial media directly or indirectly are saved from so many things. They are not interested in specific presents new in the market, they don't care about what everyone else has. What new superhero is 'in' and what products(T-shirts/ bags/shoes, etc) are in the market related to them. Not going to school and being around kids all the time also helps:).