"Homeschooling" Rayyan

When I was in primary school zaman tok kadok dulu we have never heard such thing as going to sekolah agama after the sekolah kebangsaan, or sekolah agama dulu and sekolah kebangsaan in the afternoon, etc.. Only few years later that the concept was beginning to be popular among the Muslims in Malaysia ni..

Ada gak family members yang pressured us to send Rayyan to sekolah agama. Rayyan already has Kumon on Mondays and Thursdays. Taekwondo on Thursdays, Drama & Speech class on Tuesdays, Piano on Fridays.. and clearly sekolah agama is definitely gonna be taxing to this little kid. Then, I looked into these family members' reasons why would someone send the kids to sekolah agama.. they gave the reason senang.. nak belajar mengaji and belajar sembahyang...

Of course sekolah agama goes beyond just ajar mengaji and sembahyang.. but these two are the most basic that one needs to take care of.

So, one alternative way I thought.. well.. baik aku ajar sendiri hehe..

Since the first day of school on January 3, 2011, maka bermulalah sesi "homeschooling" untuk mengajar sembahyang and mengaji by yours truly.. hehe.. session starts with sembahyang Maghrib together (not berjemaah, just side by side for now), then mengaji for about 30-60 mins, pastu terus sembahyang Isyak.

Bila time sembahyang, every single bacaan I'll make it loud and clear for him to follow.. and alhamdulillah, over time, I can see his articulations have improved tremendously by just listening and self-correcting..

I use the Iqra' book he used at Genius Aulad for mengaji. Masa kat Genius Aulad, the whole two years he was there, the teachers could only get him up to book 2.. few pages shy of completing book 2 for him to proceed to book 3.

With me, Rayyan now has progressed well that it only took him 3 weeks to cover all that he learned over the 2 years at Genius Aulad. Probably by tomorrow he's going to Book 3 of the 6 Iqra' books.

Of coursela.. perangai dia has to be tolerated dengan kesabaran yang mendalam... I now know why he could not progress faster than the rest of the kids in his class at Genius Aulad (some had already went up to book 5, book 6, etc...).

So, I put on the "Cikgu Singa" cap.. haha you mess with me, you're gonna get it!

Alhamdulillah, despite the growls, roars, sebatan2 manja dengan kayu lidi kat tangan dia, he is still interested to spend an hour with me every night, fully motivated to learn. And of course at the end of the sessions I get to kiss both his cheeks after dia salam my tangan (when was the last time you ever did that to your eldest kid? especially from a dad to his son? hmm....) So I'm cherishing that moment every single night.

My initial target was for him to start the Quran by next year (coz that's when I started with the Quran). But looking at the rate he's going now, insyaAllah that could be realized as early as June this year. It would be great of he could start the Quran on his 7th birthday.. :)