How to Keep Your Child Focused in an Online Quran Class

The five-minute setup that fixes most of it

• The same quiet spot every time, away from the television and younger siblings.
• A tablet or laptop rather than a phone if you have one. A bigger page is easier to follow.
• Headphones for children who are easily distracted by noise around the house.
• Something to eat beforehand. A hungry child cannot concentrate for thirty minutes.
• Everything else closed. No games open in the background, no notifications.

The time of day matters more than you think

A child who is fine at five o'clock can be impossible at seven. If focus has dropped, look at the class time before you look at anything else. Moving the lesson thirty minutes earlier, or to straight after a snack, fixes more attention problems than any technique.

What a good teacher does during the lesson

Young children cannot sit still and listen for half an hour. A good teacher knows that and plans for it.

• The child reads aloud for most of the lesson, rather than listening.
• The activity changes every few minutes for younger children: read, repeat, point, a quick question.
• Mistakes are corrected one at a time, calmly.
• The child's name is used often, and they are asked questions, not lectured.
• Lessons start with something the child already knows, so they begin with a success.

If your child is spending most of the lesson listening to the teacher talk, that is worth raising. It is the most common cause of drifting attention that is not about the child at all.

Should you sit with them?

For children under six, staying nearby for the first few weeks helps. Sit where you can hear but not in the child's eyeline, so they talk to the teacher rather than looking at you for the answer. For older children, being in the next room is usually enough.

In our classes a supervisor is on every lesson as well, and every class runs on one link you can open at any time to check in.

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