My Child Already Reads a Little. Do They Still Need the Qaida?

The two-minute test

Open the Mus'haf somewhere in the middle, well away from the short surahs everyone knows, and ask your child to read three lines out loud.

• Slow and correct is good. That is reading.
• Fast and wrong is the warning sign. That is recall.
• Long pauses before whole words, then the word said at speed, means the child is retrieving rather than decoding.
• Trouble only with the marks, not the letters, is a smaller gap and a quicker fix.

Why this happens to good children with good intentions

It is nearly always the same story. The child was taught in a group, or at home from the short surahs, and made rapid early progress that everyone was pleased with. Nobody was careless. Recognising whole words simply looks identical to reading them until the child meets a word nobody taught them.

It usually surfaces at nine or ten, in a Tajweed lesson that depends on hearing two letters apart that the child was never taught apart.

Going back without it feeling like a demotion

Older children mind this, and they are right to. The way to do it is to be straight with them: you read well, there is a gap in the letters, we are going to close it and it will take weeks not years.

• Do not call it starting again. Call it the letters.
• Keep the Quran reading going alongside it, so nothing is taken away.
• Work only on the letters that are actually weak. A child who already reads does not need every page.
• Tell them when it is done. A finish line matters more here than usual.

How long it takes the second time

For a child who already reads, this is a matter of weeks rather than the four to ten months a complete beginner takes, because most of the book is confirming what they already do and only the weak letters need real work. That is worth saying to the child at the start.

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