On Sunday October 3, I spent two hours at the Nur Allah weekend school. All the students were here for the first time today. I did a few different things today. I began with the student with dyslexia, and I helped her red some children’s books. I am still not sure how to help her. After last week, I asked my mom is she knew how to help kids with dyslexia because she was a teacher, she gave me some tips, but they did not seem to help today. The student is nine so she told me I could also just ask, but I could not get an answer when I asked. When spent some time reading the books before we moved on to working through the Arabic alphabet. We went from alif to ra before moving on. This also helped me with Arabic, I did not know any before today. I hope to at least learn the alphabet before I leave. I had some difficulty with this task to because I did not know how to pronounce the letters, and neither did the student. The last lesson before lunch was reading the Qur’an. I did not read the Qur’an, Ms. Allender read the Qur’an to the students and me. I then helped prepare lunch, and then I left before lunch was served.
Today was the first day I really was able to help with any sort of teaching role. I found it more rewarding today than when I just helped them move. I also have never read the Qur’an before so hearing some of the suras was interesting. I believe she just read the first two suras. I see that we will be reading some suras in the future, so I am looking forward to that. I was hoping Ms. Allender would provide some interpretations but she did not.
I am getting more comfortable with the students today. I saw the two girls again, but today I also met two brothers. One is in high school and the other is five. The younger girl opened more today. She showed me a dog toy she has named Flapjack. She also had me help her design a house for him.