What is the Glenn Doman method?

From the website of (www.brillbaby.com) : Glenn Doman is a physical therapist and a pioneer in the field of child brain development.

In 1955 he founded the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential (IAHP), a non-profit organization providing teaching programs and books designed to improve and accelerate the mental and physical development of normal as well as brain-damaged children.

He wrote a few books on early learning. Some of his famous books :

How to teach your baby to read

How to teach your baby math

Basically, he believed that as parents, we have an important role to maximise our baby’s brain potential to learn about everything. Early learning is important because the first years of life lay the neurological foundation for intellectual growth into adolescence and adulthood.

So how does it work:

The Doman program  covers everything from reading, math and encyclopedic knowledge to physical excellence. Lessons are presented at speed using flash cards to facilitate right-brain learning.

Flash cards are either physical or virtual and bear either pictures, words or numbers. These cards are shown to the children as young as possible at a very high speed.

Physical flash cards are usually printed in large fonts in red. It can be presented to your child in a relaxed environment.

Each session does not last more than 10 minutes. The most important thing for me personally is to stop when your child starts to get distracted.

What does it mean with high frequency words?

High frequency words are the most commonly used words in texts(books etc). It can be read phonetically –unlike sight words(which does not follow the normal letter sounds).

High frequency words in the Holy Quran simply means words that are mentioned a lot of times in the Quran.

You can search for these words and its frequency from the internet.

How do I introduce the high frequency words in the Holy Quran to my daughters?

I collected almost 100 high frequency words in the Holy Quran and wrote it in a large red font. Everyday, during our learning session, I flashed to her ten words. So this means, I divided all words into 10 sections. Each section-which consists of 10 words- are read to her for 2 weeks. After that, we move on to a new section.

I started this method with our first born as early as her being 18 months. Does she respond to it? Admittedly, no.

Yes, she looks at it, but only after she can finally talked , she repeated after me. And now at the age of 4, Alhamdulillah She memorised most of the 100 high frequency words ( She just started reading arabic writing a few months back but not as fluent of course) Allahuma baarik.

So yes, it does take time (A very long time!), but hey who said tarbiyah is easy??

If you ask me, why do I focus on teaching these high frequency words in the Holy Quran to my daughters?

My answer would simply be, I want to cater to her Quranic memorisation journey and make it as smooth sailing as possible. I want my children to start memorising the Quran as early as possible even before they can read the Quran.

I want her to get familiarise with the words in the Quran so that when she comes across these specifics words, she remembers it instantly and does not need to spell it out.

I want her to remember the words, know the meanings , feel them and learn to love the beautiful words of Allah.

That is why I strongly believe that, together with learning to read the Quran, learning these high frequency words need to go simultaneously.

It takes a whole load of patience and consistency in teaching your child especially if you are using the Glenn Doman method. But once your child can read, learning feels such a breeze mashaALLah.

May Allah makes our offsprings the coolness of our eyes and make them love and live the words of Allah in their hearts and actions. Ameen

If you would like to see a sample of my high frequency words in the holy quran, here is the link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KHNWoi7UhokQXLcDNPXS2VZIyEhAcksh/view