..the inspiring experiences @ ILHAM..: June 2008

Someone has said it, it is time to update this blog. I guess I will start.

Last night was our second reading session for this year at Ilham. We all have to admit that we have not been showing our faces there for a long time, and I applause the person who arranged for the 'visit' three weeks ago. Was it Naz or Lie? Well, bravo for both of you. Now we know, it is the first step that is always so hard. And now, most of us cannot stop from going. Well, I sure hope so. :)

As usual, Lie was the first one to show up last night, me and Fahmi came a bit late. (Note to Fahmi: You prefer to be known as Fahmi here?) (In case you do not know, Fahmi is our latest addition to the Ilham English Programme group. We also have another friend, which is Lina, a friend of Naz's.) When we arrived, all the kids were already flocking around Lie with his laptop doing simple reading exercises from Starfall.com. Me and Fahmi quickly switched on our laptops and grabbed a few kids to flock around us.

I had Firdaus, Badrul and Sazrul reading with me. And I think that they were into the learning process making it easy to let them read and repeat the words on the screen. After that I told them that it is time to read books and I was quite surprised that Firdaus was actually quite eager to read. Last week we read a Malay novel for kids, and last night a story from the big fairytale book. I think his English reading was better than when he was reading Malay, but maybe he was just nervous or shy the first week.

Then Kak Zaza and Abang Akaz came, and Kak Zaza took over the macbook for another reading online session. Hasif came along and wanted to copy songs from my macbook to his mp3 but I made him joined the reading session. It is quite sad to see that Firdaus's reading is far better than his. I am sure that his attitude of not wanting to read or study comes from the disability to read itself. I personally think that he needs a very special extra attention every week that we go there, if he is willing to cope with us. And when it was almost time to go home, I told Firdaus that we are stopping to read, but he seems to want to read other books as well. Yeay.

The week before I lent Firdaus, Sazrul and Fikry each one book. Fikry has returned the book but the other two asked for more time. Well, as long as they are reading I have no problem with that. And this week Faqih also brought back a book to read. I hope this will catch on. I sure need to find more interesting books to bring for them to read. If any of you have books that are suitable for their reading, please bring them over. You do not have to leave it with them, they can just read it during the while that we are there.

And after the reading session, we went to Makbul for a quick drink and discussed on what we should do next. Everyone agreed that after another week of monitoring them, we will try to separate them according to their reading ability and each group will flock an assigned laptop for their level of reading ability, subtly without them realizing maybe.

Naz came for a quick sit, then after we all said our goodbyes, Fahmis's car ran out of battery and all of us except Naz (she had dashed to Bangi) stayed to accompany him to change battery. (He did all the work himself). A trail of bad luck had hit him, said Fahmi, when a bird's dropping fell on his shirt. Well, I hope that wouldn't dampen your spirit to join us again!