Carter has been very interested in letters recently (probably has something to do with preschool). He has been asking what letter various words begin with. He has been doing it for a couple weeks now. He asks the same words over and over again, and every once it a while he will ask a new word. We are so excited that he has this love for learning. Part of me wants to say "Don't you know that one by now?" or "You just asked me that." But, I don't. We really want him to love learning and do not want to discourage him in any way.
I won't actually tell him the letter either (Unless it is a difficult one, like K/C/S, PH/F, SH, or anything that doesn't sound like it should start - you know, all the English quirks.), I just sound it out and let him answer his own question.
He is having a tough time with W and Y right now. He asks what a W word starts with, and it sounds like you would say the letter Y. Yesterday, we were going over words that start with Y so he could hear the difference. He said "Like Yup!" I said "Yes, just like Yep." I asked if he knew what that meant. He said "When your Mommy or Daddy says you can do something." Well, yeah. I guess that is when I give him an affirmative "Yep". When David got home I asked Carter to tell him about "yep" - thinking he would give the same response he gave me. NOPE.
"Y-U-P, Yup"
Both David and I just started at him. He spelled a word! Not the way I would have spelled it, but it is a Webster's recognized variant.
He has been spelling his name for a few days, but I have been working with him on that. I have been having him spell it out for me, as I wright it. I have never spelled any other words for him.
This morning he started spelling Car and Cat in addition to his own name.
Also, for about 2 weeks now he can tell you my phone number. I am not sure where he got it. Maybe he has really been paying attention when I leave it on other people's voicemail. I am happy about that because it is something he should know, I just didn't think he was ready to learn it.
This is his monkey family. He took this picture with David's camera. he wanted to get a family portrait. I am the pink one, Daddy is the one in back with the red beard, Beckett is the naked one in front, and the Carter monkey is the one with the blue stripes.
I bet he's having trouble with w and y because they're really vowel sounds (w is like an "oo" before another vowel and y is like an "eee" before another vowel). That kid is a genius and I am lucky to know him :).
ReplyDeleteI figured you could appreciate this post. In preschool I taught M. Carter thought it would be funny if I taught M AND W (for obvious reasons). I looked through the schedule and I, in-fact, do teach both. What a hard language English is!!
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