Sunday, October 17, 2010
Little Bunny doesn't know his letters
I really need to start writing down my ideas for blog posts. I think of these great ideas, and ASSUME I will remember them. But then I don't. So I will start with what's on my mind. LB doesn't know his letters very well at all. He knows the letters in his name (of which there are three), and can MAYBE recognize half a dozen more on a good day. Is that normal? It feels like not a lot to me, and I'm not sure how to help him with this. I tend to get really frustrated when teaching him things because his patience is short (like mine) and he gets frustrated and says he quits, and then I snap, and it's done and I just feel guilty. His speech is great, he uses complete and lengthy sentences, is very creative/imaginative and a big story teller. I would say that his use of numbers is only slightly better, in that he can reliably count to ten or eleven, but doesn't have much of an understanding of written/printed numbers. I should obviously talk to his teacher(s) about this, along with my mother (educator/speech therapist), and babysitter (teacher). I can easily get him help, but I'm not sure what is normal for this age (4.5years old). To be honest, this is not something we've focused a whole lot on, so given the chance, he might progress very quickly. It's just that we were playing this Montessori Crossword game on the iPad, and I realized he had very little letter recognition. With Sam being Sam, I'm just never sure what is typical...Sam, of course, has great letter recognition, and needs to work more on the letter/sound connection. He is more at a reading/writing stage, though his number skills need some work (though are improving).
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
A - If I could make a suggestion, I'd say when you are reading together at night, choose some books that have Letter/number recognition themes, and just as part of reading the story, start asking him - "LB - what's that letter?" - since you do it every night, it should come pretty quickly. The importance of reading with a kid every day, even before they can turn the pages or hold the book themselves, simply can not be over stated. Another fun way is to encourage "writing" as much as possible - maybe he draws a picture and a "story" since he likes telling stories so much, for Grandma or a card to the great pumpkin or whatever - once he has drawn and "written" (usually just scribbles) - then you ask him what the story says, or what the picture is about, and write it (in careful kid-friendly print) on the same paper for him. This builds the connection between something he likes to do (tell stories) and writing, Letters. As you write, just comments like "Monster, Monster starts with "M" just like your name, see?" are also helpful.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't worry as much about special "teaching" time as I would just think about finding ways to connect or notice letters every day, all day, in your daily life and when you two are playing or reading together.