august
mommy
daddy
lela
watson
collar
leash
The text above is from August's pre-bedtime typing exercise, which he loves and without which he refuses to go to bed; copied and pasted from his preferred word processor. Obviously this still takes coaching and interaction with me, but he's pretty good with consonant sounds. The various myriad sounds the vowels make still confuse him a bit. I think he kind of understands that letter sounds combine to produce words, but I don't think we've had that "a-ha" moment just yet.
He knows how to spell his whole name (he's getting close with other names), AND he very quickly seems to have picked up an instinct for where, on the keyboard, he should look for various different letters. Example, when he needs an O for Mommy, he knows generally where to look for it. If he needs a less common letter, I can often give him a hint by referencing another letter whose general position he sort of already knows ("the W is near the S"). Some keys he knows exactly (the A, for example).
He knows the back-space and the space-bar, and he knows he needs to start each word on a fresh line by hitting the return key, which is now second nature.
I'm so impressed by him. These little learning tricks of his are great, but he's most impressive in so many other ways. His attitude, for example—towards us, towards his friends, towards his sister. He's a love bear. What an amazing, great kid he is.
For the record, while we do encourage his natural curiosity about things academic, we don't drill him or push him or pressure him. We take advantage of his native curiosity, which is ample!
Here he is at school making cookie cut-outs prior to "Grand-Friends Day" at school, last week. He's wearing one of my favorite of his shirts, too!
Love bear!
