Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Learning

The Rock Star has a BIG imagination. It's so big, in fact, that often when he prays he includes, "Thank you, God, for giving me such a big magation."

He has good verbal skills. He has a fantastic memory when it comes to recalling stories or details of events that happened to him.

But he's been struggling with letter recognition and knowing what letters certain words start with, even when we continuously go over specific letters or words. Take yesterday, for example. I showed him an A and a K and repeatedly explained which was which. After a few minutes of him repeating after me I showed him the A. What letter is this? "Um. I don't know." Sigh. Which of these two letters is the A? He pointed to the K. Later, when I showed him two A's and a K and asked which was different he knew immediately...so it isn't a recognition issue. I continued showing him two of one letter and one of another and he passed with flying colors. Then I showed him two F's and an X. Which one doesn't belong? He picked up one of the F's. Are you sure? "Yes." He replied. Why? "Because this one isn't an X." So I can drill A's and K's into his head for five minutes and he can't repeat the name of one but he knows X off the top of his head? Hmmm. Perplexing.

A couple of days ago we had the following conversation.

Me: What does daddy start with?
G: A "D"!
Me: Very good! What does mommy start with?
G: A "M"! (I haven't started explaining the difference between "a" and "an")
Me: Good. What does Matthew start with?
G: Also a "M"!
Me: Yes it does! What does Beck start with?
G: Um...I don't know.
Me: Buh. Buh. Buh. What letter makes a buh sound?
G: I know! Beck starts with pineapple!

Um. What?

7 comments:

  1. hahah - just as long as he doesn't think Beck TASTES like pineapple - you're good. ;-)

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  2. That was good. B and P do sound similar. Ana doesn't have those sounds straight yet either.

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  3. Hahaha! "Pineapple"... I love it!Garrett is so awesome!

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  4. Don't worry. He's WAY ahead of most of the kindergarteners I work with. Not even kidding.

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  5. i've always had a great memory (well, before i had kids anyway), but always seemed to have trouble with memorizing letter and numbers. to this day i'm horrid at math. anyhow, i remember making up little word associations to go along with the letters. for example, B looks like two bubbles and M looks like mountains. you could even draw for him the letter B with shiny bubbles inside, or the letter I with a dollop of ice cream on top. just a thought! tristan is nowhere near recognizing letters yet, except for "t" which he calls "Jesus' cross" :)

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  6. Dude it'll all pan out. My daughter used to sing "a b c d e f carwash." Yeah, I know, what?

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  7. My son is 4 and he had a hard time with X and K, among others. But I just kept drilling him. I'd hold up both flash cards and say the letter and move it closer to him as I said it. then do the other letter. He got it in time. Its like it just needed to sink in for a bit.

    And...pineapple? Awesome! love it.

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