Spell it out: Part III

I am a proud parent, a very proud parent. It is just part of the job description and I see no reason for humility. What's the point? Do you want me to go around picking on his flaws? The kid isn't even three yet. He has to at least be in school before I can become the nitpicking mom, right? I can say, however, that our friends have children with lots of gifts that are different from Zeke's. I know children Zeke's age who speak in full paragraphs, essays and treatises, children with great physical talents, children with great emotional sensitivity and startling imaginations, and, most enviably, children who are fully potty trained. But, still, I take pride in my offspring and what I perceive to be his gifts. If you think it is unbecoming for me to brag, I simply suggest you read another blog...right now.

In my estimation as a parent, education professional (haha) and recovering English major, I think my child is on his way to being a great reader. At my last count, he can recognize over 60 words without any prompting from someone else. About 45 of those words come from a DVD series that he is obsessive over. (I wouldn't have ever thought to get these DVDs, but friends loaned us other DVDS from the same company teaching color, shapes and numbers. After watching them, he was absolutely crazy for them and started pointing out that stop signs were octagons, which pretty well sold me on them.) He loves pointing out words that he knows from the DVDs, including from signs, boxes and books that he can almost read by himself like Are You My Mother? He also enjoys reading words from Where the Wild Things Are, though there is a lot more parent participation involved there. He also seems to be picking up words from places other than the DVDs at a surprising clip. After a few times of reading Where the Wild Things Are, he is picking out "Max" and finding it in the word "maximum" from some packaging left in the living room. In some of the educational settings in which I have worked, it would be miraculous to see a 9 year old -- and probably the 19 year olds I tried to teach -- reading a book, but here my toddler is making a good effort at it. Yes, how my child does benefit from the low expectations I have inherited from our public schools. Maybe other toddlers and preschoolers do this, too, but he is mine, so I remain fixed in my little bubble of pride.

It is often difficult to engage Zeke in an independent activity that does not involve constant supervision or a television, which makes it difficult to get dinner made. Usually, though, I can get him really focused on the refrigerator letter magnets and challenge him to spell different words by himself that I know he can read. Here he is with his name and then one of the words from his DVDs "play".

I promise I won't let this swell me up too much, though. We have a long way to go before we really know whether Zeke is going to be a kid who enjoys and is good at reading. Also, when Zeke first spelled out his first name, he tried to follow it up with his last name. Apparently, our last name is now spelled "IEEEXUFGYRL."