The rascal will be going back to preschool, but he can read on his own. Of course,
there are a few words that he needs help with, but he surprises me each day with the amount
that he retains.

I worked him so hard, completing two lessons, almost daily, including weekends. I don’t want to give him much slack, but I’ll let him read leisurely until he starts school, next week.

Then, we’ll focus on mathematics. Let’s see if I’m up for the challenge.

After we were done with our reading lessons, I decided that he was capable of reading his Dr. Seuss book on his own. “Cooking with the Cat” was his first book, cover-to-cover.

My little man read 31 pages of unadulterated rhymes and even pushed my hand out of the way when I tried to aid him in keeping his place.

I think he’s doing remarkably well, considering he just turned 4 years old.

If you are trying to find some classics in Spanish, for your youngster, this is a must. It has the typical Seuss nuances, but with a little picante, spice! Even if you are not fluent in Spanish, don’t be daunted. It’s an easy read and your child will simply love it.

I needed to step away.

My child needed to be, well, dare I say, A CHILD!

I had been working diligently, between projects, and household chores, to fill every crevice of his brain with letters, numbers and logic. I overwhelmed him and almost took the joy of learning from him.

He is a bright bulb; he glows on his own, as he is a curious, questioning child. Needless to say, I need to step back and let him breath. He knows his alphabet, can count and can even speak to me in Spanish, what more can I ask for?

He had an occasional accident, but for the most part, he was pamperless, wearing “big boy undies.”

And then…it happened…we reverted. Christmas day, he got gifts of all sorts and I got a shock. He just decided he was NOT going to wear underpants anymore. In fact, now only did he decide to wear pampers, but he the temerity to tell me which type he wanted to wear. I wanted to try pull-ups, but he had another plan. He was going to wear plain, good, old-fashioned pampers and that was all there was to it.

So, his birthday is coming up. I’m going to try again. Say a pray; I have a feeling I’m in for a bumpy ride!

Out of the clear, we were sitting at the table, pointing out letters on a place mat. He just started to rattle off the letters in his name, as if he’d always been spelling his name and spelling were a natural evolution. I just stood there with my mouth open, because I never knew he actually paid so much attention to the little things that I have been trying to teach him.

The fact that he is spelling his name is monumental for a couple of reasons:

1. He is able to spell his name, which shows his ability to retain information,
2. and it helps me understand how he learns, what may work for him.

I’ll introduce him to new words, see how receptive he is.

Rather than stop to ask questions, I just fed his interest. He plucked at words, while I gently corrected him. We worked on the same page for about 20 minutes. He seemed content to reinforce what he learned. He took the same book to bed and fell asleep reading it.

I guess it’s true, what the say. Children will do what they want, at their own time.

We watched Fiddler On The Roof. It’s a hit!

Not only did he enjoy it, but he danced and sang along. His enthusiasm far surpassed my expectations.

I’ll look for more musicals to peak his interest and musical curiosity.

His attention span will not permit more than 15 or 20 minutes, but I have been introducing him to middle-c and Twinkle-Twinkle. Eventually, I want to incorporate the Suzuki method of playing piano. In order to prepare him for reading music, I have been introducing him to more and more words.

For some reason, children seem to do well when they learn to read both music and books at the same time.

We use flash cards with words, words cut out of circulars, just about anything.

I’ll put five or six words on the table and say, “Can you find the word dog?”

If he finds the word he gets lots of praise; if he doesn’t I quickly correct him and continue hunting out all of the words. Eventually, we go back to the missed words to ensure that he gets them.

Today, he recognized several words that we did not even cover yet: monkey, goat, apple, horse.