now I build my ABCs
September 18th, 2008
I’ve mentioned before that I know my son is intelligent, but I am struck by how his learning style is so different from mine. Approach this kid with an activity book and a pen, and he recoils in terror; come at him with a box of wooden blocks and he dives in ready to play for hours.
We pulled out the Capital Letter blocks and alphabet placemat yesterday to start more focused “schooling” in preparation for kindergarten. Several months have passed since I last approached the ABCs and writing, though these things are covered in his daily preschool curriculum. He seems to confidently know all of his letters, and enjoys inventing new ones. (Who am I to stop him!) Yesterday’s exercise focused mainly on building uppercase letters that we identified on the placemat. I’d ask him to find a letter on the placemat and then try to build it. The pictures are some of his freeform building – an S with a long tail, a U that became a Y, a Q that grew into a spaceship…
On our drive home from school we’ve been working on thinking of words that begin with certain letters or end in certain sounds. This game is becoming increasingly popular as they reinforce it at school. I admit all of this has me anxious, though. I’ve heard kindergarten is a struggle for many little boys, and in my exercises with Will, I can see how this could be. If his early classes were to focus on physics, chemistry and math, I can see how this kid would thrive, but they sadly focus on wordplay and drawing. I think he might do as well as anyone at following the rules, but pressed to draw, I wonder.
I’ll be paying close attention to his progression over the next year or two, and who knows – we may end up going an alternative route for early schooling.