The biggest thing going on in Nathan's life right now is reading and spelling. Much of his time is occupied by one of these two activities. The one thing that these two have in common is words. No really, I'm serious. Nathan is picking up words SO SO fast. It continuously amazes me. I really shouldn't be that surprised, though. He has his father's memory. Nathan spends much of the time that he has alone writing and drawing. He draws pictures and labels them with some of the people or objects in them. We are burning through notebook paper around here!
He can read a ton these days. While driving around town, he often reads signs and such. One day, he said "Do...not...block...what Mommy". To which I replied "Intersection". He now knows what those signs say and reads them regularly. On Thursday I heard him reading a book in his room during his down time. I listened for a minute and discovered that it was a book that I had not read with him in a very long time. Once he got up (at 3:00 on the dot, as always), he asked if I could help him read it. I take that back. He asked about reading it AFTER watching Curious George...which comes on at 3:00. So, here's the book:
I only had to help him with a handful (or two) of words. He knew all the rest...or had figured them out. He's actually pretty good at sounding out words. I am definitely a fan of phonics! He has even gotten confident enough to write words on his own by sounding them out. (If you know Nathan and his hesitancy to do anything before he really has it down, you know that this is a big deal.) He doesn't always spell things right, but he at least gets close. For example, the other day he made a picture and wrote "WATERORING KANN". That's pretty good, I think.
One day, while we were running errands, Nathan said "P-I-C-K spells 'pick'". I gave a little affirmation and then asked him how you would spell "sick". He proceeded to sound out the beginning "sss...sss...S-I-C-K". So I asked some more... "lick"..."llll...L-I-C-K"... "stick"...a little more thought here...(me)"how do you spell the 'st' sound?"..."S-T-I-C-K". Anyway, you get the idea. I was quite impressed. In case you are wondering, Nathan knows several letter combinations. He has mostly learned them watching Word World on PBS. He knows "st" and "ch" and several endings like "ing" and "s".
On a completely unrelated note, the other day, I asked Nathan to get the food out for lunch. When he came back, I asked if he had gotten all the food out and he said that he had. Then, I asked if he had gotten a knife out (a butter knife...for the mustard). He made some sound and then went to get it. Almost immediately, he returned and said "But Mommy, a knife isn't food." Smarty!
4 comments:
Thanks for keeping us up to date with all of Nathan's accomplishments. Good job on the reading, Nathan! Next time you visit, you'll have to read a book to me! I love how he spelled watering can. That's great!
Does he like to help around the house a good bit? Does he have any "chores" or anything that he does every day or week?
He does not have any specifically assigned chores. However, there are plenty of things that the does. Every day, he has to have his room clean before coming out from his down time. At night, he has to clean up everywhere else before going to bed (with Caroline's help these days). He often helps Daddy wash the dishes after supper. He helps sort clothes when I do laundry. He loves to spray anything while I'm cleaning. He often uses the little broom and dustpan to clean up the dining room floor (all the crumbs under the table). I could list more, but this is getting to be a very long comment!
oh...when I say "everywhere else", I mean the toys and such
I'd say that cleaning his room sounds like a 'chore.' I am amazed now that I'm paying attention to these things, how helpful most kids like to be. I don't remember wanting to be helpful really or learning how to do things around the house. When I was older, I had a chore to do, and I obviously learned how to do things (like dust & vacuum), but I'm wondering if there's something I can tap into as a mom to help my kid make the transition from eagerly helping toddler to eagerly helping kid to (duh, duh, duh) eagerly helping adolescent! Even now, Kate loves to help mommy with loading some silverware in the dishwasher (or unloading :-)) after dinner, closing the dishwasher (her specialty) & keeping the dust pan together with the broom.
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