Letters

So, the Berrykin has known his ABCs - upper and lowercase - since he was about two and a half. (I got really confused when discussing it with the women who tested him, because they asked if it was rote or spontaneous. Finally, they said, "Like, does he do them out of order?" And I went, "Ohhhh. Yes. Always. He can name them and find them." Because he's NEVER done them by rote memory, like singing the alphabet song, or saying them in order. He does that with numbers, but never letters. It didn't even occur to me that he might have.) He loves letters and numbers.

He does not, however, get into coloring or drawing. This is probably because he colored in the bit of the wall behind my in-laws' door while we lived with them, so we stopped letting him use them much. But. Even back then, he didn't much care for them. I was crazy surprised when he imitated the lines and shapes the testers drew because I had no idea he could come close to that much control.

Tonight, we steamed up the bathroom to help his new cough (he and I were sick two weeks ago; Jeremelon picked it up as we were getting better; we picked it up again yesterday). I drew a heart on the mirror. He drew a circle. I thought he was going to draw a person, but no.

He drew his name.

He's been coming home with papers since the first couple of days that looked like a kid with good handwriting wrote his name. Not quite adult-level, but not "I just learned how to hold a pencil yesterday" level, either. But I'm pretty sure he's been writing his name the whole time he's been going. Probably with help, but still.

He's been in preschool for three weeks, missing half a week because he was sick. And he can write his name.

He also recognizes that words are their own space in a sentence. He's accumulated a handful of sight words. Which means he's learning to read.

But he still doesn't really use language yet. All his words are rote words - sentences put together from memory rather than spontaneous collections of abstract concepts. Friday, his favorite was, "Goodbye, everybody!" which he said about twenty-five times between the classroom door and our apartment. Every time he's pleased with himself this weekend, he's taken my "good job!" and made it his teacher's "good job, buddy!"

He is, however, *trying* to talk more. When he was using my finger to write his name on the mirror (because once he saw I'd let him, that was apparently more fun than using his own), I'm pretty sure he was telling me all about the letters. Probably what his teachers do when they're helping him. Most of it was babbled imitation, but I know when we were drawing the 'l' that he said, "L is long and tall, up and down."

We were watching Princess & the Frog the other day (it's one of the Andybug's faves), and he started singing along. He sang! He used to do it all the time, and then he just...didn't anymore. So I was thrilled to bits to hear it. Then he acted it out while he was singing. And then he recited the words and acted it out, and then forcibly had me join in (I get to be the frog). In fact, he forcibly includes us in a lot of his play, which he never used to do before.

So that's the end of week three/beginning of week four. I let him stay home today because he was a drippy and coughy and it was crazy windy and dry today. Judging by the state of his cough tonight, he probably won't get to go tomorrow, either, which means he'll miss the library again.  He's no longer falling asleep on the way home from school, but he's eating less...might be the sick and might be that he's bored with the limited foods I've been feeding him. :/ (More on that, btw, on my renewed Berry Patch Farmhouse blog! It's for all my homemaker projects...'cause I've never taken the time to try to BE a homemaker, but I really want/need to start. I don't remember if I've mentioned it yet or not...)

This preschool thing is pretty darn spiffy. I'm so incredibly grateful he gets to go!