“What does R-J-A-K-D-O-B-K-Y-Z spell?”
This is a sample of what I’m asked by Arthur a hundred times a day it seems right now. He’s finally caught on to knowing all his letters well, and it seems he wants to jump right into spelling!
He’s used his Melissa & Doug alphabet placemat at every meal for quite a while now. It’s been great for him to see the letters in alphabetical order and he practices his alphabet pointing to each letter as he goes. He does this over and over. Now that he knows the letters, he uses his placemat to point to letters and string them together randomly attempting to spell words. He also uses the magnetic letters on the refrigerator for this same purpose.
He’s so proud of himself as he’s calling out letters saying, “What does this spell?” Recently, I saw his frustration as I answered yet again, “Nothing.”
It’s funny how watching our kids sparks memories from our own childhood and we see how similar we are. Listening to Arthur ask us what things spell brought back a memory for Tom. He said before he could read and write he would have a little notepad that he’d scribble on and ask his parents what it said. It seems Arthur may have taken after Tom on this one.
We’re attempting to get him to look at actual words and spell them instead of stringing along a series of random letters. Hopefully, this will build his confidence until he starts making the connections himself!
