Reading and 'rithmetic

(Whew! Been remiss in blogging here, haven't I! Just played another round of catchup and posted 9 new entries-- including this one-- happy reading!)

Todd had been becoming more and more curious about words and reading. The elements of phonics are starting to sink in and he's applying them more and more. For the time being, I have given up the approach of teaching him to read using sound-out phonics, and instead am focusing on sight words. Kids have good memories, and it's easier for him to recognize words by sight rather than sounding them out letter-by-letter. In fact, now that he's learning sight words, he's starting to apply the phonics to them!

Often he will do one of two things:

1. See a word somewhere (on a sign, in a newspaper ad, on electronic equipment, etc...), spell it out for me, and ask me what it says.

2. Ask me how to spell a certain word he already knows. Stuff like numbers, body parts, and anything else he's recently heard/talked about.

Here's some examples of how he's applying phonics concepts to words he's learning about:

The other day I was washing his hands at school and he looked at the soap dispenser, which had the name and logo of the soap supplier on it. He wanted to know what "S-U-P-P-L-Y" spelled. I told him. He mulled it over, and then added a new twist:

"You know what word it is if you use a 'T' instead of an 'S'? Tupply!"

Then there was the time when we were talking about planets. He went quiet for a few moments, and then declared: "You know what rhymes with 'planet'? Hanet!"

In the world of arithmetic, he no longer needs beads to count sums less than 10. He can use his fingers! He has become manual dexterous enough to do both addition and subtraction using his hands.

One last tidbit: a few weeks ago he spelled out the letters to his full name: first, middle, last. He wanted to know how many letters it was. I suggested he try counting them. As I was driving, I didn't get to observe what he was doing, but it went quiet in the back seat for a while as I heard whispers while he figured it out. A few minutes later, he proudly announced: "Fifteen!" I was amazed. Not sure if it was a lucky fluke or if he really managed to count them all out, but 15 it is! :-)