Astrid is learning to spell & read

"Papa? How do you spell Dragon Tales ?"

U. shared with me tonight that Astrid was being clever, asking him how to spell Dragon Tales.
"I know she wanted the spelling so she would look it up on the iPad. She's sneaky like that & I love it."

Not bad for a 5 year old.

Starting to identify and write letters

At 2 (a couple months shy of 3) years old, Astrid is starting to recognize letters.

Alphabet Recognition
Astrid loves books. (In fact "book" was her 3rd spoken word after "mama" and "papa".) One of her favorite things to do is curl up beside me and have me read a book to her. "Read to me Mama! Please!!!" she frequently asks of me.

Before, "reading" on her own she would stare at the pictures and turn the pages. But now she's actually looking at the letters and words. It's exciting to see those wheels turning in her head, and see that she's starting to get the concept of reading.

In addition to reading books, she likes this cartoon called "Super Why" which teaches kids alphabet recognition and reading in an interactive format. (Still not big on TV, but I do let her watch a little - PBS cartoons - in the morning when I'm getting ready or when I am doing her hair.) One part of the show has the main character holding up a letter while he asks the kids watching, "What letter is this?" Astrid surprised me by correctly shouting back - "R"!

And when writing her name on her clothes in permanent market (for preschool), she shocked me by identifying the letters: A, S, T, R. When I quizzed her on it again shortly afterward, she was able to tell me the letters: S, T, and R. That's pretty amazing, especially since I haven't been focusing on this. I think she gets it passively by doing her alphabet puzzle, and hearing the names of each letter from me.

Also, when we were stopped at a gas station, she looked up at some signs in the strip mall and started identifying letters - saying - O, S, C, D. Great to see that she's starting to recognize letters in environmental print as well.

She's so eager to learn. I'm sure it's only a matter of time until she starts pointing to everything and asking me what it says.

Writing
Astrid's also starting to imitate writing letters on her own. Recently she wrote what looked like three w's. U. inquired, "Are you trying to write www as in a URL?"

I have some writing workbooks for preschoolers that I've been saving. They've got letters, words, and sentences in dotted lines so that they can be traced over. Might be fun for her to start practicing writing, but I'm not going to pressure her. (I have bad memories of my mother trying to get me to write at a really young age and it was not pleasant.) But as long as she's eager to learn and gets a lot of pleasure and a sense of accomplishment out of it, I will support it.

Reading to her doll

Astrid reads her Christmas book to her doll.

Reading while on the potty

I had to post about this little morsel of toddler-parentdom before it's forgotten.


Tonight as usual, to get Astrid ready for bed, she sat on her potty before her bath. I used to sit and wait (I still do if it's just pee pee), but #2 takes awhile, and I've taught her to let me know when she's done so I can get other things done while checking in on her. While she was going potty, I was putting a stack of books together for her bedtime reading. Astrid came in and saw the books on the table.


Me: "Are you done?"
Astrid: (Silence. Focused on the stack of books.)
Me: "Astrid, did you go potty?"
Astrid: "Books."
Me: "Did you go poo poo?"
Astrid: "Uh...no." (pause) "Book?"


I tried to explain to her that the books were for after her bath and that I would read them all to her. So she knew that she wasn't supposed to take a book, but she hadn't seen some of these books in awhile and I could see she wanted to. So like a little ferret, she snatched 2 books and ran with them to the bathroom. I had to laugh out loud. She was laughing too. I guess if you have a vice - that's not such a bad one to have.


I followed her to the bathroom and found her sitting on the potty with the books opened in front of her along with an old magazine, looking guilty. We've been away from the house this week, and haven't replaced the magazines in the bathroom.


Me: "Do you want me to get you a new magazine?"
Astrid: (big eyes of surprise) "Yeah!"


I brought her another magazine that she hasn't flipped through yet (The New Yorker) and was met with a heartfelt "Thank you!"


A couple of minutes later she came back and said, "All done. Astrid go poo poo."


While I was cleaning up Astrid was clapping and saying, "Good job."


This potty-training thing isn't so tough after all. I no longer have to change poopy diapers since Astrid always uses the potty for that. Except for the time we were at the mall, and she wasn't able to go #2 in the restroom and went in her diaper 10 minutes later, (which was partly my fault b/c I got tired of crouching down in the stall holding her and making sure she didn't touch anything), I can't remember the last time I changed a poopy diaper. She will sit on the potty on her own a few times everyday and do her business. Just like that it happened. It's really true what they say - when a kid is ready to be potty trained you'll know. But no one mentioned the part about having new reading materials available for potty time. I guess that's just Astrid. =)