Must. Remain. Calm.

I just keep repeating this to myself any time I try to teach Alex something related to reading. I swear, I feel like I'm suiting up for battle. More on this in a minute.

I've been rather busy the last few days despite the fact that I'm supposed to be resting. I managed to sneak into work and get some stuff done, but I have to get Reading report cards done by Tuesday so you may not hear from me before then. (Side note: Dawn, when you read this give me a call if I haven't called you already. I have some health-related questions for you.)

Emma came VERY close to saying "bye-bye" today. She also gave Dora and Boots kisses tonight. She really loves it when I read to her, and she's finally stopped trying to grab the book and twist it or crumple it while I'm reading. Dora seems to be her favorite, although that's probably just because of the big heads, open faces and bright colors.

She is starting to recognize commands now - she will point at things when I ask her, "Where's ____? Point to ______," in addition to stopping things when I tell her no. When she picks up a sock and I tell her, "That's a sock," she will bring it to her foot and try to put it on. Speaking of socks, she also will take off her socks and put them in her laundry basket while she's in her crib. THAT one had me giggling.

She also says "Ah ah" (arf arf) when I say "Doggie," or, "What does the doggie say?" or if she sees a dog. She's really exploring her vocal range, combining lots of consonant-vowel sounds, and I can tell she's going to start talking up a storm any day now. She gets so frustrated when she can't do something or can't communicate what she wants, but she's starting to figure out that there are ways that she can get something across to us.

Alex has decided that it's his goal in life to make sure Scott and I live by our own rules. He has told us several times that we need to "Stop that attitude" or "Don't show that tone." If he weren't right 75% of the time I'd tell him to knock it off. :-)

So, back to the heading of my post. One of the things that worries me most about Alex is his tendency to be SO much like me in one area - he HATES being wrong. I think that is what has been a huge block to his learning to read so far. He hates being wrong and he knows how frustrated I get when I try to teach him something and he can't focus on it. We have gone over the letter "A" 900 million times but he still can't tell me that the fourth letter in the word "bread" is an A. Being so NOT a primary teacher (I swear, those three years I spent teaching 3rd grade were three years too many) I have never had the patience for teaching the littlest ones. It has been quite a learning experience trying to adapt my teaching style to my most challenging student. I think we might have had a little breakthrough today though.

I decided to stop focusing on the letters themselves so much because there's obviously a block there and he may not be developmentally ready to start recognizing and naming those letters. And I already talked to the doctor - she said they don't start evaluating anything until they're school age and it's causing a problem there. So I decided to focus on concepts of print and word recognition. It seemed logical to go with the concepts of print thing, but word recognition just popped into my head as something to try. So this morning we worked on recognizing how many words are on a page by acknowledging the space between them. So we counted words on the first page before we read the story. Tonight I asked him what goes in between words, and he remembered that a space goes between them (score 1 for Marci!). Then we worked on the direction that we read, and he was able to tell me (with a little prompting) that we read from left to right and top to bottom. I had him point to the words as I read them, and I read fast or slow depending on how fast his finger was moving.

Then I showed him the word "the" and asked him if he saw any other words on the page that were exactly the same. He first started pointing to random words, which is his typical response, and I can't tell if it's because he really doesn't see the connection or he's just afraid to get the wrong one so he just points to anything on the page. Trying to be patient, I just kept pointing out the word "the" and asking him if the word he pointed to was really exactly the same. So then he starting pointing to words with letters from "the" - a "t" here, an "h" there, which was a bit encouraging, because it means he does recognize the letters, even if he can't name them. He even said, "But that's the same one" when pointing to an "h." He finally was able to find the other two "the"s on the page, and I told him what the word was. I then read the story to him, stopping every time I came to a "the" and having him say it. Although I had to make sure he was actually looking at my finger pointing to the word, as opposed to just saying "the" every time I paused in my reading. THAT was the hardest part - making sure he stayed focused.

I do NOT envy his future teachers.

Anyway, he learned several things today - there are spaces between words, we read left-right and top-bottom, and the word "the." I even wrote the word "the" on a card and put it in the pocket chart in his room, and since he was able to recognize it I game him 2 stickers - one for him and one on the card. I told him that any time he recognizes the word anywhere he'll get another sticker on the card. He seemed really excited about that part.

We'll see if it sticks.

He has really gotten into reading lately. He has been constantly asking us to read to him, and he was very excited to pick out his own book when we went to Borders yesterday. He asked me to read it to him at least 12 times today. I'm hoping that this enthusiasm will gradually translate into increased enthusiasm for the mechanics of reading.

Speaking of mechanics of reading, does anyone have any suggestions in this area for me? I've tried flashcards but he has no patience for them, and I've tried more kinesthetic approaches (giving him foam or fabric letters to handle, tracing letters with his fingers, drawing letters on the ground and having him walk on them, whiteboards and markers, etc.) but he still doesn't seem to get letter (or number, for that matter) recognition. I really just need to know if I'm worried for no reason or if I should be concerned, because his preschool has said the same things that I've been concerned about lately. He mixes up letters and numbers and can't focus there either.

I'm just hoping that one day something will suddenly click and I won't have to worry about it, but until that happens, isn't it my prerogative to worry?

Must. Remain. Calm. My new mantra.