Thank You Roar! For the record, I didn’t think I was imposing my own agenda on her, but, yeah, I guess I was. I thought a child who wanted to learn how to read and was doing so well aurally would want to actually read. I was just trying to do my best to help her do that. But, I am aware that I can do more damage than good by interfering with her process.
I did print out some sentences yesterday and pasted them around her play room using words that I know are really easy for her. She read them all eventually, but one made a huge impact on her. "Matt is a bad frog." She went crazy about this one. I think she thought it was just so silly. She keeps reading it over and over. I think I could have a lot of success playing on her sense of humor in the future.
But, we have steered clear of reading books (at least the ones where I was encouraging her to read) and starfall. We have played around more with words orally. I taught her how to count syllables in words, She does awesome at this. I asked her to spell CVC words using letter names instead of letter sounds and she told me to go jump off a bridge. Not really, but she made herself clear that she does not want to do that. So, I only asked once. The last few days have been pretty good.
Today she was commenting on how there were carbohydrates in her crackers. I asked her if she could count the syllables. She did. Then she asked me what carbo meant. I had no idea. I bumbled something about carbon (but I really have no idea.) Then she said, "hydrate...is that like de-hydrate? What does hydrate mean?" I swear, she would probably enjoy talking about latin roots at this point. This reminded me of the time I mentioned that that the marshmallows (we made homemade marshmallows for Christmas) were made among other things, gelatin. She said, "Oh gelatin. Like the jelly you put on english muffins...or a jelly fish...or gel." Then she went off on a tangent. "Would you rather go to gel or prison?" I will NEVER forget that conversation. I laughed so hard. She was also convinced prison was by for the better choice.
For anyone interested in reading and vision, I found this. It reads like a commercial for developmental optometry, but I found it in a PEGY article about 2e children.
Quote: The Two-Edged Sword of Compensation: How the Gifted Cope with Learning Disabilities By, Linda Kreger Silverman, Ph.D.
Children who begin reading at 2, 3, or 4 are bringing naturally far-sighted eyes into near-point focus, which can lead to slight muscular imbalances. This does not mean that parents should hide the books and the cereal boxes, so that a young ready-to-read mind is prevented from doing so. The imbalances are easily corrected. A behavioral optometrist who specializes in vision therapy can retrain the eyes within six months. Some gifted children have tracking problems—they lose their place when they are reading, or near-far/far-near focusing problems—they find it difficult to copy from the board. Children who play music by ear and cannot master the art of reading music may also have visual tracking difficulties. Children who hate puzzles may suffer from weak visual perception. And gifted children who begin to read well, then suddenly stop reading, may have difficulty reading smaller print. Some have poor binocular fusion, depth perception, visual discrimination, visual-motor coordination, or visual perception. These problems are not always easy to detect.
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