toddler fun: one of each letter problem

[walkitout]

T. has been spelling words from SuperWhy. One of these words is "wheel", but he only has one of each letter, hence, a problem to be solved.

First solution: whel
Second solution: whe l (he left extra space in the lineup)
Latest solution: wheol

We're really wondering about that. They are upper case letters, so there's no real possibility of confusing the two, and past experience indicates he knows there's an issue here. Which forces us to consider the vastly improbable: this is a phonetic approximation.

Oy.

What the hell is going on here? I was fully sold on the idea this was see/say or whole word or whatever the non-phonetic thing is. But this really looks like a phonetic choice. And it's _definitely_ a vowel, which hardly seems random, given that he had 22 letters to choose from and only 4 of those are vowels (as many as six, if you really want to push things with the w and y).

Someone needs to tell him he's too young for this, but I am so not prepared to go there.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, this is unusual (none of my kids, who are pretty bright, could do anything remotely like it), and enough so that you may get some frankly scary reactions. I have friends with kids this precocious who've had folks tell them their child had hyperlexia, or that they were deluding themselves, or that they must be spending hours a day forcing their child to do flash cards, or whatever. All bogus, of course.

I'd just watch and document. I find this kind of thing very, very cool, because it's so neat to get insights into how such young brains can work on very abstract concepts. Most kids this age don't appear to recognize that letters have any connection with words/sounds at all. Even learning the names of letters is beyond them, and I think (not sure) that at this age most, given a bag of magnetic letters and something to put them on, will dab them on at random angles, not right side up. They just aren't developmentally ready, no matter how much Super Why they watch.

I *think* (but am no longer sure of the dates -- this is why you need to document) that my kids knew enough about letters to place them right side up at this age, but that was about it. By three they knew the names, and by four had a few sight words like STOP and EXIT. (During preschool they had a girl named Joy in their class, and Emily one day pointed out that the Joy of Cooking said Joy on it ... that kind of level.) I taught Peter to read just after his fourth birthday, but the girls couldn't do more than read and write a few words until they were formally taught in kindergarten.

don't think it's a brightness issue

[walkitout]

If it were, he'd be talking a lot more. :l I think it's just some kids do some things and other kids do other things.

There is almost certainly a strong genetic component on his father's side, also, in that he's got a couple cousins who were reading fluently at 3 (as in, I watched the younger one reading the scroll off an ESPN sports channel and asking what various words meant -- no possibility of having memorized something ahead of time). That family was huge into Baby Einstein stuff and they are also big believers in educational toys. Both parents are very verbal (both lawyers), the father more so than the mother (altho the mother is R.'s sister), in that the mother shares R.'s atrocious spelling. My side's pretty verbal too, but we have poor documentation on when I learned to read.

Given the family situation with the cousins, I'm betting this will be treated as more or less normal. Which all by itself is weird.

Re: don't think it's a brightness issue

[(Anonymous)]

Um -- I'm assuming you're only kidding about the late talking ruling anything out, right? 'Cause check out this kid, who apparently could read "before he could talk" (which I assume they don't mean completely literally, but more like what T. is doing -- starting to crack the reading code before getting real chatty): http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,960185,00.html

Not that I'm saying that T. is in that league. It's no insult to say he probably is not!

Helen S.

Re: don't think it's a brightness issue

[walkitout]

Holy Cow.

Geez.

I actually wasn't kidding before; I really am a firm believer in each-person-has-some-strong-point-(and some weak ones, too).

Wonder how he turned out?

[aswego.livejournal.com]

If you had only had twins, we could give one of them another set of letters and not the other one, and see what happens... ;)