In our house we follow the principle that learning is and ought to be fun. Lessons are done joyfully and skipped if we are in poor spirits. Xander is praised continuously. One of the main benefits of our lessons is the bonding experience. Because of this philosophy, we do NOT test. The knowledge is for him, not me. I present him with plenty of material but never ask him "what does this say?" and expect him to product an answer Not that he could answer anyway, but you get what I mean. Putting him on the spot like that would add pressure and take away the fun. However, from everything I have read, playing an assessment "game" every once in a great while is acceptable.
Well now that he is 8 months old I was thinking he is more than capable of pointing. I got out two word flash cards (eye and nose) and asked where one was to see what he would do. He ended up looking at them both for a few seconds then grabbing the correct card, to much praise of course! Well he grabbed it with his right hand (seems to be the dominant one at the moment) and it was closer to his right hand, so I decided to try again. This time I used "eye" and "hair" but asked him to find the one that was on his left side. He still used his right hand but grabbed the correct card anyway! We did a happy dance together and I did a good job of not crying with pride!
I know they are silly little words. I know that I chose words to which he had quite a bit of exposure (YBCR, LR, and Doman style flash cards
). I know there could be plenty words he has been taught that he won't recognize and that he is no where near ready to pick up a book and understand its contents. It doesn't matter. I am still absolutely over the moon. It is nice to think that at least some of the time and energy I have been putting in for the last five months is paying off. I am so grateful that I have been able to work with him and am excited to continue!
No comments:
Post a Comment