Pattern Recognition
May 13, 2010 at 6:00 pm 2 comments
My kids are three years old — yes, both of them are three years old; they’re twins — and they already know how to read and spell. I’ve always enjoyed watching kids’ intellectual development, but it’s all the more exciting when they’re your own children.
They’re pretty good with numbers, puzzles, and patterns, too, but yesterday they reminded me that they’re still just three years old. Alex, Eli, and our golden retriever Remy were riding in the car on the way to a local park. From the backseat, Eli asked, “How do you spell park, daddy?”
This is a word that Eli knows how to spell, so I said, “I don’t know. Can you help me spell it? What’s the first letter?”
That was all the prompting he needed. He spelled it easily: “P-A-R-K.”
“Great!” I said. “Let’s spell some other words. What’s the opposite of light?”
Alex said excitedly , “Dark!” and then spelled it correctly: “D-A-R-K.”
“Excellent!” I said. “And you have a cousin…”
“Mark!” Eli screamed. “M-A-R-K!”
“Hmm… park, dark, Mark… and what would Remy do if he saw a cat?” I asked, thinking that they’d see the pattern of rhyming words.
“He’d chase it,” Alex said.
I chuckled. “Well, yeah, he probably would. But what else might he do?”
“He’d eat it!”
Like I said, they’re only three. “I suppose he might,” I said.
Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: alex, dark, eli, mark, math, park, pattern, spell.
1.
sonu | March 9, 2011 at 8:44 am
Sir, Its really admirable the way you teach your child, i mean by asking him question and let him think. I am from India, where unfortunately mugging is the way to learn… Please, keep it up…
2.
venneblock | March 9, 2011 at 10:55 am
Thanks for the compliment. I never feel like what I do with my boys is anything special. I think it’s going to become my personal mission to work with families so they can give their kids the same opportunities that Alex and Eli have.
Sorry to hear about your situation. Keep your chin up.