Reading

I have talked before about how Ethan is already reading at a 1st grade level....and how he taught himself. This is one of his "super powers." I can remember when I started working with Ethan on his letters. I pulled out my uppercase magnet letters, and Ethan immediately began to say the names of several of the letters. I was amazed. I couldn't believe how much he had learned from us reading books together as well as watching kids' shows like Super Why, Sesame Street & Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. In a couple of days, he knew all of the letters. Here is a quick video of Ethan doing his letters...days after I got these magnets out for play. This was taken in September 2010, so Ethan is 2 years & 3 months old. This is just before he was placed in the Early Intervention program, and his speech is still very "vowel" pronounced. We could understand his language, and he knew all of his letters & numbers 0-9....and he was barely talking before his 2nd birthday.

 A few weeks after this video, we were at my sister's house. I told her that Ethan knew all of his letters, so she got out a board game to play with Ethan. It was kind of like CandyLand, but with letters. When I saw the game, I realized that it was all lowercase. I told her that Ethan wouldn't know them because we had only been using uppercase letters. She decided to play it with him anyway. Pretty soon, she turned to me, and said, "Jessica, he knows all of the lowercase letters." Unbelievable! Months ago, he was barely speaking & now he knows all of his letters?! 

Then we started working on sounds. We borrowed the LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Magnetic Letter Set toy from my sister, and Ethan was hooked. He played with it over & over again. Pretty soon, he knew all of the letters' sounds, too. He couldn't get enough. Soon, he was counting to 100 by ones and tens. Then, in May 2011, we were heading to St. Louis for my cousin's wedding. We were driving through McDonalds, when we heard Ethan in the backseat saying, "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." over & over again. It finally dawned on me that he was reading the exit sign that indeed read, "Thank you!"  On the way home from that same trip, we stopped at a gas station. My mom, who was riding with us, had gotten one of those Big Gulp fountain drinks. Ethan began to read the words on her cup. It was during that trip that we realized that Ethan could read. To this day, I am still amazed at the amount of words he can read. This past Christmas we were at his classroom's Christmas party. They had done a gingerbread theme. One of the centers was smelling all of the spices that go into the gingerbread recipe, and deciding which one was your favorite. Ethan blew our table away when he read every word on his paper...unreal. Here is the picture of Ethan's paper....

 This past weekend, we spent most of our time hanging out with my Dad & Stepmom at my sister's home. My 5 year old nephew has been getting into reading recently, and he has many short story books. Ethan picked up a pack of Easy Reader Clifford books...12 books in the whole box set. Ethan wanted to read them with me...and he read every single one of them. My husband quickly got out his camera phone to record some of our reading session. Ethan did need some help, as you will see, but this is the first time of seeing these books...and he can read them. Unbelievable.

 

 

These "super power" moments are what I try to stay focused on instead of what he is currently (or maybe never) unable to do. He has such a thirst for knowledge, and that is such a blessing. Someone once told me that Einstein couldn't tie his own shoes. Whether that is true or not, I don't know.....but I could see that. Ethan is so drawn to learning academic things, but has no interest or desire in learning how to put on his own shoes. And every time I try to teach him or ask him to try, it's a meltdown. Maybe I should tie some little books to his shoes?!?! Hum..........