ABC's

By the time Beth was two years old, she knew all her letters. I could pour her wooden blocks onto the floor, and hold up any letter for her to name, and she always answered correctly. She was proud of her accomplishment, and I was thrilled to have taught her this first step towards reading. Of course, with only one child I had loads of time to work on these skills with her.

Things are a bit different when a second child comes along. Amy has been happily singing the ABC song for a long time now, but a few months ago I held up a block with the letter "Z" on it, and asked 3-year-old Amy to name the letter.

"Q"!, she proudly exclaimed.

I was horrified. Did this child really not know her letters? I tried a few more, and none of her guesses were correct. How could this be? I suppose I just expected her to have somehow learned alongside her sister, but I never actually spent any time teaching her, the way I did with Beth. So there I was, a librarian, with a 3-year-old that didn't know her ABC's.

Since then, we've spent a few minutes each day working on these tricky letters. I bought flash-cards, and we spread them all over the floor, building alphabet "trains". We spelled words on the refrigerator with our magnet letters. I pointed out letters at every opportunity.

Today, Amy successfully made an alphabet "train" with her flash-cards...all by herself. It may not seem like much, but it's the culmination of months of hard work. She may be quite a bit older than Beth was when this skill was accomplished, but that's okay. We got there. That's all that matters.

I think I'll start teaching the alphabet to Erin next week. Or maybe not. She probably learned them by watching Amy, anyway.