Drawing and Writing
November 29th, 2010 by: joshua
[Portrait of Punk Rock Girl]
Ronin was impressed when Punk Rock Girl appeared in the Macy’s Parade last week. I asked who it was and she shouted “Punk Rock Girl!” and another little girl yelled “Raggedy Anne!” The looked at each other in confusion.
The parade was a big hit and afterwards we to the Sauvie Island tree farm to get a Chirstmas Tree. Ronin has been busy rearranging the lower ornaments ever since.
Here is an earlier work (April) from when she was just starting to make clearly representational pictures. Can you guess which one is Punk Rock Girl?
She’s also really interested in reading and spelling. Here’s an example of writing her own name. Remarkably only slightly worse than my own penmanship. She finds her lack of hand coordination really frustrating though. She knows what she wants to write but just can’t make the shapes. I showed her how to type words on the computer and she’s really excited about that. She’ll type her own name over and over and asks me to spell things to type out.
We haven’t spent too much time explaining letter sounds but she clearly understands the concept of reading. She can recognize all our names and some other words on sight. I know that there is a long standing controversy about sight reading vs phonics. I learned to sight read and I partially blame this for my inability to spell. However, I think sight reading is a simpler concept. Going from letters to sounds to a word is too many steps for her right now, but it’s pretty easy for her to just memorize a word. Mostly I teach her by pointing to the words as I read. She can answer questions like “Which word is Cat?” Then if I ask how to spell it she can read the letters off the page.
She spends a lot of play time “reading” books to herself. Of course, she isn’t really concentrating on the written words. She just memorizes the story after a couple of repetitions with mom and dad.
November 30th, 2010 at 7:31 am
I am impressed with her drawings. She is just 2 years old, and drawing representional figures is pretty advanced for a little tyke. And her devotion to her books and words (and ballet!) just makes me smile. Why are little kids so much smarter than we were at that age?
Her little cousin, Damon, was just here for Thanksgiving. He is 1 1/2. He hums little tunes—and can mimic the tunes you sing back to him. Oh lordy, the grandchildren are all geniuses! —Oma Peggy