this post brought to you courtesy of the letters "Q" and "T"

I first posted about Zoo Boy's forays into the world of reading last week. The pre-reading activities have continued around here, and I thought might be fun to document a bit. I unfortunately didn't get a whole lot of photos of the process, but I've been jotting down notes as things have progressed.

So last week, Zoo Boy was figuring out that he could spell words using his animal alphabet puzzle by looking at a word, and copying it with animal letters.

The next day, he pulled out a set of magnetic alphabet letters. He was getting frustrated at only being able to spell out words without duplicate letters in them with those animals. With the magnetic letters, he had a lot more freedom to spell out more complex words.

The following day, he was building letters with sticks (see his "T" below).

Earlier this week, he was asking for specific books with words that he wanted to see and spell out. I find it interesting that the words he was looking for were all in capital letters in print. He still gets confused with some of the lower case letters -- "l" and "i", and of course the complicated "b" "d" "p" "q". Upper case he seems to have down pat, although I still get the impression that he's not sight-recognizing words yet (other than his own name). I think he was asking for words that he knew had letters he could recognize and wanted to see how the word looked.

"Mommy, where is that book about summer alphabet poems? I want to write long words." Of course, he's NOT writing yet -- what he wants is for US to write them out for him, on the magnadoodle, on the chalkboard, on paper with crayons. He's taking immense pleasure in seeing that the words look the same whether they are in print in a book, written on different surfaces, or spelled out in magnets.

So it came as no surprise yesterday when, while playing with playdoh, he decided to start making playdoh letters. It was a team effort, with him directing: J would roll out some playdoh, and Zoo Boy would instruct him as to what letter to make. J would find the right cookie cutter letter and press it out, then hand it to Zoo Boy, who would practically burst with joy, squealing "P!" or whatever other letter was produced. Again, he's delighting in the letters and words looking the same regardless of the way they are constructed.

It's a fascinating process to witness.