0  | 

I found this helpful Thank You! Your vote will be tallied soon!

Our three-and-a-half year old daughters have been enjoying learning letters here and there, but we're not in a hurry for them to master the alphabet.  So, it's been fun watching them take it one step at a time, at their own pace.  It was especially fun this weekend watching them take a big leap forward.

Dinah was very proud of a drawing she created, so she hung it on the refrigerator.  She liked it so much that she decided to use the letter magnets to "write" her name on the picture.  She was so excited to get her name on her masterpiece that I saw something click in her eyes, and suddenly, she knew the letters in her name!  She can identify them, recite them, chant them, whatever you'd like her to do to demonstrate that she knows how to spell her name now.  She even marched into preschool on Monday and announced the spelling of her name to her teachers.  Djuna could suddenly spell her name too, right after seeing Dinah thrilling to her accomplishment.

Who knows what motivates a child to make a sudden connection?  It reminds me of that fabulous scene in The Miracle Worker where Helen Keller suddenly learns how to spell with her hands, the scene with the water and the pump.  The lamp ignites, the thrill takes hold.  Hopefully it's a light that will last a lifetime.