Since I posted less than
two months ago about Kate recognizing a few letters, she has learned the entire alphabet and the sounds that the letters make. She just loves letters. One of her favorite things to do is go out and paint letters on the porch (with water). I make the letters and then she comes along behind me and traces over them--or sometimes she traces the lines pretty well, and sometimes she kind of colors them in--and when she gets to the end she says, "I need
more letters! I
love letters!" (Doug once, when asked for more letters, gave her a
thorn and eth. I told him not to confuse her.)
We got this
Leapfrog video out of the library, that has a little song (to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell") that goes, "The A says
aah, the A says
aah, every letter makes a sound, the A says
aah!" and goes through every letter of the alphabet. Sometimes we sing it together while we're painting. (Kate still has her
pronunciation quirks, so some of the sounds don't come out quite right, but she knows what they are.) She can also identify the letters just fine in isolation, not just in order or with the song.
Kate has also figured out that letters make
words, and she's started trying to figure out what the words say, which she does purely by guessing from the context. It's awfully cute. Like the time she was looking at the cover of
The Land Before Time and read, "T-I-M-E. That spells dinosaurs!" Of course she's got a long way to go before she's actually reading, but she's very interested in letters and words and books, which we think is great fun.
Kate talks in her sleep sometimes. Often something like, "I want to hold it!" which she says a lot when she's awake. The other night I saw her smile to herself in her sleep and murmur, "W-X-Y-Z!" Maybe she was dreaming about painting letters on the porch.
