Read'n and Write'n (and Sign'n)

Baylor has recently shown an interest in how things are spelled and what certain words say.  Since I am proficient at reading and writing, I am taking it upon myself to teach him as much as I can.  We started out with Lego letters, and he kept coming up to me with a bunch of consonants in a line asking me what they spelled.  I tried to tell him he needed vowels, but I knew I needed to be clearer.  So I made this sign for him and posted it on the fridge so he could reference it whenever he needed to.

He can now recite his vowels, including the "and sometimes Y", but I'm still not sure if he totally gets it.  Oh well, he will in time.

Whenever he colors, he always asks whomever is supervising him to write out letters and words.  I want him to be able to do this himself - in part because I want to encourage him and in part because it'd be nice to be able to just have him write things out himself while I'm cooking dinner.  So, when I saw this little contraption at Meijer the other day, I picked it up.

It's a pretty simple dry erase board by Crayola, and it comes with a bunch of different sheets with different letters, numbers, and activities on them.

Time will tell if this activity board helps him, but at the very least I think it gets the ball rolling.

When Baylor was really little, we started doing sign language with him to help him communicate before he was able to verbalize his needs.  In no time, he got very good at words like please, more, and again, and they kept tantrums to a minimum.  As a way to keep him occupied during mundane activities, I decided to teach him the alphabet in sign language.  Luckily, my husband was the one who helped me study my signs in college, so he knows the alphabet as well, and we've been able to teach him a few more signs here and there.  Finally, after months and months of him asking us to sign for him, he's able to sign a lot of the alphabet himself!  He also likes to show off his "I love you" sign, and that has become part of our daily routine.

I swear, my husband knows the ASL alphabet ... he just questions himself from time to time.

I must say, though, in teaching Baylor more about the English language I have come to conclude that it is, for lack of a more accurate description, jacked up.  Seriously, you tell a kid, "This is what sound this letter makes."  Then he comes to you and wants to know how to spell something like "would" or "nose", and all of a sudden you're delving into bizarro rules about letter combinations and silent letters!  And then even those rules have their exceptions!  Sheesh!

Hopefully I can adequately teach the little man about the English language and start him on the road to a love affair with reading and writing.  Now if I could just get him to stop saying, "Crap!"  Hm ...