Gus the Duck

[kirstenj_2004]

It all started about three weeks ago, when George was playing with his alphabetic fridge magnets. He has been fluent in the alphabet for a long time now, but it still gives him a sense of pride to show me letters and name them. It's something he's good at, and we all like to do stuff that we're good at. Three weeks ago, though, George took it one step further. He came to me holding a group of magnets. He held them up, the letters B, O and Y in sequence, and he said, "Boy". He then said one of the few phrases that he has mastered: "I am a boy".

About ten days later, he handed me his Magna Doodle and told me to write a D. Then he told me to write a U. Then a C. Then a K. Then he made me draw a picture of a duck.

Happy, happy, joy, joy. George appears to have made the connection between the spoken word and the written word. He seems to now understand that the things we verbally say can be represented by these symbols that he has been able to identify for so long.

Yesterday he made another giant leap. I was at my computer, and George was moving his magnets around. I thought he was spelling out Boy or Duck or something. I thought wrong. He came and tugged at my sleeve to make me look at what he had done. There on the fridge, spelled out in magnets, was the phrase, "Gus teh duck". I used hand-over-hand assistance to help him switch the e and the h to make "the". Then he pushed the magnets aside and moved some more around. "Zac the r" appeared on the fridge. Then George ran off and started rooting around in toyboxes and corners. Eventually he came back with the magnetic letter A, and finished his phrase. "Zac the rat". This was followed by "Peg the Hen".

I don't know who Gus, Zac and Peg are. Presumably they are characters in books George is reading at school. They could be figments of his imagination for all I care. He had a picture in his mind and he was able to convert that picture into words. This is huge. This could lead to all kinds of breakthroughs. I am even seeing the fridge magnets as a potential form of communication.

I have to get more of these magnets. You'd think I'd have enough. We have two full sets of the Leapfrog Fridge Phonics letters, plus a set of Word Whammer letters. But they are not exactly chained to the fridge, so many of them are in all sorts of other places. I don't know what would have happened if George had not been able to locate another A to make the word "rat". If he is starting to spell out phrases, he needs to always have all the letters he needs. So I am spending the day on Ebay, bidding on letters. I will probably end up with letters covering the entire front and side of the fridge, and that's OK.

Anything to help George continue on this trajectory is fine by me. I am so proud of him, and so excited to see what he'll surprise me with next.

[RedBarren]

I think I found your son's friends.

And I thought I asked you to leave tissues when you wrote stories like this.

Oh, a hint -- while you're on eBay, get the kid some numbers too.
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Folding@home

[Save_the_Gnome]

Kirsten, what a huge leap for George! Congratulations to George and his new appreciation for the written word. It is always those first moments that are absolutely spell-binding.

Don't bother with E-bay, go to your Dollar Store and other outlet stores. I just bought a magnetic set for my nephews for $1.25. No need for postage.
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To plant a garden
is to believe in tomorrow.