Sign of the Times

Bud and Sis's appetite for language is enormous, almost matching their appetite for food!

During most meals the kids spell out the letters of the words around them, on our walls or on cereal boxes or on t-shirts or on anything they can see. And on our trip to Texas, Bud did several word searches, on the plane, in restaurants, and in the hospital waiting room. Sure, he can't read the words, but he can find the letters, circle them, and then cross out the word in the list. He loves it! And he's pretty good. Sis likes word searches too, especially if they're homemade by Mama, who excels at making up themed puzzles--with family names, animal names, Texas words, etc. And they are both expanding their sight word knowledge--Bud and Sis both recognize "zoo," while Bud knows "Pop" (he asked yesterday why Pop's name was on the pop-up book!) and "Gommie" and Sis knows variants of Mommy and Mama. Plus their own names.

And we just spent all of lunch, which we ate out at the Tex-Mex place, signing to one another--about food! They kept asking for words--hot, food, eat, now, later, chicken, want, like, dislike--and Sis even made them into sentences. Luckily, I know most of those words in sign, having learned signed English from my Aunt P and some ASL from a class I took years ago. And of course, from watching "Signing Times" with the kids when they were very young. It was great then because it got them interested in communicating--they could sign 10+ words to communicate requests before they were one, which I think made life much easier back then. Later, they loved learning all the animal signs as they learned the sounds of the animals too. But then there was a sign hiatus. For awhile we were focusing on Chinese, then it was identifying the English alphabet. Now, it's back again. They're close to learning the whole manual alphabet and each can sign out his or her name. Which I think is great--I loved knowing sign language as a child and always wished I was more fluent than I am (though I can hold a simple conversation with a very patient person). It's pretty much the only language I can pass on to the kids, there being almost no need for reading ancient Greek and Latin in preschool. And, of course, I've recorded my troubles with teaching them Chinese or Thai, two languages I neither know nor can pronounce.

I feel like Professor Higgins over here, with words and letters around me morning, noon, and night. Sure, I'm proud and impressed. But also a little nervous about how their learning how to read will change things. For now, I control information that comes to them in written form, but, with reading, the whole world will be open to them. One more layer of parental protection, control, will be gone. Of course, there are more up-sides than down--all the wonderful books, access to information, a better understanding of the world around them. So we just keep on spelling and signing and searching.