Story teller

A story Nidhi made up during lunch one day

Once there were two girls. One was named Cherry and the other was named Chocolate. One day Cherry and Chocolate went to school. Their teacher said, "Cherry and Chocolate, both your names begin with 'Ch', so you both stand up."

But Cherry and Chocolate did not know their letter sounds. So they ran away.

(Mis)Understanding English

I'm reading a bedtime story to Nidhi. In between she asks,

3yo: Why was the tail making a noise?

Me: Whose tail?

3yo: Big bear mother's tail.

Me: It wasn't making a noise.

3yo: Then why were they listening to it?

The sentence I had just read

"So, night after night, snug inside their den, the cubs listened to Big Bear Mother's tales."

You surprise me

We are playing 'doctor-doctor'. Nidhi is the doctor and picks up a notepad and pen to give me a prescription. She uses a whole sheet of paper, and writes letters all over the page, to prescribe 'P-a-r-i-s-i-m-o-l-l'.

That's her single-handed attempt at spelling Paracetamol.

***

Some of her remarks on the phone to Amma today:

"I want to get married in summer"

"Last night God disturbed my sleep"

***

Talking about her birthday

3yo: Can we have a party outside in the garden for my birthday?

Me: It will be very cold in February, Tochi

3yo: No, we can wear coats

Me: It will be cold. Everyone would like to be indoors, no one would want to be outside.

3yo: (getting upset) Nooo... I want to have a birthday in summer

Magical

Nidhi has started to read. It's truly magical.. the day your child picks up a book they've never read before and makes sense of it. She's always been very interested in books and alphabets. She learnt the phonetic sound entirely on her own. Sometime around the start of this year, she began getting curious about putting sounds together to make words and how to spell. I remember her trying to spell her friend Olivia's name = OLVA.

I bought a book, so that we would learn to read the 'right' way. We're about a third of our way through the book. While the book has given us a structure, I see, however, that Nidhi's reading of familiar books, draws from a combination of the following:

1. Her understanding of the story

2. Recollection of the words on each page

3. Her knowledge of spoken language structure

4. Alphabet/phonic recognition

Last week I got her one of those early readers from the library. But she seems to prefer her usual story books to "Ted in a red bed" (predictably, an easy read, but a nonsensical story). So, we returned that to the library and got several other regular books. I read the new stories to her a couple of times, and she's ready to read them herself.

The 'learning to read' book that I bought has a writing exercise at the end of each lesson. I have been skipping that so far. Well actually, we did the first few lessons - but a little differently! We traced the letter shapes on salt, instead of writing with a pencil. She enjoyed those, but it was getting messy at times. Maybe we ought to start those again.

I think I can spell

Nidhi is on the phone talking to her grandma. I'm hearing only her side of the conversation, naturally.

3yo: Do you know about the owl who was afraid of the dark?

3yo: I heard it on the music system

3yo: The owl's name is Plop

3yo: No, his name is Plop

3yo: Plop, Plop, Ploppp....

3yo: No, P-O-P-E Plop