Proud as Punch!

Back in January we headed to a birthday party for one of Byron’s little kindy friends. I wrapped the present and as usual got Byron to draw in the card. This time though, I asked him to write his name. It was a mission – there were tantrums and performances over the fact we wouldn’t write his name for him. We offered to help but that wasn’t good enough. It was “I can’t this” and “I can’t that”. It was a most frustrating experience. In the end I think we gave up and wrote most of it ourselves.

Similarly, last year at kindy Byron started off a treat with his Montessori activities – he was keen as could be. However, that keenness soon waned and Byron lost interest. He wouldn’t practice his letters. His attention span was terrible and I started to worry that Byron, who is naturally quite intelligent, would waste his abilities. The year went on and he didn’t really improve much.

This year however is a whole other story. We changed kindy rooms (because he and his little girl friend with whom he has a love hate relationship were causing many distractions for each other and other children and needed to be separated) and it seems to have made the world of difference.

Today when I got home from work, there Byron was on the floor practicing his letters and words. Trevor said he had been doing it since he got home.

“Te Te Te”…”Aa Aa Aa”…”Da Da Da” (LeapFrog character if you didn’t know)

He was sounding out all the letters to heaps of words like 'cat', 'top', 'tad' and even 'Lily'. He was concentrating just so.

It seems to have clicked – the phonics aspect of learning words. I’m so proud of him.

Best of all though, he has learnt to write his own name. My little guy can spell and write his own name.

I’m so chuffed!