So after yesterday’s “ooh, he has a soul” moment… it’s time to step back to things that are actually about the kid. 😉

Many evenings, while my wife’s making dinner, I take the time to get the Monster’s homework out of the way.  It’s generally more meant as an effective use of time – every moment that’s spent doing homework while one of us is busy is a moment later that can be used for fun when both of us are available.  His class, “Together We Grow”, actually follows the real kindergarten curriculum, so his homework is little different from what other kindergarteners in Baltimore are working on.

One of the goals for this year, for him, is to work on his sight reading.

Now, he knows all of his letters, and the sounds they make.  When asked what letter makes the ‘mmmm’ sound, for instance, he’ll always tell you that it’s an M, and so on.  When it comes to his homework, he’s not always the most keen on cooperating and getting it done, since he’d rather go play or eat, or do anything else.  It’s hit or miss, therefore, if he’s going to read a word or take a blind guess.

On the other hand, he has plenty of games on the iPad that prompt him to spell words to go with pictures.  Most of these have the right answer in a shadow or the like, so he’s not quite guessing, and many of them are memorized as he’s working through the puzzles over and over and over.  Still, the other night, I sat down next to him while he was playing one of these games, and up came the picture of a bear.  I asked him what it was, and got the right answer – a bear.  So I asked him to spell it… and suddenly, he’s spitting out the right spelling.

Does he really know the word?  Or is he remembering having seen it in the program, and I’m just not noticing that it’s some kind of echolailic recall?

I don’t have any way to really know for sure, but it’s something we’re going to keep an eye on…