ABC, as easy as I one two P?
on Feb 07 in General by DanKerry and I have held off trying to teach Amy to read. The various teachers we’ve talked to have said there are far more important things for a child to learn before starting school – like how to wipe their own bottom or sit nicely at the table. Of course Amy can’t do those yet either, but that’s beside the point. Schools these days use phonics to teach children to read, and if you start them off using another methodology it will only confuse the matter. Anyway, the poor kid is going to have enough homework to do when she gets to school, there’s no need to pile it on early.
Saying that, she has started developing some character recognition skills by herself. She is able to point out all the numbers from 1 to 10, and also has some universal symbols, such as the ladies and gents signs on toilets – which is incredibly irritating.
Up until recent times whenever we were out and about and Amy needed the loo she was quite happy to be ushered into the men’s room. My only worries were the unsanitary state of public toilet seats and trying to prevent her from washing her hands in the urinals. These days I also have to ensure she doesn’t catch a glimpse of the sign on the door or she is quite likely to refuse to enter – saying quite reasonably she is a girl not a boy (because boys have a “wully” and girls don’t).
I did experiment with allowing her to go into the ladies unaccompanied, but this was not particularly successful. She went in happily enough, but I was still waiting for her to come out ten minutes later. Hoping she was alone in there I knocked and went in to see if she was OK. she was, but I was rather distressed to find she had stripped completely naked and was busily absorbed in splashing water from the washbasin all over the floor.
Fortunately I have currently managed to fool her into believing that it is only the urinals in toilets that are meant for boys, the stalls are for girls. This isn’t a permanent solution, she’s going to twig eventually, but hopefully by the time she does she’ll be less likely to treat public conveniences like nudist camps.
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