After needing a lot of practice, my two year old son mastered his first three souns. I decided to introduce him to “t” today. I gave him his “t”. He immediately caught on and confidently said “t” over and over. I then added a “sss” next to the “t”. After reminding him of the two sounds, I asked him which one was the “t”. He pointed and repeated “t”. Then with the most incredulous look he could muster, he said in almost a panic, ” where my ahhh (o)??”My two year old spilled some baking soda on the counter today. I couldn’t pass up such a perfect opportunity to draw letters in the spilled baking soda. We drew o’s over and over together in the powder. He was so excited to be drawing something that he knows has real meaning. His face shone with delight. His ahh (o) was right next to his work.  Although he doesn’t have the fine motor skills to draw the other letters without extensive help, he delighted in drawing his beloved  ahh (o) over and over. Throughout these exercises I could really see the importance and thoroughness of the whole brain, Montessori approach.

Later in the day, I was working with my five year old with the sandpaper letters. He remains somewhat resistant to working with anything related to reading. I decided to have a quick lesson with my two year old, knowing my five year old would be watching and listening intently. I happened to be working with t, o, and s, all of which my two year old is familiar with from his souns. Although we haven’t done much work with the more abstract form of the letters (with my two year old), he excitedly pointed to each letter while making the sound. He then saw his favorite letter and said with great excitement, “there my ahh!” As I suspected, my five year old was watching and quickly said, t-ahh-ss, toss!