In Da BFTB
I'm not sure why I found this so interesting, but today Lang (at 3 1/2) hit a minor developmental milestone. Sporting a big grin, she announced--apropos to what I'm not sure--"I know how to spell 'bathtub': BFTB!"
We had to think about it for a second before conceding she was pretty close. Note that she can't read yet. She knows her alphabet, can write her letters (with a few glitches, like the "E" that often turns into a six pronged comb), and can write a few words from memory, like her and her sister's names. But never before has she taken a word and tried to figure out from how it sounds how it must be spelled. Which certainly seems like something new and qualitatively harder than what she's been doing with language so far. Of course, I'm sure if you read the baby books, they'll say that this is standard behavior at 36 months. Me, I'm holding onto my marvel, time lines be damned.
posted by tenaciousmcd @ 12:15 AM
2 Comments:
"Bathtub": a warm, wet soothing place, just like Mommy's womb. Any bets as to the connection between emotional satisfaction and verbal comprehension, Doc?
Screw the timelines! There's definitely some cool stuff going on in reverse-engineering how words are formed. I wish I could get my students to be this critically self-reflective.
More important, I LOVE how she chose to spell it. That's a much better system than English actually uses - way too many superfluous vowels in this language of ours.
Nice work, Lang!
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