Learning should be fun and self propelled. I had witness my son easily find interest in learning abouts of things that he came in contact with. I had yet to determine definitively whether or not I should take a more active and forceful role in my son learning the alphabet.
By the time my son had turned two his interests had grown exponentially but he still seemed to lack an interest in learning the alphabet. I did not push. We were getting ready to welcome our second child and I was focused on getting things prepared for her birth. I had this crazy idea that I would work on getting my son potty trained before his sister was born. He had no interest. I did not push potty training either.
Soon enough, my daughter was born and we were preparing for Christmas. In a year and a half my son had managed to lose most of the letters to his now broken fridge phonics toy. I was so confident that it would help him learn his letters, when he was ready, that I got him another fridge phonics set for Christmas. Again, he was extremely excited and wanted to play with all the letters before opening any of his other Christmas gifts. Yet again, the excitement for the phonics toy wore off within a week or so. Still no interest in learning the alphabet. I still was not ready to push the issue. He had however received lots of paper and pens of every color for Christmas and was getting excited about drawing and writing, which was a step in the right direction no doubt!
By Easter, I was ready for my son to be potty trained. Changing the diapers of two children was getting weary. Learning the alphabet was put on hold even though I had just purchased him a “write your letter’s” workbook…
(To be continued…)