Spell vs. Smell

Being the parent of a toddler has taught me how difficult the English language is to master. Not only does one have to catch all of the nuances of the language, but it's easy to see (hear) how miscommunication can happen.

Nathaniel has the book 'Pat the Bunny' (which I thought for the longest time was the name of the bunny. It isn't, it is a command. Gosh, that is another example of how difficult learning English is!) and in part of it is the whole, "Paul can smell the flowers, now you smell the flowers" with the page of scented flowers. Nathaniel leans over and proceeds to blow his nose on the page (because he doesn't understand the difference yet, he just sees how mommy smells things and mimics the sound).

Well, Nathaniel also has this little old travel boggle game which is really just flashcards in a scrolling thing with pictures and words. He loves to scroll through the pictures and point out what things are, "Feet!", "Baby", etc. This morning he was looking at it and started pointing to the letters and saying them or sounding them out (YAY!!!). So, I sat down with him and we were looking at the pictures and I would ask him to point out the letters. One time I asked him, "Can you spell that?" and he leaned over and smelled the picture.

I need to enunciate I guess.

I also notice that he confuses H and N; I and T; and sometimes B and E.

It's interesting how we see the world through our kids' eyes and begin to understand how frustrating and confusing life can be.

But, I am excited that Nathaniel sat down in front of the word FEET and said, "Fffff...Eee...Eee...Tee!" Sure, it was a combination of sounding out and spelling, but reading starts somewhere, right?