Takeshi - December 14, 1997

Today Takeshi painted in his workbooks. He really liked that. I also read "The Cat in the Hat" to hm and pointed to every "at" word as I read. That was ok, but then he was hungry. While I was making Macaroni and Cheese, I got out the magnetic letters and put "at" on the refrigerator. I said "What does that say?" Takeshi said "at". I was surprised because we've only seen it in lower case, not capital letters. Then I told him I was going to make a magic trick. Then I said that I could change the "at" to a "mat", and I put the "m" in front of the "at". I said "Now it says 'mat' just like we're sitting on a mat". I took the "m" off and said "Now you try to change the 'at'". Takeshi took the "m" and said "it says 'mat', just like we're sitting on". Then I said try one more. He took the "c" and put it up. I said "what does it say?", and he said "Cookie". I said "It's almost like cookie, it has a 'c' just like cookie." Then I sounded out "cat" for him.

Then I took a black pen and wrote "A fat ____ sat on a ____" and I wrote "cat, rat, bat, hat and mat" on flashcards. Takeshi chose 2 words and I read the sentence for him. We did this 2 times and then we ate.

I just assumed Takeshi would understand how to sound out words. Takeshi loves to read words and say the letter names and sounds, but he doesn't like to sound out words.