Very Varied Foul Fowl

I've been trying to teach Kiki her letters, lately, and she doesn't seem to be too interested. However, she claims she'd love to read, and I know that to be true. I'm just wondering if my approach is all wrong. She's got an inquiring mind, and asks fabulous questions that definitely keep me on my toes. I started writing down the questions that she asks a while ago, and while I haven't gotten all of them, I've got a few that are great.

"Mom, how do hearts beat?"

"Mom, are we an enduring people?" (Where did this one come from?!?!?!?!)

"Mom, why did God make us?"

"Mom, how old is God?"

"Mom, why are people mean to each other?"

So, you can see a little glimpse into her VERY inquiring mind. Debris is my mechanical, wrestling loving maniac, Kiki is my thinker. I adore them both, having that stark difference in my home gives me great joy, humor, and a lot of interesting days. I'll never forget a moment in our first trip to Leavenworth with them last Christmas. We were in the Land Rover for 8 hours getting home, due to weather. They were so good. But the difference in the way they view the world was starkly illuminated when Kiki was asking us questions, one after another, like, "Why did God make us? Why is God perfect?" And Debris interrupts her, gleefully yelling at the top of her lungs, and waving her finger around, "I GOT A HUGE BOOGER! LOOK AT MY HUGE BOOGER MOM! LOOK AT MY HUGE BOOGER DAD!" Needless to say, we still chuckle about that one.

Anyway, I've been trying to work with them on their letters. I'm not to stern or strict about the time we dedicate to it, due to the fact that they have the attention span of gnats, or maybe toddlers, :-) and we are so busy with other things, but I've been trying more and more to point out letters, sound words out with them and get them on the track to learning to read. I go back and forth on the time that I spend with them on it. Should it be structured at this point, or more fun, etc. Any input from homeschooling mothers, teachers, whatever would be appreciated at this point. Most of the time my 2 year old rises to the occasion with my 4 year old's level of learning, but every once in a while the 4 year old steps back to the 2 year old level. Since they do everything together, I'm finding that I'm having a really hard time working with Kiki on her letters, without her getting distracted by Debris. However, Debris LOVES to draw, so I think I might be the problem at this point--maybe I just need to expect more of them, and they'll rise to the occasion?!

The realization that I need to get Kiki reading has come about partially due to the existence of Homonyms. The other day she asked what we were having for dinner. Without thinking, I said, "Some sort of Fowl." I immediately realized my mistake when she looked at me with horror on her face, and said, "Why are you feeding us somefing gisgusting for dinner?!" I quickly had to backtrack, and explain the difference between "Fowl" and "Foul". Which is hard to do if the person you're explaining these things too can't read. As a side note, I felt like I did a good job explaining how even tho the words sounded the same, they were spelled differently, and meant different things. She seemed to accept that. The next day I overheard her explaining to Debris that "Fowl means, 'Birds what are Gross'." So funny. So then last week I was talking to her about some fabric, and I said that the design on it was "varied." She immediately wanted to know, " The fabric design is very what?"

So, I'm thinking that while obviously I need to work with her in a structured "learn vowels and consonants" sort of way, I'm also going to include a little homonym in each of our lessons, and see if the difference between them will help her to recognize letters. I can always drop that if it appears to be confusing her, but I know she's crazy smart and capable of learning letters, and she just seems to be frustrated by it right now, I'm wondering if that's because she's just getting one letter at a time, and I'm not doing a good job of explaining how all the letters work together. Like, if I'm explaining "A" is for apple, that doesn't explain where the "PPLE" sound comes from in apple. That's what she seems to be having a hard time with. But I just don't want to overwhelm her, so I haven't been covering that. Perhaps I'll switch to learning three letter words, hop, pop, etc., and homonym's, and we'll see how that goes.

Happy Monday!