Someone recently told me how important exposing kids to lower case letters is when it comes to learning to read. Makes sense right? How often do you read anything in all caps? (Except when shouting or making a point or trying to annoy someone! Not using ANY caps will do this as well. At least it annoys me, but that is another story.)
I started looking at all the alphabet stuff we had, yep, everything was in CAPITALS and if you think about it, some lower case letters are very different from their upper mate.
Well I made a point of finding some lower case letters to 'expose' Madison to (besides the words in her books). I have had our Leap Frog Upper Case Alphabet magnets since she was a tiny toddler. They are on the dishwasher and she has always enjoyed them. You put a letter in and it sings a song and it sings the alphabet when you press a different button. One of my FAVORITE toys to give.
I was so excited to find another toy that was similar but had places for three letters to spell short words and they were LOWER CASE! We had to have it. It even came with an extra "d" and "m" so spelling mom and dad would be possible. Can't explain the extra "e" but maybe "bee" is a popular toddler word! It is a fun toy also and plays different spelling games.
In any case, the researcher in me had to experiment. I had to see what would happen if I put all the CAPS in a row (She helped) and then asked her to pick from the jumbled Lower Case letters and "match" them to the Upper Case letters. It was a fun game and one I soon learned she had already mastered. Honest, it was fun for both of us, it wasn't a drill or a 'lesson'.
BEFORE
AFTER!
At first she was doing them in order, one by one, and then she started doing them when she saw one that matched. She got so excited and would say "LOOK, IT MATCHES!" The funniest part was when she would put her finger to her lip and turn her head to me while keeping her eyes on the letters and say "Look at what I am going to find."
I didn't help her ONE TIME and she got them ALL!
She ended our game with a loud "YOU SO PROUD OF ME?"
Yes baby, I am so proud of you.
Roxy was wishing we would go back to playing with the "Cherrios" book!
(Baby book note: Madison was 29 months when she did this)
CHEESE!
