WHOO-HOO!!!

Recently, Drew and I have been working on his letters. On his last visit to the optometrist, he was told (to the surprise of his parents, teachers, and me!) that his optic nerve was actually growing. (For those of you who don't know... he's always been able to see out of his left eye, but to such a small extent that it serves no purpose.) The optometrist recommended glasses.

Needless to say, we've been doing eye exercises ever since (we did some before, but they had more meaning now!). We looked at picture cards, we looked at colors, and recently I've been trying to teach him what the letters of the alphabet look like. He knows the ABC song, but he has no idea what the physical representation of each letter is.

Well, today we had learned all the way through letter J. (That's almost half!) I wrote the letters thick, large, and dark on pieces of white paper, and he can tell me (with about 85% accuracy- yes, I actually calculated that) what the letter is. Each of the letters stands for something to help him remember, visually, what it is. ("D" is for a big cream-filled "Donut," and "B" is for two "bunk-beds"- the letters are supposed to look like their cue words.) Today he was doing so well, and had mastered so many letters that I had an idea...

"Bear, here. Look at these three letters together. What are these?"

"C."

"Right... next one?"

"A."

"Okay. And the last one?"

"B."

"All right. Can you sound it out for me?"

"C-A-B. Cab!"

MY BEAR CAN READ WITH HIS EYES! WHOO-HOO!!!