Counting In My Head

Just the other morning we were sitting at breakfast and Scarlett asked me the old ‘guess what’ question. You know how it goes,

 

“Dad, guess what I can do?” she asked.

 

“No what?” I said playing along with whatever was coming next.

 

“I can count in my head now”

 

“Really! Go on then show me” She looked at me and gave that considered stare and immediately started counting, her bright eyes registering slightly each number, I could tell but wasn’t going to let her know I knew.

 

After a few seconds, I interrupted the intense look and asked what number she was up to.

 

“Sixteen,” came the instant reply.

 

“Wow, sixteen” I said. “How did you learn to do that?”

 

“Oh, I just did” she said casually.

 

How about that huh? She seems to be doing particularly well at the Sunshine Kids pre-school all in readiness for the big move to primary school. In fact, it’s not just counting in her head that’s taking up some spare time these days but reading and tackling the mass of strange code that children must see in words and letters.

 

With the reading, she will take a book, usually something that’s been read to her a few times, and sit somewhere comfy to get settled in. When she’s ready she begins to read each page aloud. So for one of her favourites, Fidgety Fish, she opens the page as Tiddler is being told by mum to go out and swim and swim until he’s tired. Scarlett addresses each word and sentence as if she’s reading them word for word, describing the actions and events of each page. This is not her trying to pass off the words, for she cannot actually read fully just yet but it is more like a basic understanding of the text and pictures. She’ll go all the way through the book to the end just as Tiddler gets back home after his adventures and falls asleep, taking great delight at finishing the book.

 

It won’t be long though before she really is reading the words. And spelling them too, which is something else that’s also coming into the day to day conversations as she learns to sound out the letters making up names and words. So, she’ll spell out Jacob’s name at pre-school like this; Je-ay-er-K-ob-er because at the moment everything ends in –er!

 

School in just a matter of months, who would’ve thought it, seems just like yesterday that she was running around the garden in France filling the paddling pool using empty lemonade bottles without a stitch on nor a care in the world…