D1 received a book called Eating the Alphabet for Christmas, which goes through the produce section alphabetically. It's become a favorite on the potty book rotation. And it reminds me of a pet peeve about alphabet books: they show no regard for preparing to teach phonics.
I try to tell her that "C" says "/k/ or /s/", and then there is a bunch of cherries just waiting to make me a liar. In other books, you might encounter a knife on the "K" page, and in this one you encounter the unusual problem of there being no English "J" fruits or vegetables--so I am left trying to explain the sound of "jalapeno" and "jicama."
It would be most helpful for someone to make a phonetic alphabet book that provided samples of the most common sounds of all the letters and leaves such conundrums as silent letters for at least first grade.
I did something of the kind when I taught my youngest brother to read, at least for the vowel sounds. For A, we made a paper with an /a/lligator being ridden by an /ay/pe and our f/ah/ther. The ape was covered with dryer lint. Oh well, it's more fun to do that sort of thing than have a book someone else did, anyway.
D1 loves looking at the vegetables and fruits and naming her favorites. Last weekend she climbed up to the dining room table where DOB and I were playing Upwords and started pointing to different letters, saying "EEE," "AAAHHH," etc. She'll do something similar with the letters on the cover of the book. So she seems to have grasped the idea that those little black squiggles stand for sounds, although which letter goes with which sound is still a long ways off.
Meanwhile D2 is at a more rudimentary level of language development. He was laying on the floor of the hallway yesterday, blowing spit bubbles at the wall while D1 and I read books and chattered. Thinking he might feel neglected soon, I said, "Hey there, D2, we haven't forgotten you." He turned toward us and smiled, so I think he knows his own name. | 