Puzzles

John loves puzzles. This morning he came down to the kitchen but then soon disappeared into the den where I heard a heavy silence. I thought mischief might be occurring, but walked in to find him engrossed in puzzles, which he had spread out.

This is most of our puzzle collection, which I've bought mainly at consignment sales. John can now do puzzles of about 36 pieces.

He is now teaching Mary how to match the pieces.

And, as I think of how puzzles teach image matching and connecting, I am reminded to share that John is very recently showing a lot of interest in letters. There is a very wide range of normal for learning to recognize letters, learning their sounds, and learning to read. I personally know two children who truly knew all their letters and the sounds by 18-24 months old. But then reading as late as seven, eight, or nine is actually within normal (despite all the hysteria of a child not knowing how to write his own name two weeks into Kindergarten). I was reading by four years old, so even though I take a relaxed approach, it has been a little hard on my parental ego at times that John showed no interest or capability in recognizing letters or remembering what sounds they make. He still scribbles instead of drawing patterns or stick figures (apparently the scribbling stage can be "typical" up to about age five, but, of course, many children are drawing stick figures and writing their own names at age three).

But a few weeks shy of four years old, suddenly we've had many moments of interest. John will be staring at a cereal box and shout out that he sees three letters that are the same. Or he'll ask me what sounds certain letters make. He has started "writing" us messages and folding up the bits of paper, then passing them to us, back and forth (endlessly). So I've started telling him what fun it will be when he learns to read because then he can really write us notes and read the signs on the road that he's always asking me about. For the first time, he's responding with eagerness, that he does want to learn letters and to read! So I think after this glut of holidays I will try again some pre-reading activities and see if he enjoys them this time instead of rejecting them. And, of course, we still love reading time together every day!