Category Archives: education

For several weeks, durai (dry) was Rachel’s antonym for we’, diti, ‘ow (wet, dirty, ouch). She would talk about dirty and dry hands, or ouch (sore) and dry knees. Lately, she has started to use deen (clean) sometimes. Di and dido (big, little) sometimes occur instead of her old favorites wow, wee. She is beginning to use location words hia, dea, roro dea (here, there, over there), and when she bruises herself, she lets us know where to kiss by pointing and saying rai dea (right there), usually several times. Just today she started tagging otay?, dat rait? onto sentences to make them questions.

She does constant pattern drills, making the same sentence using Rachel one time, Mama the next, and Daddy the next—a standard substitution drill. She does endless repetition drills. We don’t drill her, she drills herself. She also does expansion drills: we say “Let’s brush our teeth” and she says Daydo dah Daydo dee’, Daddy dah Daddy dee’, Mama dah Mama dee’. If we tell her we’re going home, she’ll expand it to dodi Daydo ‘ous, Mama ‘ous, Daddy ‘ous (going to Rachel’s house, Mama’s house, Daddy’s house). And then, of course, she also does negation drills: we say “Not that!” and she says yes, dat; we say “Rachel drink water?” and she says Not Daydo dwin’ wawa; we say “Don’t throw your noodles” and she says yes, dwow noonoh. She never uses yes to answer simple questions, only to contradict a no. She’s definitely showing signs of nearing the Twos.

UPDATE: This child is now a 24-year-old teacher in the Boston Public Schools.

Reading is now the rage with Rachel. In one short week, she has nearly memorized Theodore LeSieg’s The Eye Book, one of the “Bright and Early Books for Beginning Beginners,” with a Cat-in-the-Hat trademark. Not that she can actually say all the words, but she knows what to expect from each page and can fill in at least the last word for every line. Of course, a person has to be familiar with her language and the situation in which she is using it to appreciate it because her articulation of consonants still has a long way to go. However, the vowels and the intonation are there. For example “airplanes in the sky” comes out as dayday die. Her other favorite books include Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever, with its zillion little pictures to name, and Hand, Hand, Finger, Thumb, which features rhythmical text and monkeys drumming on drums. So she drums on an empty oatmeal box, not quite keeping beat with the text. She especially likes the line “Dum ditty, dum ditty, whack, whack, whack.”

She devised another game for herself involving books this week. From a big chair in our living room, she found out she could reach a stack of pocket books on a high shelf. Her routine is to pull one book off the stack, name the colors on its cover, open it up and “read” the numbers 1-5, lose it and put it down beside her, and then reach for the next one. Sometimes, she will try to put the books back on the shelf, too.

Her vocabulary and the speech sounds she uses change daily. We never know what words she considers manageable enough to try out. Once she tries something, she looks for ways to practice it over and over. She often talks quietly to herself saying things like: Daddy wey, Mama dey (Daddy’s away, Mama’s staying); Daydo ow, Daddy rey, Mama bdu (Rachel’s [toothbrush is] yellow, Daddy’s is red, Mama’s is blue). Her favorite topics of conversation are the color and size of objects and comments on who (mostly her) is doing what.

She loves to be asked silly questions like “Does Rachel have a tail?” and sometimes starts the silly game herself. For example, she will point to her rabbit’s tail asking us to name it, then point to herself and ask uh?, so we get the hint and ask the question. Language seems to be on her mind all the time; she even talks in her sleep. Her dad caught a glimpse of her attempt to communicate recently. As we left our apartment one evening, we met the family next door. They have a two-year old daughter. Rachel was standing face-to-face with the little girl and knew she was in a situation that called for some kind of linguistic interaction. She thought quickly, pointed to her shirt, and said bdu (blue)!

Of course, we are glad that books and language are important to Rachel now, but we are also glad to see her working on physical strength and dexterity. Her climbing has become more routine and confident. She will climb onto a box or chair and proclaim doe-day, which seems to mean something like “look at me.” She has been observing older children who can jump and hop for some time; now she is beginning to see what she must do to make a jump happen, though she can’t quite execute one yet. She likes to stretch and hang from the rings at the park.

We see signs of the stubbornness that accompanies the “twos.” Rachel uses no fairly frequently and often repeats Mama, no! Daddy, no! for no apparent reason. She repeats that latter often enough and reflexively enough that she sometimes gets tongue-tied. When she catches herself saying Mama no! to Daddy, she might try again with Dama no! or Madi mo! We think that we often find positive ways of encouraging her to do or not to do things, but of course, we don’t always succeed, and she gets input from other sources, too. She deliberately tests her limits: Yesterday, I let her throw paper wads and balls and clothes but drew the line at books. She tried it a couple of times but didn’t protest when I put the books out of reach. This morning she tried again, but when I put the books up again, she seemed to say, “Just checking.”

UPDATE: This child is now a 24-year-old teacher in the Boston Public Schools.

Rachel has turned into a real neatnik these days. She not only informs us immediately when she has a “dudu” diaper, she also stops whatever else she is doing to close an open door, to push in a protruding drawer, to put down the toilet lid, or to clear the sidewalk of little twigs and gravel. She also shows a lot more initiative in trying to bring other aspects of her environment under control. She likes to choose one outfit over another when it’s time to dress. She starts fetching shoes and saying waw’ when she’s ready to go out. She heads for Uncle Barry’s car and says rye when she spots the car in our slot as she comes out the elevator. She’d rather push her stroller than ride in it when she’s feeling energetic.

One evening, she pushed the stroller almost all the way home (about 10 blocks) from the Italian ice cream shop we walked to. She tested every metal cover embedded in the sidewalk to see if it made any noise. If it didn’t, she would say no-o-o and move on. If it did, she would try stomping on it again several times. She also labelled every down-and-up driveway slope we passed over, with a down and an uh. (She also uses down and uh for upside down and rightside up, respectively.)

You may have guessed that language has begun to come thick and fast. We had thought that this might be the last complete listing of the words Rachel can produce, but she has already gotten ahead of us. She surprises us with at least one new word every day. She has even begun to talk in her sleep a bit. We’ll have to be content to list some of her favorites.

She can count to five, but tends to start with two unless you remind her. She likes the symmetry of tu, ti, tow, tai. She has the primary colors pretty well under control. Her favorite is doo (blue), followed by rey (red), oh (yellow), and dee (green). She has all of our names down pat: mama, dadi, and daydo. Her nasals, m and n, actually started when she named the nama (llama) that she petted at the zoo one day. Within a day or two, she started to rave about her mama, about checking the mayno (mail), about her nano (Anno’s Journey) book, and about things that aren’t true or don’t exist (no-o-o). So far, her use of no-o-o (it doesn’t exist) far outweighs her use of no-no-no (this is off-limits). That pleases us.

Some words are far enough beyond the frontiers of her pronunciation that she relies on sign language. Her word turn is signed by rotating her wrist and fingers. She uses that sign for revolve, twist, roll, turn over, turn around, turn a corner. When she’s feeling talkative, she signs turn and says wheel whenever any wheeled vehicle strikes her fancy. Open is signed with an open hand, close with a clenched fist. She will signal close before she closes doors, pushes in drawers, and restores seatbacks and tray tables to their upright position. She signs flash and squeak by repeatedly opening and closing her hand.

Rachel has also mastered several pairs of antonyms. One of her most charming pairs is wow (big) vs. wee (small). (Wee she picked up from her Three Bears book, wow probably from our comments about large spoonfuls on their way to her mouth.) She delights in comparing things wow and wee. Another pair, we’ and dwy, get pretty regular use at diaper-changing time. One pair consists of a spoken awake (wey’) and a signed asleep (the sh sign, but with forefinger across her forehead instead of her lips).

One time when she was playing in her crib, she composed a small compare-and-contrast sentence about two little stuffed gingerbread men. It is herewith quoted in full, with accompanying interpretation and commentary provided by a member of the rapt audience of one: rey wey’, oh sh [the last word was signed, not spoken]. The red gingerbread man was face up, the yellow one face down. (She puts her things to sleep by laying them face down.) Not quite “Give me liberty or give me death,” but a memorable utterance in its own time and place, nevertheless.

UPDATE: This child is now a 24-year-old teacher in the Boston Public Schools.