by Pete Wright
Sophie’s in school, if I haven’t said anything about that already. She’s attending the Goddard School in our neighborhood four days a week. So far, we’re thrilled about the experience. Sophie loves it, she’s making some good little friends and the program brings the world to her, right in the playground: everything from the Oregon Zoo’s petting zoo program to the Children’s Museum.
Each week, the kids work on one letter of the alphabet. They write it, the bring things to school that begin with that letter, etc, then they bring homework that consists of tracing pages full of dashed glyphs of that letter for them to trace.
Now, I wasn’t a homework kid. I didn’t like doing it, for just about any subject, and when I did do it, I’d be listening to music, watching the tube, whatever. Sophie, on the other hand, loves it. She comes home and will sit for hours tracing, drawing, painting her letters. She uses the words over and over again in muted conversations with herself. She, unlike me, is a homework kid.
Of course, the punchline here is that Kira really is a homework kid. Anyone who knows her could figure that out — she’s the studious type. I’ve lived with that as an assumption for months, thankful that Sophie didn’t pick up my habits. I was OK with all of this. Then, fate gave me the most wonderful gift: a snapshot of DNA that directly traces Sophie’s budding alphabet interests to her mother’s own nerdery in crisp, typed, serif. What follows is an excerpt from the Colorado Springs Montessori School Annual Child Evaluation of Kira Lee, age 4.3, May 15, 1977.
Language
Kira’s speech and vocabulary are well-developed. She is an enthusiastic participant in language enrichment lessons, thus continuously increasing her vocabulary. Kira sounds and fuses letters easily for word making. She spontaneously can say most 3-5 letter phonetic words after sounding them once, and is beginning non-phonetic word exercises also. It seems as if Kira cannon practice writing enough. She is forming her letters well and loves writing one child’s name after another. She is also practicing writing groups of words. Often, this work fills most of the morning.
Mathematics
Next to reading and writing, her greatest interests of the moment, Kira spends the most part of her time with counting work. Presently, Kira is working on counting to 100 by 1′s and 10′s, and recognizing all the written symbols. She is ready to start counting by 2′s, 3′s, 4′s, etc., and to be introduced to the decimal system, and the process of addition.
Areas where child needs help and encouragement
Kira is increasingly expressing the many aspects of her personality. Still, occasionally she will cry or become very silent and uncommunicative, distressed and apparently unable to express her feelings. She has stated, at some times, that she does not know why she is upset. However, she has also shown signs of having pangs of self-doubt, saying something like “I’m shy of trying it.” With continued encouragement I hope to see Kira more easily able to express such feelings and with less distress.
I don’t know much about genetics, but I like to think I can pick trends out of a line-up. Take out Kira’s name from the above passages and you have, down to every last detail, Sophie. Where am I in her development? Good question.
I still can’t count to 100 in 2′s, let alone 3′s and 4′s.
I hate math.
I write with broken fingers. Isn’t that what computers are for?
I’m only silent and uncommunicative when I’m kicked, solidly, in a soft place.
Then again, Sophie walked into our bedroom this morning as I was putting away some laundry. She stuck out her tongue and curled the sides of it, then smiled broadly and ran from the room in a fit of giggles. I stuck out my tongue and curled it.
“I can do that,” I thought. “She got that from me.”
