Momma letters, baby letters and squeakless learning.

Writing his name is coming along. Slowly. Very slowly. Painfully. Slowly.

So slowly that I've learned something new; Letters are not writing.

I am just starting to wrap my brain around this.

Letters are not writing.

Letters are the base of the pyramid of written, typed and most other non-spoken forms of communication.

Writing involves fine motor skills and squeaky sounds on delicate paper.

Letters are not writing.
Typing is not writing.
Writing is not reading.

And which do I want more? Writing or reading? 

So we are taking a mini-break from writing to learn letters. Not A is for Ant because Boy couldn't give a Hootie's Blowfish about Ants or Aunts or Alphabets. And no, he can't sing the song. So I'm trying a work around.

He learned the letter 'H'.

 "It's a line (finger down his chest) and another line (finger down the other side of his chest) and a line (finger across the middle). That is Hero Factory."

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

Light bulb moment. I love light bulb moments.

"Yeah. That's called an 'H' and 'H' is for 'Hero'."

Now he's telling everyone. Our world is the letter H.

So progress a few to rainy day/not enough to do/Youtube day/Momma's beat day.

"What do you want to watch?" YouTube, I love/hate you.
"Hero Factory." Of course.
"Ok." (Starts typing)
"NO! I will do it! I will type it." (proceeds to find iphone's mini letter 'H').

Spectrum Mom mind blown.

I tried to help him with the rest but E & R.... they don't mean anything. They are rambling sounds that his little auditorilly challenged self just can't grasp.

Ok. Open up your brain.... think...

"Boy, what shows do you want to type into Youtube?"

"Hero Factory. Mixels. Thomas."

Type it up for him. Print it out. Let him follow the letters like he follows his Lego directions.

Problem solved.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-iqosn6ny4ZcEtjb0NsNVRpb2c/edit?usp=sharing

I thought.

But typing in himself he noticed the 'E' he typed came up on Youtube as 'e' and we narrowly averted a meltdown.

Ok. 

"There's a momma letter and a baby letter for each letter you type. They sound the same and they build the same words. You might type a momma and baby comes up. That's ok. They're the same letter."

Got it.

Problem solved version 2.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-iqosn6ny4ZQ3Y4ZmRPU1lucUU/edit?usp=sharing

If any of your kiddos are struggling, I hope you give this a try. It took me about 5 minutes on a computer doing pic searches for Google and copy/paste. Let me know if it works for you!!!!