The Wonder of the Letter

Persistence is a drive that certain individuals are born with while others have to motivate. Natural born is my one and only boy. My handsome 4 year old who never gives up on his goal. My baby grows so fast. I wanted to name him Dorian like the character from the book Dorian Grey but when he was born I took one look at him and the name didn’t fit. I decided to name him Arian. It’s a name that can be understood and pronounced in a lot of places. I wanted something international. His usual interest is something new that he has never experienced. Like any other child excited to learn new things. There’s only one thing that still excites him like it did for the first time. Alphabet. It’s something that he loves and that he has perfected very well for his age.

It took him long time to speak. We were speaking to him in 3 different languages. I always encouraged my country’s language. Bosnian, former Serb- Croatian. My step kids spoke to him in Spanish and the rest in English. He understood but he couldn’t speak any of them. It came to the point that he was getting frustrated and angry. He would start screaming. I felt bad for my baby. I wanted him to express himself. I decided to teach him alphabet. It was something that is mutual everywhere you go. He was about two years old. His amazement was priceless and unthinkable. He jumped up in excitement, his eyes got wide and the smile was stuck on his face. The shapes, the sounds, the meaning and pronunciation. All of the scribbling had a sound and it meant something. It took him few days to learn the whole English alphabet. It was more him then me. Arian pushed every day to learn more. He did not give up, nothing could bribe him to go do something else. He used one piece of paper that I wrote alphabet on it. It was his guide to ABC’s. Letters were written big and colorful. He would fill pages and pages, all letters. When he would write the first page he would pronounce the letters, after that it was just letters, no sound or anything. Sometimes I would have to go and check on him because he was so quiet and when I called him he was not responding. He was focused and did not want to give up. Even to eat was a problem. He was never hungry, or he already ate. Those were his excuses to keep writing. I would have to tell him that I would take away his colors if he didn’t eat. It had me wondering if it was the right thing to show him the alphabet. It went from an exciting thing to a problem. It was like an obsession for him.

Everything was in a shape of a letter. He associated objects with the letters. He would recognize some type of a letter in almost everything. The highway lamps were Y’s, a pen was an I, and a ball was in a shape of O. There was always something related to the letters. It was ongoing just the way it was his first learning of alphabet. Within two weeks he knew how to write and say the whole alphabet and he was starting to recognize different words and their pronunciations. A for Arian one of the first ones. When it was time to cook a dinner he would sit down at the kitchen table. I gave him a stack of papers and his colors. He always picked his favorite color, red. Pages got filed and with every stroke his face was brighter. He would proudly call me over to show off his work. I was so proud. My baby knew how write and pronounce his ABC’s. The most difficult one to say was R. Even to this day he can’t say it correctly, something about rolling your tongue. It was also hard for him to write it. The curves gave him a problem, together with letter S. He noticed how some of them were similar. His favorite example was letter N and Z. When you turn letter N it looks like a Z. C and U looked alike. His mind wandered and explore like never before. It took him about month to start speaking English with no problem.

Mamma, mamma, running into my bedroom, C is for a cat. C-A-T, he squealed excitedly. My mind was blown. My nap didn’t matter anymore. I got all of the energy form his excitement. He was reading and spelling. Every day he would come to me and insist to write words. We would sit for hours and write any type of three letter word that I could think of. He would spell them and say them. I was running out small words and repeating wasn’t interesting to him. Next step was 4- 5 letters words. He was so determined and firm about his reading and writing. All the books and toys were about ABC’s. He watched videos about ABC’s. Different sounds of letters in a words. He even did similar symbols with his hands. Anything that had to do with writing and reading he was all about it. If I didn’t have time to play with him he was extremely upset. He didn’t want to talk to me.

One day I took him to a park that we never been before. It was such a beautiful day. One of the first sunny and warm days after the cold. We walked around, fed the ducks then went to the playground. Arian played and ran for a while and then he stopped and stared at this big board that was in the middle of playground. He screamed my name. I thought that something happened to him. His voice was so high pitched. I ran over there to see him standing a front of this board that had sign language ABC’s on it. He was in disbelief. He jumped around in excitement. He didn’t care about the playground or the kids. He just wanted to show me what he found. He was focused and determined to learn. He stood there and repeated each and every sign. When it was time to go home of course he didn’t want to go. I had to promise him that I would get him a book with “hand letters”. I purchased the book the same day, by the night time he knew each sign for each letter. I did not help him one bit with it. He learned it all on his own. Now at four years old he knows how to read and he knows sign language. He was never in day care ‘till this year. He’s mamma’s boy and always with me. I take no credit in his learning of letters and reading. His persistence and drive teaches him. His focus made it faster. My mother and other family relatives thought for the longest time that I was the one who pushed him to learn it and prefect it. I did just what any other parent would do, support and encourage your child.