Kid Amnesiac

Perhaps you have run across one of those tests where an English sentence is presented to you with the letters mixed up. The first and last letters remain in place, but the middle ones are scrambled. The surprise factor in these tests is that you can still fairly easily make out the words. It might take a bit longer, but there’s precious little challenge to it.

Wehn you saw it, you may not hvae rlezaied eclxaty waht was giong on, but rhater jsut raed aolng thkniing, “How am I diong tihs?”

The answer is gestalt. Once we learn to read, we quickly quit sounding out each letter. What we do instead is take in the basic shape and length of a word. We see the first and last letter, note how many letters are in between, quickly assess the shape of those middle letters, and match it to the corresponding English word. Context helps too, of course.

Gestalt explains how we can read silently so much faster than out loud. How we can read at all given English’s lack of standardized spelling. And it really explains how the Chinese can have a high literacy rate with a language that requires learning hundreds of characters just to get started. Languages with alphabets, it turns out, don’t automatically map to populations with higher literacy rates.

I first learned about gestalt and how it relates to literacy in graduate school. (A shout out here to Prof. Michalowski, and an apology if I’ve botched this explanation.) Now, with Simon, I’m seeing up close when gestalt reading begins, and it’s a heck of a lot earlier than I realized.

Christmas Eve, my mom gave Simon a new book called Huggle Buggle Bear. The essence of the story is that a little boy cannot go to bed until he finds a stuffed animal named Huggle Buggle Bear, but Huggle Bear has a habit of hiding and/or being misplaced, depending on your perspective. The book contains one refrain that shows up in a slightly altered form every four pages or so. It is:

Where, oh where, is Huggle Buggle Bear. I can’t find him anywhere. He always hides when it’s time for bed. He’s such a _______________ bear.

The _________ is either “silly”, “naughty”, “funny”, or “troublesome”. Simon started filling in the sentence with the right word after just two or three readings—too early for him to have simply memorized the order the way he has memorized so many of his books. The first time he did this, I was stunned. The second time, Matt was around and he was similarly stunned. We showed the pages to Simon out of order, and he still identified the words correctly. I covered up the art work and got similar results.

The only reasonable explanation I have for this is that Simon wanted to be able to recite those pages, made note of the different words, which appear in a larger font than the rest of the page, and then worked out which was which based on gestalt.

Unlike the crazy people in the “Your Baby Can Read” ads, I don’t think this proves babies can read. What I do think it proves is that we are hard-wired for language, and that reading readiness starts pretty early in life.

Sometimes the solution to a major problem is right in front of you, if only you can see it.

Matt and I have struggled with getting Simon into his clothes and pajamas for months now, and in the last few weeks our struggle escalated to full-blown battle. Simon would make a big game out of it and kick and thrash and roll over on the bed, we would struggle to get him to lie still and to cooperate, and by the end of the twice-daily wrestling match, we’d all be significantly crabbier then when we started.

It was a lose-lose situation.

We consulted books about power struggles. We talked to friends about discipline in similar situations. And we talked to Simon. A lot! But he kept on making a big joke out of it until we’d have to manhandle him, at which point we’d hear a lot of “No, don’t do that” or “Stop hurting me.”

Finally, Sunday, we hit a breakthrough. In part, it came from deciding to implement time-outs early and often, beginning the minute Simon started to struggle and ending when we finally had him fully dressed. I think Sunday morning we put Simon in time-out twice before he got fully dressed.

When it came time to get into pajamas at the end of the day, Simon knew we meant business. Still, there was tension in the air, and I sensed that he was going to test me. That’s when I got an idea and asked him if he’d like to undress himself.

Would he ever!

With help, he took of his shirt and pants and then did a pretty good job of getting his pj top over his head (no small task with his head, I assure you.) The pants went up in a jiffy, we cheered him on at each step, and at the end Simon wore a triumphant smile. He was so proud of himself he could hardly contain it. We were very proud of him, too, and happy to see that he wanted to take charge of this part of his life.

But most of all, we felt a bit stupid. OF COURSE he wanted to dress himself. He’s of the age when he should want to and be able to with help. We’ve been calling him “Mr. Independent” for months now. Yet somehow in the hustle bustle of daily life, we lost sight of this and yanked and schlepped as we have since the day we brought him home from the hospital.

For the last two mornings, Simon excitedly took off his own pajamas and went far towards dressing himself, again without struggle, again with visible pride on his face. At night, he’s taking off his clothes and putting on his pajamas. So I’m thinking this is no fluke, and that a battle of many months is coming to end through the granting of limited self-rule to the rebelling party.

I grabbed some pics of Simon in my clogs last night, and then again of him taking pictures of me while I took pictures of him. It was very meta. And very silly. But I love this one:

The photographer is pleased with his work.

His picture of the wall/floor/one eighth of my face obviously came out just the way he wanted it to!

Monday, the sisterhood of moms gave me a very nice present, which I’ll get to shortly. My story begins with a trip to the ice skating rink.

Ever since I began planning our ill-fated trip to Gatlinburg, I’ve been thinking about ice skating and how much fun I thought it would be to take Simon with me. I still think it would be fun, but I have to figure out WHERE it would be fun, because it sure isn’t fun at the neighborhood rink.

Monday I took Simon to the place where I used to skate as a kid. Our adventure—“goventure” as Simon calls it—began to run off the rails at the line for skates. It was really, really long. And the area where you wait was also loud and crowded, two things Simon does not like at all. He endured, and I grabbed our skates.

Whereupon we hit a second speed bump. His were too small, and mine had one lace that was too short and another that was way too long. I struggled with mine, then had to trade his in. One fit fine, one was still a struggle, and again there were issues with the laces. To tell the truth, it looked like the rink has not replaced skates or laces since I used to go there in the 80s. The rink was a bit rank, and Simon grew increasingly unhappy.

To mollify him, I kept promising that all I wanted was for him to go with me onto the ice, where it would be quiet and the people more spread out, and give it a try. I don’t usually push Simon this way, but Monday I felt like gentle pushing was OK. So we stomped our way through doors and down a crowded hall to where we could enter the rink, only to be greeted by blaring rock music.

We had to scrub the mission. I wasn’t wild about the noise, and Simon lost whatever equilibrium he had going on. Back down the hall we ran. Back to the benches we went. Off came the skates. Simon cried that the noise scared him and that he wanted to go home. I wanted to calm him down as we cleared out, so I tried a little of the emotion coaching we’ve been doing lately.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but at least one woman had been watching us since we grabbed our skates at the very beginning.

Me: “I’m sorry Simon. Did the noise upset you?”

Simon: “It was too loud for me. I don’t want to ice skate any more. I want to go home.”

Me: “I understand. I had no idea it would be so loud on the ice. I didn’t remember that part. I’m very sorry.”

Simon: “It was too loud for me. I don’t want to ice skate any more.”

Me: “I know, honey. But you know what? It’s OK that you didn’t like it, and it’s OK that the loud music upset you. I understand; I don’t like it either. But I’m also glad we tried, because you never know what fun you might have if you don’t try something new.”

Simon: “Mommy, the loud noise upset me. But we tried. I want to go home.”

Me: “We’re going to leave just as soon as we can. Can you help me carry the skates to the counter?”

Simon: “Yes. I help you mommy.”

Me: “And do you want to go home? Or do you want to go to the grocery and help me pick out food?”

Simon: “The grocery. I want to go to the grocery and help you pick out food. Can I mommy?”

And that was that. Tears dried. Skates were carried. He waved good-bye to the rink, and then, our way out, a woman approached me. Apparently, she had been watching us from the minute we got our skates in the first place. Here’s what she said:

“I’m sorry to interrupt you, I just want to tell you what a good mother you are. The way you talked to him and calmed him down. You did exactly what he needed, and that was great. I hope you don’t feel bad that skating didn’t work out.”

Wow. I sure didn’t any more! Not that I think I did anything out of the ordinary, either, but it was nice to be validated when my child had a rather public collapse. Best of all, we had a great time at the art store picking out brushes and paint, and then an even better time at the grocery, where Simon pretended to read the list (he always helpfully adds “chocolate milk” if I forget), put items in the cart, took items out of the cart to put them on the conveyer belt, made sure I knew when it was time to pay, thanked the cashier and bagger, and waved to everyone he passed as we headed out the door.

You just never know where you will find the fun.