Brought to you by...the letter "E"

This morning Luke and I were cleaning up the guest bathroom, and, as always, I pointed to the monogrammed towel hanging up and spelled out the letters L-U-K-E and said "Luke."  I make the effort as often as possible, because I figure with a last name like Schwertner we'd better get a running leap on learning his names.

I continued cleaning, and Luke continued playing.  Then, a couple minutes later he pointed to the "E" and said, "E!"  I did a double-take.  "WHAT?!  Did you just say 'E'?"  He said it again.  Three or four more times he pointed to the "E" and told me the name of the letter. The more excited I got, the more he did it, and then he started to realize what he was doing, and he got excited, too. 

Immediately the English teacher in me started thinking, "Yes! we can read Charles Dickens!  And Mark Twain! He gets it!"  I remembered being a kid and having my own mom teach me the letters.  I was cautiously very excited.

Of course, any good teacher knows that true learning is only present when transfer occurs. So, to see if Luke really knew his letter "E" I took him to the kitchen and got out the plastic fridge magnet letters to see if he could find the "E" in a different situation. We had so much fun taking the letters off and putting them back on the fridge. I never did find the "E" though, probably because it was lost months ago when I thought Luke could benefit from seeing his named spelled out everywhere. Haha!

Undaunted, a few hours later I wrote his name, pointed to it, and asked him which letter was the "E". He looked at me like I was crazy. Not willing to give up, I took him back to the bathroom, put him in front of the towel, and asked him to find the "E". Guess what! He did it! He found the "E" again! So true learning hasn't occurred--yet--but at least Luke can find an "E" if he's ever in a tight spot--as long as he's in our guest bathroom. :)