Writing Girl

BB blew me away last night. I knew that recently she and S had been practicing writing letters -- she likes to have the two of them hold the same crayon and "write" at the same time -- but I really had no idea how far she had come.



Yesterday, as I was making dinner, she showed me this:

The top two words -- hummingbird and butterfly -- are ones she wrote with S. The "U" in "butterfly" especially shows their joint efforts. At the bottom, BB had written "butterfly" all by herself, without anybody watching -- in fact, without anybody even knowing she'd decided to try to copy it on her own!

Needless to say, she was very proud. And so are we! It's funny: BJ was reading already by age 3 1/2. BB is far from doing so. BJ really started worked on his writing (and drawing) skills well after having learned to read. BB, on the other hand, loves to draw and paint and work on all those fine motor skills. She has very good letter recognition but I have yet to witness her "read" a word. (Second child syndrome confession: I've not actually sat down and quizzed her A to Z consistently to find out just how complete it is! She may well have mastered the entire alphabet for all I know.) It's all good, of course. Fascinating to see the differences in the kids' development!