The three Rs

Don't get too excited -- Isaac isn't actually reading, writing, or doing arithmetic yet!

Reading

It turns out that Isaac can spell his name aloud. The first time I heard him do it, he sung it to the tune of "B-I-N-G-O," something he has heard us do before, so he had clearly memorized it. But he can also do it without singing, and as he has been able to recognize the individual letters for a while now, all he has to do is put those two pieces of information together to actually read his name. How exciting!

Writing

For a long time, Isaac preferred writing to drawing. For example, he got a John Deere tractor coloring book at a friend's birthday party in December, and he insisted on calling it his "writing book." (I'm happy he has finally expanded into art.) It was pretend writing, of course, as he never wrote anything that resembled an actual letter except for I and O (which he would be sure to point out). Lately he has been pretending to write checks, driving directions, and construction plans. He is a very practical-minded writer.

(Even though he doesn't pretend to be a creative writer himself, he does understand that books are written by people. When we read a new book, he wants to know who the author is.)

Arithmetic

He's working on counting to 20, which is also done strictly by memorization and recitation. If he's counting actual objects, he can only count accurately to three -- if there are more objects than that, he loses track of the ones he's already counted and doubles back to count them again until he reaches five. When he's reciting numbers he can get to ten accurately, but usually misses one or two of the teens. The number 20 is often called "twenty-teen." And after that comes "twenty-teen one," so he does understand how to build numbers.