This post is part of a sporadic series I have.  In Real Life Learning posts are about how I integrate my teacher skills with parenting.  It’s In Real Life Learning because sometimes what we envision turns out vastly different when enacted with kids.  Sometimes what is photographed on Pinterest isn’t so cut and dry.  A book we loved may bomb or something we do offhand ends up being a wonderful experience.  I write about that here.

When I taught, I loved pulling ideas from the internet.  I do the same thing with my own kids now.  Sometimes, our projects turn out so awesome, like the cotton ball ghosts we made last Halloween.  Other times, they are terrible.

Today, I’m sharing a tool I used in the classroom that’s also passed around online.  It’s pretty simple, you just use letter stamps to help a child spell (write) words.  The stamps keep their interest and can be really helpful if they have a hard time forming letters.

Simple and cute, right?  It can also be a huge fail.  If the child isn’t ready or if they’re just not in the mood, this tool or anything else you could use to teach could go wrong.  I’m showing you how even a useful tool can create an uneven learning experience… because learning is messy.

A little background:

I’m a trained reading specialist and a veteran teacher.

My son has been interested in literacy since the age of one and now he’s almost four.  Currently, he can

• Identify and count the syllables in words (up to 4 syllables long)
• Identify the names of letters
• Identify letter sounds (sometimes he forgets a few)
• Read a handful of simple words

All that I’ve “taught” him has been when he’s shown interest and through games and being silly.  We don’t do flashcards or any of those computer programs that promise your child will be reading before they are born.

Lately, he tries to spell words by “pulling them apart” into their individual letter sounds.  It started in the car when he wanted to spell “Dusty Crophopper.”  The end result was something like “DTE KRPHR.”  It took us about five minutes and it was all done orally.

For his age, this spelling is absolutely appropriate.  He identifies the beginning and ending sounds and a few in-between.  Pointing out that y can make an e sound or that the p must be doubled isn’t a point I need to make with him right now because those are phonics rules beyond his level. (If you would like to read more about spelling development, click here)

If he did not know his letter sounds and names, all of this would have been pointless and extremely frustrating.  Knowing the syllables helped us break the word into smaller pieces, but we can still do this activity without knowing that.

My son’s fine motor skills are a work in process (zippers, drawing are huge sources of frustration).  So, to help him work on this spelling that he has shown an interest in, I bought the letter stamps.

The first time I showed him the stamps we were alone and calm (how nice and rare).  I made one word and talked through my thinking about spelling out the word (I do) and then he made three words with my coaching (we do).  The whole process lasted about five minutes.  Five minutes for a three year old is pretty good.

He knew that choosing to spell “carrot” or “Mom” would have made me too happy.

Today, when I was making lunch, my son decided to pull out our art box which has been neglected since March.  I still had all these foam shamrocks in there and googly eyes.  He decided to write St. Patrick’s Day (makes sense to me).  He got out the stamps himself.  The rest of the art supplies were slowly being licked by his younger sister.

The video is how it went.

I cut the video at this point because I knew he was just screwing around and he wasn’t in the mood especially since he knew I had turned on the camera.  St. Patrick’s Day was spelled SPD. Had I been more present, I would have given him the stamps that were all capitals, he’s better at those.  I probably would have also made sure my daughter wasn’t sliming the art supplies the whole time.

Bottom line, our success today was that he knew he could make the words he wanted using the stamps.  Slowly, we’ll get to a point where he will use more and more letters correctly and I’m hoping he’ll get tired of how long the stamps take and show a desire to make the letters himself.

Let me repeat, I’m trained to teach kids how to read and write.  I’ve used stamps and had great success in my classroom with them.  It’s not always pretty and that’s what I wanted to show you.  This doesn’t mean it will never work, it’s just a slow and often uneven process and best tackled when addressing one learning area at a time (I didn’t make it a point to tell him his letter was backwards).

SPD “Saint Patrick’s Day”  it doesn’t make for a beautiful Pin but it is authentic.

Do you have any stories of sloppy learning with your kids?  Did this help to watch a trained teacher have a semi-sucky teaching experience with her own child?