Maletch and His Alphabet!

Maletch Knows His Alphabet- From Watching One "Hooked On Phonics" Video For ONE Week:

First off, I cannot believe how well the "Hooked on Phonics" program works! Tonight was the first night I had planned to sit down and actually work with Maletch on his alphabet, meaning I would try to teach him, since his only introduction to it has been from the H.O.P. program (he has watched one video a few times) and the ONLY thing I have ever done was watch the video with him each time, narrating it further and trying to make it more fun (although it already was) and everyday this week, rather than using the program’s workbooks, I “made up” a game with a wooden alphabet puzzle that we have—that is IT! I haven’t actually made any efforts in ‘teaching’, and I certainly didn’t expect him to be retaining anything- it was just an introduction.

I couldn’t believe that as I started to work with him tonight, he began naming the letters, before I could tell him. I hadn’t realized that he knew almost all of them already! In fact we only thought he knew W, H, and T because he casually pointed those out around the house- but I never thought to “quiz” him because I had never taught him.

So what was supposed to be me working with him (teaching him) tonight, instantly became a “quiz” with flashcards, to find out what he knows. I’m still scratching my head on how he learned that quickly, but there were very few letters that he wasn’t sure of, and very few he mixed up (like O & Q).

His introduction has only been to capital letters, so after I actually work with him a little on these (maybe for a week). I will start introducing the lower case versions.

Here are the results from my quiz: 15 of the letters he knew completely solid (no mistakes), 5 letters he confused for similar letters (a few times, but sometimes he did have them right), and only 6 letters that he wasn’t too sure.

If you are curious to which ones he knows, here is the list (if the letter is named as “B & D”, those are the letters that he sometimes confused for each other), if it is named alone, it means he knew it every time. I think my teaching job is going to be easy, since he knows all this without my help!

A
B & D
C & O
F
H
I
J
K
M
N
P
Q & O
R
S
T
W
X
Y

These were the only ones that he wasn’t too sure

E, G, L, U, V, Z

Note (the ones he wasn't sure): For G, one time he said O, and Z one time he said N (he even tilted his head to the left to try to make the Z a N), but his hesitation and facial expressions were clear that he knew it wasn’t correct.

Another note about the program: It appears he has picked up some of the phonics sounds already too! He has demonstrated this with a few letters (again just came up casually around the house talking, pointing to a letter, etc) so I wonder how many of those he actually knows if I was to quiz that right now, "What sound does that make?" That will be for another day very soon!

I am so excited that we have this program, and I am so excited that teaching him his alphabet which I expected would be a lot of work and a difficult thing to learn is... gosh, not only going to be easy- but it's almost done... before Maletch or I even started trying- how about that??- learning by accident!!