Matias can “read” the above logos, along with a long list of other words. He has been able to do this for a few months now. The interesting thing is that although I highly doubt he is reading the words in a sound-it-out phonetic way, he does recognize the words beyond their colours and distinctive fonts. One day when he was drinking from a plastic cup, he noticed the imprint on the bottom and told me that the cup was from Ikea. The lettering was not “Sweden” yellow, but green like the cup from which he was drinking. I think the words exist as whole chunks for him and not as groups of letters. Probably not anything to get excited about, but I can’t help being a little bit proud that he can “read”. Thank goodness he can read the Vancouver Public Library sign; otherwise his words would consist almost entirely of all the stores where I shop…On another note, Pentti was cutting an apple a few weeks ago. I asked Matias whether he could have half, daddy could have half and I could have half. He informed me that there can only be two halves in one apple :)
He is also picking up English at his preschool. His word order is a little off, but it’s surprising how well he has adjusted. For awhile I was regretting our choice to teach him Finnish only at home, but I think we made the right choice after all. I think that in order to learn a language that is not the predominant one outside the walls of your home, you need to make it the only one in the home. Matias is surrounded by English. It is inevitable that he will learn to speak it. Not only that, but having a really strong base in his mother tongue and a rich vocabulary in Finnish will actually help him learn English. I have seen so many ESL kids who don’t learn English properly because they have never learned their mother tongue properly first. Anyway….Matias’ latest thing is when he misbehaves, he looks at me and says , “Sorry Annika”. I don’t know how he thought of saying that, but it made me laugh. So naturally, now he says it every time he misbehaves. I can’t help it; it’s kind of funny and it makes me laugh.
