Language
(I actually wrote this on August 21, 2010 when my grandson Chase from Arizona was spending 3 weeks with us.)

Chase loved Puff. We drew a picture of Puff and hung it on the wall.

Chase knew this book and song by heart by the end of his visit with Gramma Debbie

Tonight I read Puff the Magic Dragon to my 4-year-old grandson for the third night in a row, and I couldn't help but think of Joshua.

Joshua was a child I worked with who could not speak at 3 1/2 years old. He uttered sounds, but you couldn't understand him, and what little he did say was in one- or two-word sentences. His parents were uneducated; his father dropped out of school as soon as he could get away with it. He had had reading difficulties his whole life. The mother had not graduated either, but I'm not entirely sure that lack of education was the sole culprit. The parents were so consumed with themselves that the child was left to fend for himself with little to no verbal interaction except for the times he was yelled at by the father or cried to by the mother. Even educated people can be consumed with themselves, so I think this self-absorption was more the problem than lack of education. The father was a truck driver and was gone as much as he could be. The mother smoked and watched videos or played video games all day. There was not a book in the house. Literally. Toys were broken or pieces were lost as soon as they were bought. There was no value placed on anything except for cigarettes, TVs, DVD players, and video game equipment.

Joshua's grandmother asked me to work with him, and I fell in love with him the first day. He was so eager to learn and just as eager to please. He soaked up everything we did. We made tea together, and, after the first time, he wanted to do it himself. He would pour the tea from the teapot and carry the cups to the table. We would drink our tea while I read to him or talked to him or had him imitate sounds and mouth shapes I made. I had him look in the mirror to see the shape of his mouth and placement of his tongue. Little by little he began to talk. I would break words into parts for him and have him repeat each syllable after me until he could say them clearly. Then I would help him put the syllables together into a word.

I made some very interesting observations as he began to put words together. He was only 3 1/2 and did not yet recognize the letters of the alphabet, much less know their sounds, but he would transpose sounds of letters within words. The best example would be the word "turkey". It was November, and we were talking about Thanksgiving. I tried to help him say turkey by having him say one syllable at a time. I said, "Say 'turrr...'," and he repeated, "turrr...". Then I would say, "Now say 'key'," and he would repeat, "key." Then I would ask him to put it together to say "turrr-key". Even at this point, he would usually say, "turrr-key", but as soon as I said, "Now say 'turkey'," he would respond with "kut-tee" every time. It never failed. He did finally learn to say turkey. I don't know when it actually happened, but it was months or even a year or more before he got it right.

Another observation was Joshua's obsessive-compulsive behavior. He thrived in an organized, disciplined structure. He loved to see his things carefully organized on his shelves in my playroom. Everything he picked up was put into some kind of order. It was clear that he was trying to bring some order to his chaotic little world. In his home, there was no order whatsoever. He didn't even know who would be his mama from one day to the next. He never knew who would be there with him or if they would stay for long. With worries like these taking up most of his mind, no wonder the child neglected the development of speech. I knew he felt safe and secure at my house.  He knew we would be there in that house whenever he came, and he knew his things would be in "his" room on his shelves. He called me "my Debbie" and said that he had two houses - mine and the one he lived in with his daddy - and sometimes his mama. He could relax at my house and take time to learn, and he discovered he loved learning.

Tonight as I read to Chase, I thought about all the words he had learned from that one book. He stopped me at each new word and continued to question me until he was sure he knew what it meant and how to use it himself. He loved the sound of the word "frolic" and said he loved to "frolic". We stopped and read a book about seasons so he could understand "autumn". We talked about what clothes you would wear and how hot or cold it would be in each season. Having lived most of his life in Arizona, he had no idea of what the word "mist" meant, and, since it was summer when he was visiting me in Georgia, and we were having thunderstorms with fat heavy raindrops and afternoon showers with light sprinkling rain, I had no examples to give him at the time. I made a mental note to steam up the bathroom so he could experience mist. When Puff "ceased his mighty roar", Chase laughed and said he could tell his Mama he would cease when she told him to stop doing something. He asked what the "sea" was, and, since we had been to the beach on Tybee Island, I was able to give him a clear picture of a large body of water. When I explained that a rascal was someone who loved to play and laugh and play jokes on people, he laughed and said, "like me!" Then he immediately started one of his nonsensical "knock-knock" jokes that he makes up as he goes along and finds so hilarious. We have been reading this book every night for the past 3 nights, so earlier today, I lit a candle and showed him how the wax melted and how it could be used to seal papers because it is sticky.

You get the idea. From that one book, Chase has expanded his vocabulary and experiences tenfold. We have had 3 nights of lengthy conversations, not to mention related things we've talked about during the day.

I spent about 4 years reading to Joshua trying to help him catch up, and he did. He was in the top reading group in kindergarten (reading groups in kindergarten - that's another whole topic). But will he ever have the vocabulary Chase has? Will he score high enough on vocabulary sections of tests like the SAT in order to compete with students who were read to as infants and lived in language-rich homes?

I don't have the answers to those questions yet. Only time will tell. After all the work we've done, Joshua is back in a home where reading, discipline, and organization are not valued. I hope some of what he learned from his grandmother and me took root and will help him rise above what he's offered now to become who he was meant to be. Somehow, I think it will. I think so because he loved what we offered him.

As for Chase...I think I'll go steam up the bathroom for that mist. Then we'll make tea.