Whyming

B and I are sitting at the table across from each other. “Let’s do some rhyming work.” I say as I spin around to get my picture cards. “Can we do the whming puzzles?” He asks. “We’ll do those later this week, let’s use the yellow cards. Let’s do a set we haven’t done yet.” As I lay out each card, I wait patiently for him to name the picture he sees. I listen to be sure he uses the right word for each card. This is not a time for approximation. I lay out a goat and I wonder if he has the word for the picture he sees.

I watch and wonder because the other day, when asked, “Look at the picture, how do you know she is happy?” I watched him study the picture silently and then point and say, “see, her things(lips/mouth) are going up.” “Do you know what that’s called?” He looks expectantly at me, wanting to know the word. “That’s a smile.” He nods and says, “smile”. I can see it in his eyes, he knew the word, it was just hiding in his brain.

As I lay out each card. I wait and listen. “Goat, jeep, fox, bow”. “You are using the right word for each picture. Nice job!” I know we can’t get to the rhyming part unless he’s got the words, so we take our time, together.

I lay out the last card, unsure if he’ll have the word for this one or not. It’s not an animal that gets a lot of air time, like cat, dog, horse. I put the card out and to my surprise he immediately says “ram”. He got me. I make a move from direct teaching to curious teaching. “How did you know that’s a ram?” I ask because I really want to know. He answers confidently, “because that’s a football team.” “Oh the LA Rams!” I add on and then he adds on, “because I watched the football game, they have horns on their helmet.” He points to his head, where the helmet and the horns would be.

Curious teaching is enlightened teaching.