It turns out that the hyperlexia, which has been such a challenge in so many ways for so long, actually comes in quite handy when you want to, say, teach the kid a new language that involves entirely different letters.
Nate, who became a Sunday School dropout after kindergarten, was sent back for a second try this year, since his brother was going and all. Third grade Nate has proven to be a much, MUCH more enthusiastic Sunday Schooler than his kindergarten self, as he comes home every week bursting with excitement about everything he learned, the music session, the whole-school tefillah, etc. But not wanting to push it, I decided to home-school the actual Hebrew part, rather than have him go to the add-on 8 am Hebrew class that comes before Sunday School.
I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, given that he taught himself to read in English when he was practically in the womb and all, but I just can't get over how excited he is to be learning Hebrew, and how eager he is for every lesson. I thought we'd work on it once or twice a week, but he wants to do a new lesson every day. Basically, as soon as he finishes an EPGY, he wants to do a Hebrew lesson. Which means that he's asking me to sit down and instruct him at 7 am and at 7:30 p.m. In between, he sits with the book and skips ahead to see what's coming up, then fills me in on exactly what he's going to learn in each lesson. Of course, this also means that when we get to a given lesson, he's already learned the new letters and vocabulary and is all ready to go. All of which basically means that the whole system pretty much runs on auto-pilot.
It's a teacher's paradise, in other words. And he's making it look like so much fun that Jonah is constantly asking when he can have a lesson. I should loan him out to the Hebrew School just to drum up some enthusiasm.
Absolutely amazing, yet not surprising.
Posted by: Bubbe | October 22, 2011 at 03:26 AM