Death to the Guilty
Last night, I was very proud of rbr.
When he was younger, rbr let john5 do all of his talking for him, so his language arts skills seem to lag. It does not help that john5 has a reading comprehension at least two grades beyond his own. That skews the expectation pool.
So last night, john5 asked me to play hangman with him. Of course, I had to. Hangman can be quite fun. I warned him that I was evil. I meant it.
To start off, I gave john5 an easy puzzle: ``MARCH OF THE PENGUINS''. Last winter's gift-exchange season (commonly called Christmas in this country) he got a lot of March of the Penguin stuff, and general penguin-related merchandise. As expected, he solved the puzzle. It took him about six to eight wrong guesses, but he did it.
He then gave me a puzzle. I was able to get it, even though he kept forgetting to fill in the blanks with letters I had correctly guessed. At least he did not try to hang me with a letter that was in the puzzle.
I followed that with ERROR. We all know that shorter words are harder. He had ERR_R, and hung himself. I told him that he should have used up the vowels. He needs to learn letter frequency, also. He seems to have a fascination with the letter Z. He kept guessing it.
I then gave rbr a puzzle. He solved it rather handily. It was his own name, and he recognised it when he had about half the letters filled in. His one wrong guess: the letter V.
I then gave john5 a chance to redeem himself. I gave him one last puzzle, He got to _OO_S IN A _OO_CASE. He guessed four wrong letters in a row. Z was one of them,of course. john5 had not a clue. I looked at rbr. I saw a clue. I asked john5 if rbr could guess a letter. He said yes. I let rbr guess a letter. His choice: B.
BOO_S IN A BOO_CASE.
I challenged rbr to solve the puzzle.
He did it. I was impressed. I saw that he knew it when I asked him for a letter. I am very glad that rbr can surprise me like that. I hate to think that I underestimate him (which I think I do), but I am very glad when he rises to tasks. His language arts is really doing well. He is reading well, too. Slowly, but well. He needs a bit of encouragement to read some of the bigger words, but he usually gets it the first try.
I will have to play hangman with them again. It was quite the experience.
----
On an interesting note about LJ: It has no problems with john5, but it thinks rbr should be brr, BR, Br, Rb, or RBI.
No post statistics, as this was composed in Firefox.
When he was younger, rbr let john5 do all of his talking for him, so his language arts skills seem to lag. It does not help that john5 has a reading comprehension at least two grades beyond his own. That skews the expectation pool.
So last night, john5 asked me to play hangman with him. Of course, I had to. Hangman can be quite fun. I warned him that I was evil. I meant it.
To start off, I gave john5 an easy puzzle: ``MARCH OF THE PENGUINS''. Last winter's gift-exchange season (commonly called Christmas in this country) he got a lot of March of the Penguin stuff, and general penguin-related merchandise. As expected, he solved the puzzle. It took him about six to eight wrong guesses, but he did it.
He then gave me a puzzle. I was able to get it, even though he kept forgetting to fill in the blanks with letters I had correctly guessed. At least he did not try to hang me with a letter that was in the puzzle.
I followed that with ERROR. We all know that shorter words are harder. He had ERR_R, and hung himself. I told him that he should have used up the vowels. He needs to learn letter frequency, also. He seems to have a fascination with the letter Z. He kept guessing it.
I then gave rbr a puzzle. He solved it rather handily. It was his own name, and he recognised it when he had about half the letters filled in. His one wrong guess: the letter V.
I then gave john5 a chance to redeem himself. I gave him one last puzzle, He got to _OO_S IN A _OO_CASE. He guessed four wrong letters in a row. Z was one of them,of course. john5 had not a clue. I looked at rbr. I saw a clue. I asked john5 if rbr could guess a letter. He said yes. I let rbr guess a letter. His choice: B.
BOO_S IN A BOO_CASE.
I challenged rbr to solve the puzzle.
He did it. I was impressed. I saw that he knew it when I asked him for a letter. I am very glad that rbr can surprise me like that. I hate to think that I underestimate him (which I think I do), but I am very glad when he rises to tasks. His language arts is really doing well. He is reading well, too. Slowly, but well. He needs a bit of encouragement to read some of the bigger words, but he usually gets it the first try.
I will have to play hangman with them again. It was quite the experience.
----
On an interesting note about LJ: It has no problems with john5, but it thinks rbr should be brr, BR, Br, Rb, or RBI.
No post statistics, as this was composed in Firefox.