They were as follows:
Quack Shack
Pig Wig
Tricia’s Best Talent
Biscuit Wants to Play
Please Mom, Just 5 More Minutes
Russ and those who are even remotely aware of who Olivia is understand the 5 books tonight please… I love that she asked. I love that we read. She’s gaining daily in word recognition and phonetic function- I swear you can see the connections being made.
So, between teeth brushing, toilet, Papa goodnights (he’s gone tonight in Taos), and Grandma goodnights, we managed to complete the first three listed above. Then, I stated she needed to sleep, and that we’d finish the rest tomorrow morning. She stopped me at that point and explained (that), “Mama, there are still two more to read.”
I reiterated that she was tired and that we’d be sure to get to them in the morning. And we will.
The importance of this conversation is two-fold: The obvious interest in the books, the attention span, and the involvement she offered unsolicited are encouraging and developmentally significant. The additional twist is her indicating the remaining two of the five. This is significant because of the mental processing that occurred in her mind to arrive at this point. She used abstract subtraction and/or cumulative addition.
While we were reading through the books, I kept them all in a pile on the bed – a very messy one at that. At no point were the read distinguished visibly from the unread. She concluded that three had been read, that two were left, entirely on her own, and without the amount of books being displayed in front of her (to count, which she can count amount sometimes and not others). This demonstrates her awareness (though it is unknown whether it is yet reliable) of dynamic grouping and cumulative totaling.