Interview with Jess & Ben, 23 months old

I had the opportunity to ask some questions to a mother I admire greatly. Her son is one of the most intelligent little boys I have ever encountered. His verbal skills are tremendous. Jess, his mother, with her special parenting has expanded her young sons knowledge; exceeding the expectations of a normal 23 month old.

-How old is your son? 23 months

-What do you feel are his greatest achievements so far with cognitive development? That's a hard question. His ability to observe, remember and dictate scenarios impresses me. His ability to to spend an hour "in character" when playing pretend. That he speaks, not only in full sentences, but in full paragraphs. That he reads some words, can spell others out loud, and can tell you what some words you spell out loud are just by letter recognition. I think by far the most impressive at the moment is that he's able to take one toy off of his shelf at a time and then put it back when he's done, before he removes another. But that may just be because I'm lazy.

-What have you personally done to enhance his learning? Any specific programs or a learning technique? I try to follow through with anything he's interested in. I explain things, probably further than any mom of a 2 year old needs to, but he soaks it up. We follow a modified "letter of the week" curriculum that includes a "learning poster" with the theme, letter, shape, color and letter-words of the week. We do activities based on the theme/letter (i.e. rainbows, we paint a picture of a rainbow or the letter D, we read books about dogs, dragons, dinosaurs, etc.) that are age and interest appropriate. He's also done "Your Baby Can Read" on and off since he was 6 months. I found that he gets bored with it quickly and seems to learn new words easier when he shows an interest in a specific word and we work on learning it from there.

-What do you think has been most beneficial for Ben when it comes to his cognitive development? His never-ending interest and that everyone follows through on that interest as far as we can take it. If he wants to know how a something works, we teach him how to use it. If he asks, I answer. We try to keep him constantly busy, otherwise he gets bored and frustrated. With things going all the time, I spend a lot of time interacting with him. I think that helps quite a bit.


-Do you plan to homeschool? Will you be using "unschooling"? We do plan to homeschool and we are planning on using a modified unschooling. We're quite taken by Montessori, as well, and have been using a mix up to this point.