Fintan on teaching reading.

The other day, Fintan, just turned four, took out his book, as he likes to do, and began to read aloud.

However, this day was a little more special than a preschooler reading for himself. He was sitting with his grandmother and he took it upon himself to teach her to read.

He took hold of his grandmother's finger and moved it across each word as he said them aloud carefully to her, to make sure that she understood. He was concerned that the lesson should be clear.

After he had read each line, he wanted his grandmother to repeat it. She did so. At one point, however, to tease him, she read, "Dog" as "Cat."

He paused. He looked at her and very patiently corrected her: "Dog, not cat...why did you say cat?"

"Because the dog looks like a cat.", she explained, inaccurately.

Fintan looked long at the dog, examining it for "cat-ness". After a while, he looked up and said, as if to reassure someone who wasn't quite all there: "It's OK...".

He was very nice about it - but I am sure it did plant some doubts in him about his grandmother's perceptions, eyesight or both. Yet, he was patient with her.

I think Fintan makes a good teacher.

(If you would like to read more of Fintan, four years and no months, or his gifted brothers, Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and seven months, or Tiarnan, seventeen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)