I/My Stories

This week we started the next phase of personal description stories from the Association Method. We followed up stories with they/their sentences and questions from last week with stories about Pamela with I/my. She is already familiar with combining I with can/have/see/saw/want. This week we introduced I with do/am and my in the subject of a sentence. I copied five digitized photos of Pamela at different ages into Word and wrote stories from her perspective at each age. Pamela is well versed with calendars, and she often picks topics about what she was doing on different dates in her life. We have been doing stories like these for years.

Pamela has sufficiently mastered the new syntax to move onto you/your questions. Usually, I write questions to go with each story, which we cover the following week. At that point, Pamela will read the questions, and I will answer them. In the Association Method, children learn new syntax in sentences first and then learn how to apply the syntax in questions. Thus, when asked a newly mastered question, children can answer it with confidence. They can also grow more sophisticated in asking questions.

Because of the different between first and second person perspective, I have altered this process slightly. Normally, I do not introduce questions until Pamela masters the new syntax in sentences. This week, I have read the questions, and Pamela has read the answers. Next week, I will have to write completely new questions that she will read and completely new answers that another person will read. To make the difference in perspective even more obvious, I plan to write each of the five stories about a different person in the family and have that person read to Pamela: Monday (me), Tuesday (Steve), Wednesday (David), Thursday (Oma), and Friday (Opa).

Here is one story we covered this week:

Who are you?

I am Pamela.

What are you?

I am a girl.

How many years old are you?

I am nine-years old.

What kind of sweater do you have?

I have a striped sweater.

What color is your turtleneck shirt?

My turtleneck shirt is pink.

What is your town?

My town is West Newton.

What color is your house?

My house is blue.

What do you have?

I have a pool and swingset.

What can you do?

I can swim and swing.

What is your school?

I do not have any school.

What kind of school do you have?

I have a home school.

Where can you go?

I can go to co-op classes.

Do you have friends? Yes,

I have friends.

Who are they?

They are Kevin, Shannon, Logan, and Gregory.

What is their town?

Their town is Mt. Pleasant.

Do they have a dog? Yes,

They have a dog.

What is her name?

Her name is Hershey.

Do you have a dog? Yes,

I have a dog.

What color fur does your dog have?

My dog has black fur.

Who is your dog?

My dog is Pepper.

What can your dog do?

My dog can chase his tail.

Is your dog friendly or mean?

My dog is friendly.

Do you have any cats? No,

I do not have any cats.