HOP with Pop Fox and Jakanese (FINALLY!)

Thanks to Leap Frog's Letter Factory, preschool and various other educational activities by the time Jake's 4 th birthday approached last year he was well-versed in the alphabet and the sounds they made. Therefore, I purchased Hooked on Phonics so I could help prepare him to read. Now I have a little mommy guilt that I have never been as consistent as I originally planned but between sports, swim lessons and the fact that he does attend preschool 3 days a week, not to mention the fact that I work from home and we are always going, going, going. - well not to make excuses but we never really got into a habit of doing it on a regular basis. Lately, I have been trying to rectify that, mostly because he is showing a lot of interest in trying to read and I want to take advantage of his eagerness.

The great part about the newest version of Hooked on Phonics (or HOP for short) is that it takes advantage of technology and has a mascot to guide us through. His name is Pop Fox. Each session starts with us following along with an audio CD and working in a workbook and ends with Jake getting to play CD Rom games based on the material he just learned. Because he loves video games, he is actually way ahead on the CD Rom. It keeps track of how many words he can read based on his ability on the games and he is up to 99 words. I have then added flashcards so he can start memorizing the sight words and as I have mentioned last week he read his first book entitled "Cat". I have also been getting emerging reader books when Jadyn and I go to the library and with very little help, he is reading those as well. I am very excited at how willing he is to learn and hope with the summer break we will have more time to work on his reading skills.

But what happens when Jake doesn't know the word for something he encounters? Does he ask what the said object or item in question is called? No, he just makes up words for it. This is what we have dubbed Jakanese. Now I dare you not to laugh and remember that there is a logical (or sometimes not so logical) reason for the labels he gives these items:

Hot pod: This is Jake's name for lava. He didn't know what it was but he knew it was hot and dangerous when he saw it on a cartoon or his video game. We were playing Mario Kart together one day (a favorite Mommy/son bonding past time) and he tells me, "Mom, watch out for the hot pod!"

Shoom Shoom: This is the name he has given to guns because I guess I have kind of subconsciously stayed away from introducing the word. Unfortunately, he naturally sees them on TV here or there and the kids at school play superheros versus bad guys. Hence, the name shoom shoom because that is the sound you make when you are pretending to fire at someone only he uses the word as a noun as in "We have to get the shoom shoom so we can take care of the mad guys". You heard me right, they are not bad guys according to Jakanese but MAD guys.

Here is the best one. Wait for it.

Sperm: I really, really don't think he has heard this word before but if he has, so be it. It is the after all the correct term for part of a males reproductive system. But for Jake, sperm is the name he has given to lightning bolts. Again maybe because of the sound? Resemblance? But I don't know where he would have seen a picture or cartoon depicting sperm and I would like to think I would know if he did!
I am not so sure where it came from but I kid you not. Again one day we were sitting there playing Mario Kart and Jake says, "Mom watch out for the sperm!" I looked at him at disbelief, asked him to repeat himself and then paused the game as I tried to understand what was going on. As it turned out, it was innocent enough. He calls lightning bolts sperm and despite trying to correct him for fear of how it might come across to others, he is still doing so to this very day.

As you know from a previous blog post, Jadyn has her own form of Jakanese only she takes a word that sounds like the right one and changes it, as in the time she had ankles in her hair instead of tangles. The other day she was admiring a pair of my underwear and proclaimed them to have "cocco dots" on them. The thing with Jadyn is there is no correcting her even when she knows she is wrong. I asked her if she meant polka dots and she said adamantly held her ground that they were indeed cocco dots.

Kids and their language. It's one of the best parts of having kids this age because they are constantly making you laugh and keeping you on your toes!