by Cari Ross

Created on: August 04, 2008

See. Hear. Touch. Taste. Smell. With these five senses we can interpret our environment and learn from it. If all five senses are stimulated, we will learn much more about our environment than if only one sense is stimulated.

What can we learn from the fictional Dawson family? Tom was five years old when Mary turned three years old. Their mother spent two years reading out loud to Tom before his sister Mary was born. When Mary turned three years old, Marsha, the youngest, was six months old. Their mother, Pam, suffered from exhaustion and rarely had time to breathe let alone read to Mary and Marsha. Thomas, their father, was an airline pilot, so to make up for his absences, he began to bring home many coloring books and scratch-and-sniff picture books for Tom and eventually Mary.

Pam and Thomas enrolled Tom in half-day kindergarten and Mary in half-day preschool. They both attended the same after-school daycare. (Pam and Thomas felt this was best for them educationally and socially.) In school, Tom was able to "sound out" words that he recognized such as B-A-L-L and C-A-R, however Mary was only able to point to the picture of the ball or car when she recognized the printed word. She was not able to speak it.

Even though Mary was two years younger than Tom, Mary's daycare teachers felt that she should have been able to verbalize more words at her age. Mrs. Willis knew that Mary had show-and-tell every Friday at preschool, so she asked Mary to bring her favorite book, so she could then show it to her at daycare in the afternoon.

Mary brought in a book about a jungle. She loved animals, and the pages were full of animals peeking through tall grasses and swinging from tree limbs. She could recognize big words such as monkey and gorilla, by pointing to the printed word and then pointing to the picture; however, she could not pronounce words such as T-R-E-E or S-U-N. Yet, she could scratch a yellow crescent, sniff it, and say "banana;" next she could find the word B-A-N-A-N-A, draw the association in her head, and shout "BANANA!"

Mrs. Willis was excited to learn about Mary's gift of association by smell. "What does the sun smell like?" asked Mary. Mrs. Willis was at a loss. There had to be a way for Mary to associate the spoken word "sun" with the printed letters S-U-N when she associated the printed letters S-U-N with the big yellow and orange ball with golden rays shooting through the trees.

Mrs. Willis decided to read Mary's book about a jungle over and over again.

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