Not Quite Ready for the Spelling Bee

The other day we were in the car and came to a stop sign. Coleman said, "Where's the red light?" I told him there was no red light, just a stop sign. He looked at it and said, "S - t - o - p. That spells stop!" I was really impressed! I asked if they had talked about that in school, but he said no. So I'm not sure when he started spelling out words like that. Obviously he knows what a stop sign is, but I was just surprised that he separated out the letters to spell it, then said that it 'spelled stop.' We've been looking for other words to spell now. In the book "Arthur's Reading Race," Arthur challenges his sister D.W. to read ten words and he will buy her an ice cream cone. She reads the words zoo, taxi, gas, milk, Don't Walk, police, bank, ice, and cream. We've read the book so much that Coleman can "read" all those words to me. Now he's started pointing out words in other books. This afternoon we were playing with the Magna Doodle. I drew a stop sign and he spelled stop and read the word to me. Then I wrote the words boys and girls and he spelled those, referred back to the book we'd been reading, and told me what they were. I thought I'd give him a little challenge, so I wrote the word gas. He looked at it, and said, "G - a - s. Don't Walk!" I just laughed and laughed! I didn't think there was a solid connection between letters and spelling words yet, but he's getting there!