Alphabet

If I had to choose one teacher my daughter couldn't do without, it would be my wife. None of that is to say that her kindergarten teachers aren't terrific. They are.

What I don't say, what I should say, is that I'm far below my wife's teaching skill.

Let me tell you the story of my debut into teaching my daughter's writing. Anyone familiar with teaching kids to write English alphabets will know what I mean. Permit me to correct you, there are more than 26 ways to write the alphabets if you mix up the direction each alphabet faces. For the kids, words - like practically everything else - can either be written in the right way or in its mirror image. Even my daughter can write her name with the first letter J facing the wrong way. Yes: it is different. The difference for these two ways to write the letter J is so trivial that a 3-year-old won't bother.

Writing the alphabet J in itself is a piece of cake for me, of course. I never answer wrongly when my daughter asks me which direction the letter faces. I just know the fundamental truth how a letter J should face. "Curve this way. Got that?"

And then my wife had her turn to teach Jasmine, and she made an intriguing discovery: the alphabet J lines up in front of other letters, and of course, this lovely letter J behaves in such a nice manner she won't turn around and step on the foot of others standing behind. Ah yes - here it is. No book has taught me this, nor have I heard it from my teacher. Real good fun to learn alphabets in this way.

Sure, I admit my daughter can still get her J in the wrong way. But then she will smile, "Oops, this J is naughty today; she turns around and chitchats with her classmates again."