According to experts, the average dog knows approximately 160 words. My previous experience with family dogs (a clever and fun-loving Australian Shepherd and an ultra-intelligent and bossy Welsh Corgi) easily supported that figure. Then one day, along came Gracie the Whippet puppy. She arrived with boundless puppy energy, an enormous wellspring of love to share, and a vocabulary consisting of—nothing!
It was a bit unexpected to realize that our bright and vivacious puppy did not recognize even the simplest of words. During her first two days with us, we attempted to find some grounds of verbal communication with her. “Come, Gracie, come,” yielded a blank stare and a bit of a tail wag. “Go outside? Go for a walk?” No reaction. We tried a slew of food words, looking for something that she recognized: “Are you hungry? Eat? Dinner? Cookie? Treat?” All of these words resulted in the same uninterested gaze.
It quickly became clear that during the course of her short puppy life, no one had taken the time to acquaint Gracie with any words or phrases. So we started with the proverbial blank slate and set out to teach Gracie the basics. By the end of the first week, she understood and responded properly to five words and phrases: “Come,” “no,” “Gracie,” “drop it,” and “sit.” At the end of the second week, she had added “go outside,” “bowl,” and “box” to her vocabulary. After a month, she had learned “walk,” “down,” and “time for bed.”
Although her comprehension was rapid, a good deal of repetition was required in order for Gracie to learn each word. We couldn’t just point to her food bowl, say “Hey, this is a bowl,” and then magically expect the word and its meaning to be forever imprinted in Gracie’s mind. Instead, we had to carefully use the same key words and phrases over and over for various concepts and situations.
The same is true for children. When teaching, we can present concepts and work to cultivate skills, but we can’t expect a one-time introduction to equal a long-term commitment to a child’s memory. We can introduce phonograms, homophones, sounds, and syllables, but these introductions must be followed up by regular review in order to imprint the concepts in the child’s mind.
And even after a concept is learned and mastered, occasional repetition is beneficial to children and puppies. After Gracie learned the word “sit” and the appropriate response, we proceeded to teach her the word “down.” She promptly learned “down,” but then began to confuse it with “sit.” When we said “down,” we got a prim and proper “sit.” When we told her to sit, she would run to her little bed and collapse in a heap. And so it was time for review—a step back to teach each concept again until she thoroughly understood both words and could differentiate between the appropriate responses.
Children can run into similar difficulties. Your child might spell the word “brick” correctly on Monday, only to misspell it on Thursday, which is why periodic review of mastered words can be essential to success.
As for Gracie… although her initial puppyhood vocabulary was definitely below that of the average dog, she proved to be a quick learner and a clever thinker, and all she needed was someone with the willingness to introduce language and impress it into her mind through dedicated repetition. Without that help, her little puppy brain was an untapped resource just waiting for opportunity.
Children also possess an amazing capacity for knowledge and an innate enthusiasm for learning—but they need someone who will take the time to teach (and reinforce!) concepts and skills. Like Gracie, they need faithful repetition and review in order for learning to progress by leaps and bounds.
Now, if I could only teach Gracie to stop leaping and bounding on the furniture…
About Samantha Johnson
Consistency has been my downfall with spelling….until I decided to really get serious about it make it a priority! AAS has made this “do-able” for me, in a family with 7 kiddos who all need attention :). I love the one-on-one time I get to spend with my daughter who is using AAS Level 2 currently and the lay-out of the lessons make this a pick-up-and-go curriculum for me. Both of which are part of the key to our success in being consistent. Looking forward to where AAS will take us!
Love the analogy! My biggest challenge is how different each child is (just like your dogs). My oldest picked up everything so quickly and I am finding that the next in line needs a lot more repetition and follow-up to learn something. She also needs a little bit of a different approach, which I am still learning. :) Your curriculum is so much help though. What would I do without it!
I feel my downfall is me… I have an 8 year old that is having so much trouble with reading.. and I have tried so many different things… and nothing is helping.. so after talking to a few people I purchased AAS… and again nothing was happening… so I got a tutor to work with him with AAS… and he started making some improvements.. well our tutor moved away(we miss her).. so I started back and nothing… I think it is me… :-(
I love that the reviews are built into the lesson first thing because I would forget them otherwise (must be that short-term memory problem!). My child attends a Montessori school and they are usually very big on “learning how to learn” so that concepts are presented in such a way that kids can generalize when presented with new facts. Not so with spelling, however. They just get spelling lists to memorize each week with no rules. For example, this week they had a list of words that end in y that they had to pluralize with no rules about when to change y to i or not. I was so glad that we had AAS because my son knew the rule and it made sense to him, whereas the rest of the class just had to memorize the words and at test time they got many of the words mixed up.
Hi Darlene,
If you want to send me an email at support@allaboutlearningpress.com, maybe we can work together to come up with some strategies to help your 8 year-old. I’d love to help! We provide lifetime support for our products. It’s difficult to work with a child who really struggles, hang in there. You and your child can learn new things together too. Merry
I am so glad that you pointed this out. As a former Pre K teacher, I learned that repeating things helped them learn! We tried to keep the same schedule. I used the same words. After a few weeks, my children understood and we were in a great pattern. I also think it is so important to review regularly. After all, I was told in school that if you do not use it, you lose it. :)
I think sometimes we are more patient with our animals than our children! But it’s a good reminder that it takes repetition. I do ok in academics, but need to remember patience when in comes to instilling habits with chores/neatness. I guess that’s why God gave us over a decade to teach our kids–it takes lots of time!
I believe reinforcement is KEY in teaching children {as well as dogs too!!!}
It requires diligence and patience to teach our blessings- the outcome is well worth it!
This makes a LOT of sense, thanks for teaching this in a proverbial way. I seem to “get” things better myself when I hear it this way, I will share the story with my son, Im sure it will encourage him too. :)
I find this very true. My daughter is currently doing All About Spelling 2 and sometimes I feel that nothing is clicking for her but one day she’ll surprise me with knowing something I taught her. I find that it helps her to figure out words when she is reading, too.
Loved this article. Thanks for sharing! Sometimes we need to be reminded to be patient!
I’m still learning & need review…guess I need to remember to give my kids the same!;-)
Wow, great reminders to keep at it. Isn’t it easy to teach something that YOU think is easy and just assume it will be remembered? There is definitely a difference between short term and long term learning/memory. I think I used my short term memory for most of my schooling. I don’t want to make the same mistake with my child. Thanks for the continued good advice. We love your program!
I just love how organized AAS is. The review process is so easy. I love to go through our past words and just see them retaining the words. Thanks for making teaching spelling so easy and FUN!!!
This is such a timely reminder for me. While we do review daily I have to really remind myself to review the “mastered” sections!
Our family loves the program. We took a break due to a big move. Looking forward to picking it back up!
I have a late reader/writer and repetition and review is a must. That is on of the things I love about this program.
My 10yr old is the type to spell a word correctly one day and incorrectly the next. It is so true about periodic review, it makes a big difference in retention.
This is so true. Can’t tell you how many times I have had to teach words over and over.
What a wonderful analogy. It is a great reminder of the awesome responsibility we are given to educate our children. Sometimes I think our white lab understands the entire English language!!
I loved this post! Consistency has really been something I have struggled with in my homeschooling. It has been something I have really been working on lately. I love that AAS has the review worked into every lesson, it helps me so much!
Finding this post made me laugh…our dog doesn’t seem to understand “get off the sofa” but she can spell W-A-L-K! It reminds me of my daughter who struggled so much learning to spell her name, but would specifically ask for C-A-N-D-Y. It’s all about the right motivation with that one!
That’s so true–the right motivation is very important! Gracie’s been entertaining us lately by performing her entire repertoire of tricks (all three of them ;-)) when she wants a treat. Getting her to perform without the incentive has not been so easy!
My horse does that, too! Oskar will go through all of his tricks, begging for a treat. He’s highly motivated by carrots. :)
We have a new puppy so boy, can I relate to this article!! The consistency and reinforcement with our puppy is a good reminder that it shouldn’t be any different for my kids, too!! Thanks for the encouragement!!
I didn’t know the information you quoted about dog but it makes total sense. Our Great Dane is very smart and he surprises me when I say certain things and he understands them, and I mean beyond the things we have trained to learn, he just has picked up because I talk to him a lot .
It sounds like your Great Dane is very smart! It’s fascinating to see how many words that dogs can pick up even when we’re not trying to teach them!
The analogy is spot on. Although, sometimes it seems that my daughter will never leave the puppy stage (with her reading, that is).
We definitely discovered the need for daily review of spelling this year. We attempted to have spelling just 2x a week and found that it just wasn’t working. Once we started reviewing the words daily he made so much more progress.
Reviewing is where I need to step it up in our Homeschool…. thanks for the reminder. ;)
The concepts of consistency and repetition rang loud and clear with me this past fall. I began AAS level 1 with my daughter last summer and we were able to complete it before first grade started. Her spelling progress was awesome and we kept up with level 2 through Fall Break, but then we weren’t able to keep up with it during our busy fall/winter schedule (we’re using it as a supplement to regular school) and by Christmas I began seeing her spelling start to deteriorate. All of a sudden she was mis-spelling words I knew she had already learned. I picked up our AAS materials again and began working them into our weekend routine. It isn’t as optimum as daily review, but it’s been enough to keep her from backsliding between breaks, when we can to daily lessons. Best of all, she’s excited about spelling again.
What a great analogy – I never thought of it this way before. This sheds new light on our lessons. Thanks!
my issue is trying to do both Spelling and Phonics. it is just too much. i finally decided to either or. I work on phonics for a bit and then do a few weeks of AAS. I think they strengthen each other. Though i truly feel that AAS is a complete program, phonics included :-)
You are right, AAS is a complete phonics program! It will strengthen anything you do for reading.
What a challenge teaching is! Even parenting in itself takes so much consistency and repetition and patience….thanks for the reminder, and the encouragement that it does pay off!
Great reminder….it takes time, practice and patience. :)
Funny comments and great post. I also had a dog who could spell w-a-l-k.
I’m enjoying the comments, too! Sounds like you had a smart dog, Talitha! :-)
Thanks for the post and the reminder about repetition!
Ths speaks volumes to me, my daughter is flung through level 2 but I realized reading this we need o slow down and review a little better than we hve been!
*flying
What a wonderful comparison! Thanks!
I have found great improvement with my son after starting to use the AAS program. Actually, I got the program to help with his reading which has been slow in coming. I use it as a reading program and the benefit has been that as he learns to read, his spelling is coming right along as well.
My son is also improving with AAS and my youngest loves Ziggy. Thank you for using your gifts to create this program. The ability to make it work for different kids is great!
From all the wonderful reviews and helpful responses on this site I hope that my daughter does as well as others here. I have not been able to purchase the products yet, but I intend to. I found this article to be very true when dealing with both children and pets. I am so glad I found this resource.
Thank you.
Consistency is definitely the key!
I needed this today! I was frustrated that my 7 year old was not remember concepts I went over earlier in the week. One time is not enough, he needs constant review. I have seen this in the past but today I, obviously, forgot that! Thanks!
It is amazing how much dogs can learn (with lots of repetition). Just glad they can’t talk back!
I have a little one who’s delayed due to prematurity. I watch his speech therapist do this exact concept. Repetitiveness and consistency and he picks it up! And lots of reinforcement from us through the week :)
This is what I love about your program. There is a lot of repetition, so the tricky ones for my little guy are practiced over and over. He learns the rule, and then he is able to practice it over and over.
I used to dread repetition more than my kids did. But we’ve found ways to make it fun, and more importantly, I’ve seen the results!!
Repetition and consistency–necessary requirements for my children to learn and for me as well. Unfortunately, it also seems to be one of the biggest challenges we face, especially the consistency!
We have two going through the AAS/AAR programs and are loving it! Now would be a great time to get a little help in purchasing the next levels :)
I think we can sometimes forget that kids (and dogs… and all of us!) need repetition to learn! (I especially see this in the toddler phase, hah!)
Its amazing how animals can comprehend what we talk ! On the other note, I think parent involvement with a child makes learning easier for them.
Great analogy and reminder to be consistent with practicing our spelling.
As a proficient speller, I have struggled to understand my daughter’s troubles, especially when her abilities are inconsistent (spell correctly on Monday, but misspell the same word that Thursday). I believe that occasionally home school parents settle into a “ho-hum” routine, and press through each day with a lackluster attitude. It is hard to hold on to hope of helping a child improve their skills when improvement is not showing. While repetition is part of the solution, attending the “whole package” of each individual learner is so very key to success. This article helped to remind me that while I will have to repeat things, I need to stay focused on the goal and help provide a positive learning environment, coupled with the right tools from AAS. Your program comes highly recommended by HSLDA, and I look forward to helping my daughter succeed.
Thanks for the reminder that review/repetition are needed. Now I just have to figure out how to convince the children of this.
Yes, repetition and review is essential in ALL areas of learning; it takes creativity to make it not seem like a chore, though. BTW we used to dog sit for a mutt who learned what i-c-e-c-r-e-a-m spelled. Dairy Queen was his favorite!
Thanks for the reminder about consistency. With a whole house full of littles, that can be hard, but I can see that that is what will make the difference.
I Love this story! It’s a great reminder that we all need. Spelling always came easy to me and it’s a bit of a challenge to teach my daughter who’s not a natural speller, but I feel that AAS is helping a lot with that!
Thank you!
This is a good reminder for me today! My oldest needs a lot of review and repetition, especially with math. It sure does make a difference.
I didn’t even know All About Spelling had a blog. I will have to find some time to look around. Thanks for the program; we love it!
Thanks for sharing this analogy! Our family has been training our Aussie-Border Collie “puppy” for two years now. This story pointed out to me that I have been using more repetition with the dog than I have been with the kids! The kids say that they don’t like me to repeat lessons because it is “boring,” but for some things (like math) that is the only way to really get it. To me, the trick is to find many different ways to present the same info to them so it doesn’t seem like the same lesson over and over.
I have found that I’m my own enemy with repeating things as my daughter also gets tired of it. I then just give up.
I always knew our chihuahua puppy had a lot in common with our littles :)
As always reinforcement and consistency is what I have found works the best with helping my son with spelling. I always try to make it fun and active instead of just using pen and paper to write words or sentences.
I have definitelyt seen this with my daughter. I will think she has mastered something, only to to find the skill needs to be repeated. This was a great post, reinding me to have patience and repeat, repeat, repeat!