It's been a LONG Time!!!

It's been a VERY long time since I've posted but at least I can say I've been keeping up with RPM better than I've kept up with this blog!  These past three months have been madly chaotic even for us, but my sanity is such a small price to pay for the results I'm seeing (just kidding, my sanity and I parted ways long ago).
Aidan is blowing my mind, and has been from day one.  Being a parent with no prior teaching experience makes this a learning experience for me too, and he's had to be just as patient with me as I am with him. 
We started out with conversations about the seasons, his favorite TV show, etc. then moved on to lesson plans that I adapted from the books What Your Preschooler Needs to Know and What your Kindergartener Needs to Know.  This series is an excellent place to begin as it covers a broad range of topics and can give a totally lost parent some much needed framework. 
The first stage, "showing what to choose and how to choose" progressed very quickly.  At first he would choose at random or pick the same side all the time until I learned about tactile prompts.  A tactile prompt is when the teacher touches the student's hand with each response, saying the choice aloud as she does so.  This is not "giving away" the answer, but letting the student know where each choice is (which side each is on)  if s/he won't look.  This made all the difference in the world.  From that moment on he got almost every answer correct, even when I'd switch which side the correct answer was on.  We still use tactile prompts, but he is really beginning to look at the words that spell out the answers.  We are starting to use a letter chart to spell out words, starting with key words from his lessons.  He finds this very annoying and fascinating at the same time.  I've decided that, in this beginning stage we will spell out words from his favorite lesson plans, and this has piqued his interest a bit more.  Today we were reviewing some animals that he liked and, using a rolled letter chart, spelling out words.  I would show him a word, then ask him to find the letters on a rolled chart.  Because his pointing skills are limited and he's not that familiar with spelling I figured I'd be doing almost all hand over hand.  Imagine my surprise when he tapped the  letters "m" and "a" when we wrote the word "mammal", and "p" "t" and "i" in the word "reptile" independently when I asked him to show them to me!  I had to keep myself from crying because I didn't want him to get the wrong message!  Really, who knew?!
Ava is equally amazing....I was planning on getting her started a couple of months after Aidan but she was having none of that.  She saw that I was working with him one on one and one night took my RPM folder and wouldn't relinquish it until I worked with her!   She can write her name independently and loves to trace; because of her I created an alternate response mode which is offering the choices written in highlighter.  I then have her choose and if she chooses correctly I give her the word to trace.  If she choose incorrectly I repeat the question and we choose together before she gets to trace the word.  I plan on using the letter chart with her to assist with spelling and for reference, but I hope she will learn to communicate by writing.  My work with her isn't yet as consistent as it should be, but I'll be increasing our worktime in the near future.
Watch out world!!!