Verbalizing

I have a little girl, 3 years old, who doesn't speak.  Not because she doesn't have the ability or the vocabulary, she just chooses not to.

When she wants something, she stands and stares with mournful brown eyes, as close as she can get to my body.  This elicits a 20-questions until you happen onto the correct question, and she nods.  This I have tried to stop doing, in order to force her to speak her mind, but it is still a struggle, and she will often opt not to get whatever it is she wants, if it requires that she speak it out loud.

But the funny thing is that during circle time, the one thing she has no problem asking for out loud, I sing a song that names each child.  It goes "Hi, so-and-so, I see you.  Hi, so-and-so, I see you.  Hi, so-and-so, I see you.  Skip to my lou my darling."  Sung to the tune of skip to my lou.

Once I have completed the circuit, and named each child, she immediately jumps in to sing the whole thing for me.  In her excitement, she almost screams the song "Hi, Miss Reina, I see you!"

It is so funny.  Especially since it is so hard to get her to say anything else, anytime during the day!