When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly, I was filled with childish pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my mother, I held up my hand and made the letters for "doll." I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed; I simply made my fingers go in monkey like imitation. In the days that followed, I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way many words, among them, "pin," "hat," "cup," and a few verbs like "sit," "stand," and "walk," but my teacher had been with me several weeks before I understood that everything has a name.