There are little tricks here and there that I’ve found to be very effective in helping boost Em’s imaginary and memory skills. 

Par example, every night, we have a routine of telling stories, usually alternating story tellers.  I do this so she can think on her feet and create a story line with cause and effect.  She is amazing with adding twists to the plot.  For example, she’ll create a villain, a baby dragon, who usually gets "palo" because of its inability to share.  But after the hero/heroine defeats the baby dragon and all seems well in Emma kingdom, the Mama Dragon appears, with thrice the anger and revenge over her emotionally wrecked offspring.  I mean, talk about re-Grendel-ling the storyline!!!!!  C’mon, and she’s never taken highschool english lit.  It’s great…I laugh at her creativity.

For her memory skills, each night, I usually slip in a lesson and trick her into conversation rather than school time, by asking her key questions about her day.  This way, she’s forced into recalling specific things that happened.  I also use key words like today and yesterday to teach her about the progression of time and its state.  I find this a really good technique that I’ve made into a routine so not only does her memory grow, it allows her to capture things that happened that she might have merely forgotten, had I not urged her to remember them.

Again, I can’t stress routine enough.  This has really brought us closer, this night time routine of conversation, not to mention the time I get to hear her pray and have her hear me pray for her.