Hi Wren -- I can barely believe that your daughter is already 51/2!
As I said earlier, my dd 11 is very much like all these kiddos. I also really try to model the learning curve -- especially the trough-- so that it appears like normal. I have experienced the trough many times -- especially in language acquisition. The phenomenon works like this: You're in country X getting along fairly well in language X. Then one day you have a total cognitive breakdown in language X and can barely squeak by going to the store to buy oranges or getting on the train. After a week or so you wake up one morning with a command of language X that is far more nuanced and effective. And then, after a while, the process repeats.
