alpacas

Phonological Awareness, Phonemic Awareness, Phonics.

Jj is for Jottings 94.  Phonological Awareness, Phonemic Awareness and Phonics.

Picture of the book "Aa is for Alpacas" on a pot-bellied stove, with the caption: Learning phonics with this book helps with phonemic awareness and phonological awareness skills, too.

Learning phonics with this book helps with phonemic awareness and phonological awareness skills, too.

You may have heard the terms “phonological awareness”, “phonemic awareness” and “phonics” and wondered what they mean and whether they are different terms for the same thing.  Let’s sort this out right now.

PHONICS.

This is sound-letter links – i.e. learning which sound is made by each letter of the alphabet, and other sounds which are made by combining 2 or more letters.  Children develop the concept that there are consistent relationships between letter symbols and sounds.  This book is a great way to learn sound-letter links.  But you need to make sure you are saying sounds rather than letter names.  You can find this on the video. Continue reading →

Consonant Clusters.

Jj is for Jottings 93.  Consonant Clusters.

Consonant clusters, or blends, can cause problems when analysing sounds  and blending.  Children with speech, language or literacy problems often have difficulty in detecting the second sound in a consonant cluster.  I mentioned this in a previous article on blending sounds.  Children who can easily analyse a consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) word, may completely disregard the second sound in a consonant cluster (CCVC).  This is even when they say the word correctly. Continue reading →

Unilateral Hearing Loss.

Jj is for Jottings 89.  Unilateral Hearing Loss.

Head shot of an alpaca with the caption: Does Geisha have a unilateral hearing loss? It looks as if she has only one ear, in which case she would have.

Does Geisha have a unilateral hearing loss? It looks as if she has only one ear, in which case she would have.

This is the third article on hearing loss.  The previous articles are about fluctuating hearing loss and effects of hearing loss on speech, language and literacy. Continue reading →

Christmas Limerick 2018.

The alpacas and all of us here

Wish you and those you hold dear:

Christmas cheer, joy and love,

P’raps a peaceful white dove,

And we hope that you’ll join us next year.

Picture of cat lying on a bed with a tinsel halo, with the caption:"You can see that Shanti isn't feeling very angelic wearing a halo. Shikha batted it off with his paw every time."

You can see that Shanti isn’t feeling very angelic wearing a halo. Shikha batted it off with his paw every time.

And here is something that has just appeared in The Australian newspaper in the book review section on December 15-16, 2018.

Image of recommendation for "Aa is for Alpacas" from The Australian newspaper, December 2018.

Pretty good to get a recommendation nearly 5 years after publication!

 

Remember to keep reading to your young children throughout the holidays, and encourage the older ones to read for pleasure.

Fluctuating Hearing Loss

Jj is for Jottings 87.  Fluctuating Hearing Loss.

Fluctuating hearing loss in young children often results in speech and language delays.  (For an explanation of the differences between ‘speech’ and ‘language’ see here.)  Figures quoted by the Audiometry Nurses Association of Australia Inc suggest that 90% of childhood hearing loss is of the fluctuating kind.  For figures for Australian 4-5 year olds having a speech problem from any cause see here. Continue reading →

R-Controlled Vowels and Diphthongs.

Jj is for Jottings 86.  R-Controlled Vowels and Diphthongs.

There are other vowel sounds, apart from the short and long vowels.  These include r-controlled vowels, schwa and diphthongs.

Photo of an alpaca with her mouth in an odd position, saying: "Some of these r-controlled vowels and diphthongs are quite tricky to get your tongue around - if you're an alpaca."

“Some of these r-controlled vowels and diphthongs are quite tricky to get your tongue around – if you’re an alpaca.”

 R-CONTROLLED VOWELS.

When a vowel is followed by r, the sound changes, and the result is considered neither long nor short.  These are /ur/ as in fern, bird, and hurt; /ar/ as in park; and /or/ as in fork.

Note that Americans actually pronounce the /r/ in r-controlled vowels, including on the ends of words; we Australians do not.  When I was first working as a speech pathologist Continue reading →

Vowel Discrimination Activities.

Jj is for Jottings 84.  Vowel Discrimination Activities.

Vowel Discrimination Activity 3. Identifying /i/ and /e/, plus a picture of the Ii is for Itchy page of "Aa is for Alpacas".

Vowel Discrimination Activity 3. Identifying /i/ and /e/.

 

As promised in the previous article, here are some vowel discrimination activities to help your child to hear the difference between vowel sounds, in particular the tricky pairs of a/u and i/e.  At the same time these activities reinforce the sound-letter links for the vowels.  After all, it’s not much use for reading and spelling if you can hear the difference between them but don’t know which letter belongs to the sound. Continue reading →

Auditory Discrimination of Vowel Sounds.

Jj is for Jottings 83.  Auditory Discrimination of Vowel Sounds.

Photo of Droofus, the bearded dragon, not practising auditory discrimination of vowels sounds - she's looking at April shaking off all the dust in "Aa is for Alpacas".

Droofus, the bearded dragon, is not practising auditory discrimination of vowel sounds – she’s looking at April shaking off all the dust in “Aa is for Alpacas”.

Auditory discrimination of vowel sounds, especially some short vowels, can be quite difficult for some children.  Very common confusions are between /a/ and /u/; and between /i/ and /e/.  When you consider that there is only one short vowel sound left – /o/ – that’s quite some confusion going on!  Of course, not all children confuse both pairs, many just confuse one pair or the other. Continue reading →

Analysing Consonant Sounds: 5 Activities.

Jj is for Jottings 82.  Analysing Consonant Sounds: 5 Activities.

 

In the previous post on analysing sounds, I said I’d give some activities for analysing sounds – in this case consonant sounds at the beginnings and ends of words.  You can use the activities for sounds at the beginning of words, and then repeat for the end consonants.  Remember that, in these early stages, the words need to be very simple – CV (consonant-vowel) eg. “toe”or CVC, eg. “bit”.  When choosing words, remember that one letter doesn’t always equal one sound.  Click on that phrase if you need further information on that – it’s very important.  I have divided the 5 activities for analysing consonant sounds into two areas – Listening and Producing. Continue reading →

Analysing Sounds.

Jj is for Jottings 81.  Analysing Sounds.

Photo of a child analysing sounds in the alphabet book "Aa is for Alpacas" with his grandmother.

Henry is learning sounds the fun way with “Aa is for Alpacas” and the help of his grandmother, Ann.

 

Analysing sounds in reading is really the opposite of blending sounds (see here and  here for discussion and exercises in sound blending.)  Analysing sounds is simply breaking words into their component sounds (whereas blending sounds is joining the sounds up to make words).  The progression is: listening for and isolating sounds at the beginning of a word, then at the end, and finally the vowel in the middle (assuming it is a consonant-vowel-consonant [CVC] word).  It is even better to begin with 2-sound CV words, to make it as easy as possible in the early stages.

The Usual Problem Rears Its Ugly Head – Using Letter Names Instead of Sounds.

If I had a dollar for every time I have said: “What sound can you hear at the start/end of – ?” and the child says the letter name, then I’d be really quite wealthy.  What you need to do then is to use the letter name instead of the sound in the given word to prove that it doesn’t work.  Eg. When a child says that the first sound in “dog” is dee, the response should be along the lines of, “That would be “deeog”.  You said the name of the letter, not the sound that you can hear.  /d-o-g/ makes ‘dog’”.   You also need to encourage them to feel the sound in their mouth.

Children Really Need to Know Letter Names and Sounds When Analysing Sounds.

Of course, if children know the name and sound of each letter of the alphabet, they are far more likely to correctly give you the sound rather than the letter name when analysing or blending words.  This is where  Aa is for Alpacas comes in as the means of teaching this with least effort.  The final goal is to have the alphabet clearly written/printed out in front of the child: Point randomly to letters and say “name” or “sound” and, when the child responds correctly 100% of the time, they really know their sounds and letter names.

Tune in next time for activities to assist children to analyse sounds in words.

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