Jj is for Jottings 151. Daily Reading Time.
Daily reading time for children is much more important than just reading books leading to a longer life. It makes sense that children who read more have better vocabulary, reading skills, fluency, reading comprehension and overall literacy. It can also strengthen family relationships and helps children to understand the world outside. So just how many minutes per day should we be reading with our children? Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 150. Reading Books=Longer Life.
Research – some but not all – is now telling us that reading novels leads to a longer life. On the other hand, it is well known that long periods of sitting increases health risks and reduces life span. Researchers from Yale University set out to investigate three things:
Jj is for Jottings 147. The Effects of Noise on Hearing.
Many of us have heard about the effects of noise on hearing – noise is a significant source of hearing loss. But we need to understand how noise causes hearing loss and about different noise levels if we are to prevent noise-induced hearing loss.
Jj is for Jottings 144. Place of Articulation.
We classify the spoken aspects of consonants across 3 dimensions:
The voicing dimension specifies whether or not the vocal folds (or cords) are vibrating. It has already been discussed in Voiced vs voiceless minimal pairs. And I have outlined the rules for when we voice the normally voiceless /s/ (resulting in /z/). Most people are completely unaware of doing this, and would be surprised to learn that they are correctly following the rules. The voicing dimension is rounded off by the article on partial devoicing of consonants. Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 143. Mouth Breathing.
Mouth breathing – breathing through the mouth instead of through the nose – seems like a harmless enough sort of habit. But its effects turn out to be quite far-reaching. I referred to mouth breathing as a potential side effect of tongue tie, but that is only a tiny piece of the puzzle. I’m talking here of chronic mouth breathing, not the times when we all breathe through our mouth. Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 142. Critical Thinking.
I was thinking the other day about how the world would be much better if more people applied critical thinking skills in their daily lives. Also about how we can introduce critical thinking to children. Funnily enough, the very next morning I read an article in the newspaper citing the results of a study into conspiracy theorists and critical thinking skills. More of that later. I took that as a sign to write this article. Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 141. Tongue Tie Side Effects.
Following on from the previous article on tongue tie, we now turn to discussion of side effects of tongue. Even professionals dealing with tongue tie often overlook or are unaware of many of these side effects. Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 140. Tongue Tie.
After discussing /s/ speech sound problems in the previous post, in a way the topic of this post is the opposite: tongue tie. Why is it the opposite? Some /s/ problems involve tongue protrusion or sideways movement. But tongue tie anchors the tongue which limits movement to varying degrees. Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 139. Speech Sound Problems:/s/.
Probably one of the first sounds that springs to mind when one thinks of speech sound problems would be /s/ and, more specifically, a lisp. (Remember that the slashes / / mean that we pronounce the sound; ‘s‘ or s means to say the letter name. I think I may have done both at some point. Certainly it is underlined in Aa is for Alpacas.)
The word “lisp” generally refers to the tongue tip protruding between the teeth for /s,z/. (Note that /s,z/ are minimal pairs, and therefore have the same error. For the sake of ease I shall refer to just /s/ from now on, but remember that what refers to /s/ also refers to /z/.) Some definitions of a lisp are much broader, and refer to any speech sound problem involving any or all sibilant sounds. Since this is cause for confusion, I am not going to use the term “lisp” at all. This particular /s/ problem is called an interdental /s/. “Inter” means “between”, and of course “dental” means “teeth”, so there can be no confusion about what it is. Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 138. Brain Gym.
Brain gym is a series of movements which claim to enhance whole-brain learning. An alternative term is “educational kinesiology”. The word “education” comes from the Latin educare, which means “to draw out”. “Kinesiology” is from the Greek root kinesis, which means “motion” and is the study of the movement of the human body. Continue reading
