listening

/l/ Sound is Different on the End.

Jj is for Jottings 69.  /l/ Sound is Different on the End.

You probably haven’t thought about this before, but /l/ (the slashes indicate the sound rather than the letter name) is pronounced differently when it is the last sound in an utterance or followed by a consonant, compared with when it is followed by a vowel.  And if that sounds like gobbledygook, Continue reading →

Communication Milestones.

Jj is for Jottings 68. Communication Milestones.

Here is a chart put together by a group from Queensland and the National Office of Speech Pathology Australia which you may find useful.

Here is the link if you want to print copies.
www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au/milestones

What is Synthetic Phonics?

Jj is for Jottings 65.  What Is Synthetic Phonics?

We’re just taking a break from the series on How to Raise a Reader – we’ll finish it next time.

Synthetic phonics means “building words from individual sounds”.  For example, even if you had never seen it before, you could spell the word “step” Continue reading →

Raising a Reader Part 2. Toddlers.

Jj is for Jottings 62.  Raising a Reader Part 2.  Toddlers.

Continuing from the previous article (here), you cannot overestimate the importance of reading with a child at the toddler stage – for intellectual, social and emotional development.  They take in everything: vocabulary and language structure, numbers and math concepts, colours, shapes, opposites and many other language concepts, animals, manners and all kinds of useful information about how the world works. What’s more, when you read out loud, Continue reading →

Raising a Reader Part 1: The Baby.

Jj is for Jottings 61.  Raising a Reader Part 1: The Baby.

There are various things parents can do to maximise their child’s chances of becoming a reader (i.e. someone who is proficient at reading, reads for pleasure and has no difficulty in using reading for information-seeking and the school curriculum.)  We can divide this topic into 4 stages: Baby, Toddler, Emergent Readers and Early Readers.  Question: What stage comes before the Baby stage?  Continue reading →

Reading to Children – Some Statistics.

Jj is for Jottings 52.  Reading to Children – Some Statistics.

Even the alpacas are worried about current trends.

 

Here are some disquieting (but not unexpected) statistics and comments quoted by the guest, who is very experienced in education, at the launch of “Aa is for Alpacas”:

Research by Angela Emher in 2013 of 1263 parents discovered that only one in four of them or 25% read to their children daily.  They claimed that making dinner and doing housework, work commitments and exhaustion all interfered with the nightly routine of reading and sharing books with their children.  From this same survey though 20% of parents though were worried that their own children read less than they did at a similar age.  Is the bed time story being sacrificed because of busy lifestyle and at what cost to our future? Continue reading →

Rhyming, Climbing, Miming… (Part 2).

Jj is for Jottings 51.  Rhyming, Climbing, Miming… (Part 2).

Shanti says:
“When learning to rhyme just relax, like me,
Play games and have fun: it’s easy – you’ll see.

 

How do we explain what a rhyme is?  I usually say that rhyming words sound the same at the end, and follow it up with plenty of examples.  However, be prepared for some children to think that you are talking of only the last SOUND.  You might have some extra explaining to do.  The most important way Continue reading →

Minimal Pairs: Voiced vs. Voiceless.

Jj is for Jottings 47.  Minimal Pairs: Voiced vs. Voiceless.

 

You may not have noticed this before, but many of our consonant sounds in English come in pairs.  The sounds are the same except for the fact that one uses the voice and the other does not.  You’ll see what I mean when I tell you what the pairs are (with the first of each pair being the voiceless one): /p,b/; /t,d/; /k,g/; /f,v/; /s,z/; /ch,j/; /sh and the sound in the middle of “measure”, which does not have a letter to represent it/; and /th/ – voiceless, as in “thumb” and voiced, as in “the, mother”.  A minimal pair is a pair of sounds or words that differ by only one feature, in this case voicing.  Other minimal pairs may differ by a whole sound eg. beg/big; bat/bag.

Before we go any further, I should explain that the slashes (/ /) mark the fact that we are talking about a sound as opposed to a letter name.  This is explained in more detail in the introduction to Aa is for Alpacas. 

When teaching the sounds made by letters, many adults (including teachers) fall into the trap of adding the schwa vowel to voiceless consonants, with the result that /p/, for example, ends up as /pə/ i.e. a voiceless consonant, /p/, with a voiced consonant , /ə/, added to the end.  It should be just /p/ followed by breath.  Voicing voiceless consonants to children confuses them in the following ways:

  • They find it more difficult to discriminate between sounds (because /pə/ sounds much more like /b/ than a proper voiceless /p/).
  • It leads to some children having difficulty in identifying where one sound ends and the next begins.
  • It makes blending sounds into a word difficult because the unnecessary voicing adds more sounds to the word. An example: You are trying to sound out the word.   The two consonants /h/ and /p/ are voiceless, and of course all vowels are voiced.  Therefore the only part of the word which you should voice is the /o/.   /h/, /o/, /p/ = hop.  If you voice the voiceless consonants, however, you get /hə/, /o/, pə/ – five sounds, three of which are vowels.  It will be much more difficult to perceive the word hop now.

Some children have difficulties with the voiced/voiceless phenomenon in their speech.  It’s usually confined to voicing /p,t,k/ or maybe even just one of those, but it is remarkable just how difficult it makes them to understand when they voice all three of them.  And it is quite difficult to remediate, too.

Please be aware of the voiceless sounds and given them a fair go – your child’s literacy will be much the better for it.

 

See also: https://educatingalpacas.com/more-minimal-pairs-voiced-vs-voiceless/

 

 

Cutting Out Visual Props.

From the colour I thought it was Geisha on the shearing table (she’s medium fawn), but when I saw her face on the next frame it turned out to be Nina – white! I should add that the alpacas are not suffering whilst on the shearing table – not keen, but not suffering, and the result feels so wonderful – no more itchy grass seeds against their skin, and ….freedom! Looking at her this way makes me want to tickle her tummy.

 

Jj is for Jottings 41.  Cutting Out Visual Props.

Enlarging upon the comment on Jottings 40 made by Ann on Facebook, who said she finds another great listening activity is to read a story to children without pictures – spot on!  When you ask them questions about the story afterwards, you will really begin to find out their ability to listen and to Continue reading →