Jj is for Jottings 130. Auditory Skills.
Auditory skills underpin the development of speech, language and literacy. Therefore it is vitally important to be aware of these skills and, wherever possible, assist our children to develop them.
Auditory skills include the following: Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 128. Hard and Soft ‘C’ and ‘G’.
The great thing about spelling rules – such as the bossy ‘e’ rule – is that, once you learn a particular rule, you can read (and hopefully spell) many different words. In other words, rules give you lots of bang for your buck. When dealing with hard and soft ‘c’ and ‘g’, we teach the hard sound first as part of basic sound-letter links, and introduce the soft sounds a little later. Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 126. The Bossy ‘E’.
The bossy ‘e’ (sometimes called the magic ‘e’) appears so often in written language that it is worth revisiting in its own right. It is a classic case of “Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Once you know the rule, you can unlock thousands of words. Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 125. Nonsense Words.
Nonsense words are letter sequences which follow regular phonetic rules and are pronounceable, but which have no meaning. Examples are ‘bof’, ‘zim’, ‘chog’. They can also be called nonwords or pseudowords. There are stages in children’s development where nonsense words may play a part. These are: babbling, early reading, rhyming, and if they require assistance for speech sound development (speech therapy). All children babble, but children may not encounter nonsense words when learning to read or to rhyme. And many will not need speech therapy, or have access to it if they do.
Atticus is a FAN of nonsense words.
Jj is for Jottings 122. Definite and Indefinite Articles.
Following on from the previous article on nouns, it is timely to discuss definite and indefinite articles. Articles are simply “a” or “an”, and “the”. It sounds simple, but there’s a bit more to it than that. Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 119. Types of Listening and Nonlistening.
Following the discussion on hearing versus listening, I promised to discuss more aspects of listening in the next article. We have established that hearing is a simpler process than listening, so there is more to be said about listening. We will look at the listening process, types of listening, and nonlistening. Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 114. Digraphs vs. Diphthongs.
Digraphs vs. diphthongs – what exactly are they and how do they differ? They both begin with the same two letters, but then they diverge (get the pun?)
It is always helpful to understand the roots of words, because then we are able to transfer that learning to other situations. It’s like teaching a man to fish rather than just giving him a fish. (“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” Maimonides.) For a discussion of root words which underlie one of my pet peeves, see here. Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 106. Strategies to Encourage Listening to Sounds in Words.
In the previous article I said that I would discuss general strategies to encourage listening to sounds in words, rather than visualising them. As I said, I have found no hard and fast rules, but these types of activities are helpful.
Shanti is coming to tell us all about strategies to encourage listening to sounds in words.
Jj is for Jottings 104. Sound-Letter Links and Less Regular Words.
Once children know their sound-letter links thoroughly, they are then able to sound out any 100% regular word. These could be real words or nonsense words of any length, as long as one letter equals one sound (with the basic exceptions here). But what of sound-letter links and words which are less regular?
Learning the basics before moving on to sound-letter links and less regular words. Baby alpacas like to learn their sound-letter links, too, it seems. (From the Border Mail, 2014. Photo by Tara Goonan.)
Jj is for Jottings 102. Effect of Vowel Shapes on Consonant Sounds.
Following on from the previous article on Vowel Shapes, we will talk about the effect of vowel shapes on consonant sounds. This is especially important in sound production for speech therapy and also useful when learning sound-letter links. If you haven’t already done so, I suggest you read the previous article first, to make sense of what follows.
Effects of vowel shapes on consonant sounds. This vowel is /ah/. It doesn’t have much effect on any consonant sounds because it is quite neutral in shape.
Here are some common examples of how the vowel shape can influence the production of a consonant. This is not an exhaustive list, but these are major examples which crop up all the time. Continue reading
