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 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 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
Jj is for Jottings 101. Vowel Shapes.
When I say “vowel shapes”, I am referring to the shape made by the mouth when saying a particular vowel. We have talked earlier about discriminating between vowels and vowel discrimination activities, but I didn’t mention vowel shapes because we were talking about auditory discrimination. The visual aspects were not necessary in that context.
In point of fact, there are no hard and fast vowel shapes, but there are general trends which are useful to know about. Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 98. Reading Difficult Words.
Reading difficult words is not an issue with this book!
When your child starts to read aloud to you, they will often have problems with reading difficult words. These words may be just long, or tricky in other ways, such as having several consonants together. (See consonant clusters). Or they could have vowel patterns which are unfamiliar, the rules for which they don’t yet know. It is important to give children time to try to work out the word for themselves. This helps develop reading skills. However, when they get really stuck you will need to help them out. Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 94. Phonological Awareness, Phonemic Awareness and Phonics.
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.
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
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.
“Some of these r-controlled vowels and diphthongs are quite tricky to get your tongue around – if you’re an alpaca.”
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
