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.

Check out the Facebook page: Aa is for Alpacas

 

 

Decodable Readers and Phonics.

Jj is for Jottings 80.  Decodable Readers.

What are Decodable Readers?

As mentioned in the previous article (see here), decodable readers support the teaching of phonics in a cumulative manner.  The rules and patterns of the English language are taught sequentially.  As the student learns the rules, he practices using decodable readers.  In this way there are no nasty surprises involving unknown words, because they know the rules  and every word can be decoded.  This gives the reader both skills and confidence, and makes learning to read much less of a challenge.

Most Children Learn to Read Without Decodable Readers, Don’t They?

Continue reading →

Literacy, Language and Prison.

Jj is for Jottings 79.  Literacy, Language and Prison.

Here are studies from three countries on the relationship between literacy, language and prison or young offender sentences:

1. USA.

Approximately 80% of prison inmates are functionally illiterate, and 47.8% of the inmates were deficient in word attack skills, according to reports.  (Texas, 2000) Continue reading →

Blending Sounds: A Simple Game For Everyday Life.

Jj is for Jottings 77.  Blending Sounds: A Simple Game For Everyday Life.

What is Blending?

Blending is “pushing” individual sounds or syllables together to make a word.  In early stages of reading the child will be blending sounds, but as they progress and begin to recognise chunks of words, they will also be blending syllables. Continue reading →

Voice Disorders and Vocal Nodules.

Jj is for Jottings 76.  Voice Disorders and Vocal Nodules.

Our brown alpaca, Manuel, is trying to open his mouth as widely as he can so we can see if he has vocal nodules.

Manuel is trying to open his mouth as widely as he can so we can see if he has vocal nodules.

 

In my last post I said I’d talk more about voice disorders and how they develop in children.  Vocal nodules, also referred to as screamer’s or singer’s nodules, are a likely result of misuse and abuse of the voice. Continue reading →

Voice Quality and Speech Intelligibility.

Jj is for Jottings 75.  Voice Quality and Speech Intelligibility.

I was reminded the other day about the effects that voice quality can have on the clarity of a person’s speech.  In addition to reduced speech intelligibility caused by speech sound problems (see here), poor voice quality can also interfere with the listener’s ability to understand the message.  I was reminded by this: Continue reading →

Understanding Unclear Speech.

Jj is for Jottings 74.  Understanding Unclear Speech.

When a child’s speech is unclear, it could range from a single sound substitution such as a lisp (which is, in effect, saying /th/ instead of /s/ and which, although not perfectly clear, is perfectly intelligible) right through the continuum to multiple substitutions, omission of sounds and syllables, addition of sounds, and distortion of sounds – the result of which is likely to be largely or completely unintelligible. Continue reading →

Prince William on Punctuation and Social Media.

Jj is for Jottings 73.  Prince William on Punctuation and Social Media.

Prince William addressed a group of female students at a London school on the issue of cyberbullying.  He talked about the stress of trying to live up to all the faked “perfection” seen online, and he urged students to put down their devices, in order to improve mental health.  He said that they need to balance their time with other activities, especially outside, and not to be on a screen all day because “it takes you into a different world.”

Prince William also made the point about how often feelings can be hurt be text messages and social media, saying: “Unless you punctuate it correctly — I’m not the best at punctuation and I’m not the grammar police, either — you can read it in 100 different ways.”  He also went on to talk about the importance of emotional intelligence and sharing feelings, but that is not my focus today.

Punctuation – many people ignore it and consider it of no importance, but that is absolutely untrue.  A message can be completely changed by those little marks on the page, even without changing the words themselves.  Here are a couple of examples:

“Let’s eat, Grandma.”

With the comma, these words indicate that the speaker is talking to their grandma and suggesting that they eat dinner. Watch what happens when you remove the comma:

“Let’s eat Grandma.”

Without the comma, the speaker is suggesting that they eat their grandma!

Another example:

“Please replace the chair’s.”  The chair’s what?

Clearly, poor punctuation can interfere with the meaning of the message, and for people who punctuate correctly, each punctuation error is a stumbling block to fluent reading, since one must  re-read parts to check what is really meant.  In text messages and on social media, the writer is not present for you to check what was really meant; in conversation you can clarify meanings and sort out misunderstandings on the spot.

There is much more I could say about punctuation.  I’m sure it will work its way into posts at some point!

 

Source of photo:  World Bank Photo Collection.

Single Words Versus Connected Speech.

Jj is for Jottings 72.  Single Words Versus Connected Speech.

Following on from the discussion about the end of a word not always really being the end (here), we find that, as a result of running our words together to get a smooth flow which is easier for the listener to follow, we can end up with strings of consonants together, as in, “He mends trucks.”  Continue reading →