Jj is for Jottings 58. More Reading to Dogs.
The other reason for children reading to dogs (see previous article https://educatingalpacas.com/reading-to-dogs/) was intended to benefit the dogs, but turns out to be a two-way street, as you will see. The Humane Society of Missouri trains children aged 5-15 years to sit in front of shelter runs Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 57. Reading to Dogs.
If you had your reading L plates on, who would you rather read to – a person or a dog? Young readers reading to dogs is an idea which originated in the USA in 1999, and is being adopted in Australia in schools and libraries. Different programs exist, but they are all variations on the theme. Continue reading
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
Jj is for Jottings 50. Rhyming, Climbing, Miming… (Part 1)
Geisha had a little cria,But in this pic you cannot see ‘er!
(With thanks to David for this one.)
Children are not often introduced to nursery rhymes, these days, and in fact most seem to have little exposure to rhymes in their early childhood. People seem to think that the old-fashioned nursery rhymes are silly and don’t make sense Continue reading
Jj is for Jottings 48. One Letter Doesn’t Always Equal One Sound.
If you have read “Aa is for Alpacas” you will already know this, but just in case you haven’t… the letter x is actually two sounds /ks/. (Remember that the slashes mean the sound rather than the letter name/s.) The other thing you will know Continue reading
educatingalpacas.com supports the book “Aa is for Alpacas”. See Why This Book?
Welcome to my blog – Educating Alpacas. Does this mean that we are educating the alpacas – teaching them to count and so on – or are the alpacas helping to educate people? Although we do a little bit of educating the alpacas (see blog post “Halter-Training April), it is mainly that the alpacas are involved in helping to educate both adults and children. The starting point for this blog is my book “Aa is for Alpacas”, written out of desperation at being unable to find an accurate alphabet book which measured up to my standards and which I could recommend to parents to help teach sound-letter links i.e. the sound made by each letter of the alphabet. You cannot rely on this happening at school and, even if it does, children need to practise at home.
It is not only the lack of knowledge of sound-letter links which is tripping up children in the early stages of learning to read, but there are many other issues which I have observed during more than 35 years of working as a speech pathologist in education – issues which have arisen during this time and which are contributing to a decline in literacy in Australian children. These concerns are shared by experienced teachers. Via the medium of the blog and its accompanying Facebook page I set out to bring up issues which are affecting children’s learning, many of which may not have occurred to parents; some strategies for parents to implement with their children at home; pictures and anecdotes about the alpacas and their animal friends and neighbours; and any other vaguely-related issues which I feel moved to bring to people’s attention.
Since “Aa is for Alpacas” was the starting point for the blog, there are references made to both the animals in the book and to the information presented in the User Guide. This is the only alphabet book that I am aware of which has a comprehensive guide for adults reading with the children, and it also has a book-reading (click on the Video button at the top of this page) so that adults can check whether they are saying sounds correctly and not confusing the children with letter names. The book is aimed at 3-7 year olds, but can easily be used as a remedial tool for older children.
The Book Launch. This was in an educational supplies shop, Chalk and Chat, in Albury (New South Wales). Our shearer and his wife very kindly brought along two young, very well-behaved, alpacas for the children to meet.
Off to school next year – excellent preparation.
Jj is for Jottings 33. How More Routine, Fewer Choices Make for Smarter and Happier Children. Part 3. Here is the third part of an article which appeared in the Pulse section of the Border Mail on February 6 last year, and it bears repeating. The first part was in Jottings 18 and the second in Jottings 26. Behavioural optometrist Michael Smith gave these guidelines: How to prepare your child for the ‘game of school’ • Talk with your child; • Travel/drive/explore the world; • Use a wide range of vocabulary; • Play simple games with words and alphabetic sounds (make it fun); • Read books daily — limit distractions and make the experience a special time; and • If you are concerned about your child’s progress or development, do some research and get help as it is easier to rectify problems at an earlier age. THE fallout is felt in the classroom. Mrs McCormack (a teacher for 45 years, now retired) knows all too well the validity of Mr Smith’s comments after four decades of teaching. “Nothing can replace the experience of the smell and touch of a book, of sitting cuddled up on your parent’s knee while they read to you and hearing and seeing the expression in their voice,” she says. And while she believes advances in technology have brought a wealth of stimulation to our world, at the same time it is robbing children of vital skills needed for school and life. “It’s like we have thrown out everything that’s old to bring in everything that’s new,” she says. “It may not happen in my lifetime but I can see a point where the focus will return to the basics — the three Rs (Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic). Mr Smith is adamant the over-use of electronic media before kids start school is affecting them socially, physically and mentally. “Plonking children in front of a television for hours a day and then another two hours on the iPad or Xbox is depriving children of movement and of words,” he says. “So many kids are starting school with a limited ability to be creative, to see in their mind.” These are the children who end up at Mr Smith’s door. He has countless stories of parents who come to him almost at their wit’s end about little Johnny mucking up, falling behind and generally struggling to grasp the basics of learning. In a heart-felt letter, one mum wrote that she once had a son who hated school so much he would cry and lock himself in the toilet. “Every day he would lay on my bed and say I hate myself, why can’t I learn and every day my heart would break (sic) for him,” she wrote. “He was three years behind the other children in his grade and falling further and further behind. “Now he’s a changed boy; he loves going to school, his handwriting has improved 100 per cent and he is now reading books, loves maths and is going well at sport.” But it was the new-found confidence evident in her son’s own words that captured it best for Mr Smith. “Thank you for helping me. You have helped me in my school work so much,” the boy wrote in pencil.
“Now can you help me pick up a chick … ha ha.
It’s that time of year again when the alpacas have new neighbours. When these twins were a week old, their mother took them further down their paddock into line with our back paddock. The lambs were playing just next to the fence. I came across the paddock – unfortunately with no camera – to find a line of interested alpacas staring at the lambs. Geisha tried to jump on them twice (that’s how they attack unwanted animals) because “They Didn’t Belong There” and “It Was Her Territory”. Thankfully she couldn’t actually get at them through the fence.
Jj is for Jottings 31. Televisions in Children’s Bedrooms. A few days ago one of my “therapy children” – 7 years of age – brought a soft toy into the session. When asked about it she said she’d been given it as a reward for behaving well in the shop where her parents had bought her a television for her bedroom. (Fancy having to be rewarded for behaving well when you are being bought a big-ticket item!) When asked why she should have a television in her bedroom she said because “lots of” the other children have them in their bedrooms. I don’t know what percentage of children do, but I do know it’s not uncommon. Since children having televisions in their bedrooms fills me with horror, I thought it was a good time to say my piece on the subject. Here are some reasons why TVs and children’s bedrooms should never meet: • Programs screened when the child is in bed are likely to be inappropriate for the child’s age. Children are unable to discriminate between appropriate and inappropriate content. • Watching TV in bed will erode sleeping time. • How are parents going to know if the child wakes up during the night and turns on the television? If children do turn on the TV in the middle of the night, see the first two points above. • Watching television in bed can be overstimulating and undermine the body’s readiness for sleep. You might argue that the same applies to reading in bed – and it can, but this is more of an adult problem than a child problem, and it is magnified by…. • All screens emit short-wavelength blue light. Light affects our internal body clock, which affects our circadian rhythm, which is our (more or less) 24 hour body cycle which influences many internal functions. This determines when our body is primed to stay awake and be productive and when we feel tired and want to go to sleep. When it gets dark in the evening, our pineal gland secretes the hormone melatonin, which signals to our brain and body that it’s time to get tired and go to sleep. Blue light inhibits melatonin production. As a result, our bodies don’t get the proper signal that it’s time to go to sleep, reducing both the quality and quantity of sleep. In effect, the body is tricked into thinking it’s daytime. Blue light (which we also get from the sun’s rays) are crucial during the day, but have a disastrous effect at night. There is any amount of research on this, from Harvard University, Monash University, University of Toronto to name just a few. • Tired children do not concentrate or learn well. (Or adults either, for that matter.) Their behaviour is likely to suffer, and this will have a knock-on effect to everybody in the classroom.
Being a parent is a tough call, there’s no denying that. But one of the things we must do is to step away from our children’s whims and “what everybody else is doing” and to think about the long-term effects of our decisions on our child’s health and wellbeing.
Peaceful paddock scene.
Jj is for Jottings 29. More of the Neuroscientist’s Comments.
Continuing the theme from Jottings 28, Baroness Greenfield warns that children who once used their imaginations are now more likely to sit in front of a screen with a menu of choices somebody else has designed. I have heard people say that reading books also stifles imagination, because someone else has imagined the story. This is not the same thing, however. Continue reading
Another view of the family cos they are so cute!
Jj is for Jottings 20. The Other Side of the Coin.
Last time I talked about the important role speech pathologists can play in literacy, and this is quite true. In theory, we can make a huge difference. However, as with learning any new skills or working to improve existing skills, practice is paramount. Continue reading