Posture affects mood and cognition. Nina’s posture is upright, and she looks happy and alert as a result. Jj is for Jottings 103.  Posture Affects Mood and Cognition. How many times were you told as a child:  “Sit up straight. Don’t slouch.”  Or in my mother’s case, “You’ll get a dowager’s hump.”  As is so […]

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 […]

Jj is for Jottings 99. Print Books are Better than Digital Books for Toddlers. The question of whether print books are better than digital books for toddlers is a concern for many parents who are looking to do the best by their children.  Here are two pieces of evidence, one anecdotal and one from research, […]

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 […]

Jj is for Jottings 97.  Reading-Aloud Games. Following on from interactive reading with children, here are some ideas for “reading-aloud games” which you can play with children while reading stories with them.  The idea is to be spontaneous, just playfully engaging in banter whilst actually providing wonderful learning opportunities as a bonus.  It may sound […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

Jj is for Jottings 70.  The End of a Word is Not Always the End. In traditional tests of articulation (speech sounds) and when we are sounding out words in reading, we think very much in terms of sounds at the beginning, in the middle and on the end of a word.  In the case […]

Jj is for Jottings 76.  Voice Disorders and 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 […]

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 […]

Meet the new next-paddock neighbours! Not that I’ve seen the alpacas take the slightest bit of notice of them, but we think they’re cute. Jj is for Jottings: 6. Food for Thought. While we’re on the subject of sheep, here is a disquieting story one of my “therapy mums” told me recently. If you have […]

Jj is for Jottings 93.  Consonant Clusters. Consonant clusters, or blends, can cause problems when analysing sounds  and blending.  Children with speech, language or literacy problems often have difficulty in detecting the second sound in a consonant cluster.  I mentioned this in a previous article on blending sounds.  Children who can easily analyse a consonant-vowel-consonant […]

Jj is for Jottings 70.  The End of a Word is Not Always the End. In traditional tests of articulation (speech sounds) and when we are sounding out words in reading, we think very much in terms of sounds at the beginning, in the middle and on the end of a word.  In the case […]