Jj is for Jottings 160.  Creativity in Children, Part 2. Following on from Part 1, we will now go into more activities in greater detail in Creativity in Children, Part 2.  In order for creativity to flourish, it is important for us to slow down and create the time and headspace to allow room for […]

Jj is for Jottings 160.  Creativity in Children, Part 2. Following on from Part 1, we will now go into more activities in greater detail in Creativity in Children, Part 2.  In order for creativity to flourish, it is important for us to slow down and create the time and headspace to allow room for […]

Jj is for Jottings 158.  Smartphones in Schools. A few days ago (July 2023) in Australia, smartphones in schools were banned.  Some states had already banned or restricted their use, but the ban is now nationwide.  The ban also includes smartwatches.  There are quite a few reasons to ban smartphones in schools given below, but […]

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 121.  A Noun is a Name. A noun is a name.  But there’s a bit more to it than that.  A noun is one of several parts of speech, which also includes verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, articles, prepositions, conjunctions and even interjections.  Although they are called parts of speech, they are […]

Jj is for Jottings 134.  Word Confusions: Bought/Brought; In a Moment/Momentarily. In this article I want to concentrate on word confusions: Bought/Brought; and In a Moment/Momentarily.  I said in my first article on word confusions that I would write about other word confusions from time to time.  (And I freely admitted that ton/tonne was a somewhat […]

Jj is for Jottings 100.  The Importance of Punctuation. Following on from Prince William’s comments on punctuation and the subsequent “toe-dip” into the importance of punctuation, we’ll add a bit more detail here. We are referring to punctuation of anything written, not just social media, which was the specific topic of the prince’s remarks.  There […]

Jj is for Jottings 111.  Word Confusions: Ton/Tonne; Home/Hone. For all the reasons given in the article on punctuation, clear communication is important, since that is the whole point: to get your message across to the listener/reader.  Many people confuse similar words, which undermines their message.  There will be articles from time to time on […]

Jj is for Jottings 157.  Word Confusions: Affect/Effect; Lie/Lay. This article covers the topic of word confusions: affect/effect; lie/lay.  Posts on word confusions will pop up from time to time.  The two previous posts are: word confusions:ton/tonne;home/hone and word confusions:bought/brought;in a moment/momentarily. When we communicate, we want to convey a message to the listener (or […]

Jj is for Jottings 156.  Speech Sound Problems: /th/ The speech sound problem /th/ is more complicated than many other sounds.  This is because in some parts of the English-speaking world, substituting /f/ for /th/ is normal, part of a dialect.  In this case it is not a speech sound problem. Continue reading

Jj is for Jottings 47.  Minimal Pairs: Voiced vs. Voiceless. You may not have noticed this before, but many of our consonant sounds in English come in pairs.  The sounds are the same except for the fact that one uses the voice and the other does not.  You’ll see what I mean when I tell […]

Jj is for Jottings 155.  Auditory Discrimination and Sound Errors. When children make speech sound errors, we need to consider auditory discrimination and speech sound errors.  A child needs to be able to discriminate the difference between the correct sound and what they are saying instead.  Otherwise they don’t have much chance of replacing the […]

Jj is for Jottings 84.  Vowel Discrimination Activities. Vowel Discrimination Activity 3. Identifying /i/ and /e/. As promised in the previous article, here are some vowel discrimination activities to help your child to hear the difference between vowel sounds, in particular the tricky pairs of a/u and i/e.  At the same time these activities reinforce […]

Jj is for Jottings 153.  Speech Sound Problems: /k,g/ We have previously learned about /s/ as a speech sound problem.  Let us now focus on speech sound problems: /k,g/.  As always, if your child makes speech errors, you need to know whether the error is actually appropriate for age.  (In which case, is it actually […]