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 […]

Jj is for Jottings 154.  How Smartphones Affect the Brain. In this article we will cover some of the latest research on how smartphones affect the brain.  We have previously discussed  the effects of screen time on children.  Amongst other aspects, this included language delay in children exposed to screens at an early age.  We […]

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 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 […]

Jj is for Jottings 54.  Should I Correct My Child’s Speech? This is Linguine, Kieran’s Murray Darling carpet python. The pic I really wanted was too blurry. Shikha caught a 23 cm long baby brown snake last week and brought it to the front door step to play with. Having just stepped out of the […]

The alpacas and all of us here Wish you and those you hold dear: Christmas cheer, joy and love, P’raps a peaceful white dove, And we hope that you’ll join us next year. You can see that Shanti isn’t feeling very angelic wearing a halo. Shikha batted it off with his paw every time. And […]

Jj is for Jottings 62.  Raising a Reader Part 2.  Toddlers. Continuing from the previous article (here), you cannot overestimate the importance of reading with a child at the toddler stage – for intellectual, social and emotional development.  They take in everything: vocabulary and language structure, numbers and math concepts, colours, shapes, opposites and many […]