PEE Paragraph.

Text G's inclusion of illustration could be seen as an example of a context cue that will help the reader to gain an understanding of the whole piece. An example of this comes where their is a illustration of a notebook and a pencil accompanied by arrows saying 'a pencil' and 'a notebook.' The child may be prone to a miscue of the words (especially notebook as it is polysllyabic) may be a word that they may struggle to pronounce without the illustration. Children of the same age as Tom have only been in school for a year or two maximum, so therefore are unlikely to do much work in books. Therefore they may not be familiar with a word such as notebook as this may be something that they have not come across

From the start of the twentieth century, the world has changed dramatically in the way we communicate with each other. One of the main uses in today's society is social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The introduction of new technology such as iPhone' s, laptops and tablets also make these social networks more accessible for any time of the day anywhere. From this rapid development, a considerable amount of neologisms and coinages have been introduced into our everyday language.

An example of a neologism is the use of the word Google. This was obviously first introduced as a noun as it was the name of a particular search engine, however over the past few years the term has been broadened. Nowadays the term "google" can be seen as a verb, this is due to the popularity of that particular search engine that people may say they are 'googling' something when they are using a different search engine.

Pejoration has also taken place since the recent use of social networking and technology, an example of this is with the span. Before the twentieth century, spam was known as a brand of a precooked and canned meat product and had few negative connotations, however in today's world the word spam refers to receiving irrelevant or unsolicted messages sent over the Internet, typically to large numbers of users, normally for the purposes of advertising or spreading malware, it has therefore created negative connotations as spam is now considered as annoying, unnecessary and harmful to the persons device.

A question all my participants were asked during my questionnaire was what features of an accent appealed to them and why, many of these answers included specifications that could be seen to fit the criteria of the Geordie accent. This is supported by another piece of research by ComRes (2013), however in this one it was concluded that Geordie is the second most friendly accent in the United Kingdom (the Devonshire accent was first but however is not included in my data.) These answers my participants gave on what makes an accent desirable included that if it ‘sounds different’, ‘sounded fun’, ‘welcoming’ and ‘gentle’ they were more attracted to someone’s accent. It could also be speculated that part of the reason for the Geordie accent being so favourable is due to the external exposure my participants have to the accent through the incredibly popular television series Geordie Shore. If I was to eliminate the Geordie accent from the data, it would leave Heightened Received Pronunciation and BBC English as the top two accents in this category which would therefore match my hypothesis.

How Children learn to read

Finding the best way to inspire children to become fluent readers has long been debated. The "look and say" approach, where children learnt to memorise words, dominated in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. But now the pendulum has swung towards phonics-based teaching, where children decode words by sounds. The Department for Education says international evidence demonstrates that phonics is the most effective way of teaching early reading, and this year introduced a phonics reading test for six-year-olds.

The revised national curriculum, coming into force from September 2014, requires reception and year 1 students to be taught Synthetic phonics (where children learn to recognise letters with their associated sounds – and how to blend those sounds to "read" the "words.") Students aren't meant to get help from clues such as context, meaning or illustration. It's difficult to gauge how rigidly this will be enforced, but the situation certainly suggests there'll be a significant increase in pressure on schools and teachers to conform.

A child's ability to learn to read, known as reading readiness, begins in infancy, as the child begins attending to the speech signals in their environment and begins producing spoken language.[3] Children make some use of all the material that they are presented with, including every perception, concept and word that they come in contact with; thus the environment in which a child develops affects the child's ability to learn to read.[3] The amount of time that a child spends together with parents or other important caregivers while listening to them read is a good predictor of the level of reading that the child will attain later in life.[3][4] As a child sits with a caregiver, looking at pictures and listening to stories, he or she will slowly learn that all the different lines on each page make different symbols and then that together these symbols refer to words.[3] Taking time to read to children is the most important precursor to a child's development of reading.[3] Preschool-aged children with limited exposure to books and reading in their home, including limited experience of being read to, are at risk of reading difficulties.[3] For example, these children tend to have less exposure to literary phrases, such as "Once upon a time",[3] and have smaller vocabularies,[5][6] both factors that affect the ability to read by limiting comprehension of text. The environment in which a child lives may also impact their ability to acquire reading skills. Children who are regularly exposed to chronic environmental noise pollution, such as highway traffic noise, have been known to show decreased ability to discriminate between phonemes as well as lower reading scores on standardized tests.

Many of today’s primary school teachers are dissatisfied with the way children are taught to read, with the teachers leaders saying it causes children ‘long term damage.’ In a recent poll of about 1500 year one teachers 90% said they discovered nothing new about their pupils reading abilities after phonetics tests, the government still believe the test is vital.

The benefits of children reading at a young age include:

·         Mental Stimulation

·         Stress Reduction

·         Knowledge

·         Vocabulary Expansion

·         Memory Improvement

·         Stronger Analytical Thinking Skills

·         Improved Focus and Concentration

·         Better Writing Skills

·         Tranquillity     

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_to_read

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19812961

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19438535

·

Phonological development in Children

Children at a young age tend to make simple and abstract errors when stepping up and speaking to an adult as they are learning to speak just like them, these are known as phonological processes, here is an example of some:

Phonological Process Example   Description   Pre-vocalic voicing car = gar A voiceless sound preceding a vowel is replaced by a voiced sound. Word final devoicing red = ret A final voiced consonant is replaced by a voiceless consonant Final consonant deletion boat = bo A final consonant is omitted (deleted) from a word. Velar fronting car = tar A back sound is replaced by a front sound. Palatal fronting ship = sip sh or zh are replaced b y s or z respectively Consonant harmony cup = pup The pronunciation of a word is influenced by one of the sounds it 'should' contain. Weak syllable deletion telephone = teffone Weak (unstressed) syllables are deleted from words of more than one syllable. Cluster reduction try = ty A cluster element is deleted or replaced. Gliding of liquids ladder = wadder Liquids are replaced by glides. Stopping ship = tip A stop consonant replaces a fricative or affricate.

If a child finds difficulties pronouncing a word liker an adult, then Phonetic Simplification may take place, one form of this is known as deletion, this is where the child will discard either the first or the last consonant, for example "spor" or "port" instead of sport.  Another form of Phonetic Simplification is substitution, this is where if a child cannot pronounce a particular consonant, then they will simply replace it with a consonant they can pronounce for example "dun" instead of "sun".

There are several sounds children can say relatively quickly and are able to use almost immediately, these include: vowels, p, m, h, t, w, n, b and t. The more difficult ones include k, g, f, v, y, r, i, s ,ch ,ng and sh

http://www.talkingkids.org/2011/04/speech-sounds-and-kids-part-2.html

https://cogsci.uni-osnabrueck.de/~CL/download/BachTh_TobiasRauch.pdf

http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30:table2&catid=11:admin&Itemid=117

CDS techniques used for Zach 2;4

As discussed in class, Zach uses a number of non standard language in this transcipt, this is all due to his age and him still being in the telegraphic stage, as he will gets older he will move out of this. Halla uses a number of Child Directed Speech techniques to help her communicate with her son. I did two quantified two interesting aspects of the transcript, these were how many times repition was used by Halla and the second being the number of tag questions that were used.

I counted that Halla repeated Zach 9 times:

• Z: I cutting round the edge (.) so it doesn't/get sharp  H: so it doesn't get sharp?
• Z: I dont know (0.5) where's my little pad gone?  H: where is your little pad?
• Z: uh (1) here it is  H: here it is (12) what are you drawing (.) Zach?
• Z: a banana (0.5)and 3 things in the banana (0.5) H: a banana and what? (.) 3 things?
• Z: yes (.) for the banana  H: for the banana (.)
• Z: erm (.) I got food on the floor  H: yeah you threw food on the floor (1)
• Z: I think I don't  H: nah I think you don't (4) you wanted/ to do some drawing
• Z: it doesn't go frough  H: it doesn't go through? (.) why not?
• Z: and bolognay H: and bolognaise (.) yes (3)

I can only speculate on why these forms of CDS was used, but its could be argued that repetition was used as a technique to encourage Zach to speak. By repeating what he says enables him to either say "yes" or "no as confirmation, or to expand on what he was saying, this therefore allows him to develop his speech. Another reason for repetition may be because Zach may not be completely understood yet, and my repeating what he said gives him an opportunity to correct himself if that's not what he meant to say.

Employers Guide - Everyone's input is important!
                                                                                 
         
No matter what your personal thoughts are on someone, value what they're say, it may be that million pound idea.
Dwayne Jones 06/10/14

Gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality, social background, I'm sure there are variations of these all around your place of employment. Now take a moment to imagine if all these differences were erased and everyone was exactly the same.. boring isn't it?

Due to all these differences, it is inevitable that there are also going to be in your colleagues speech, this guide should explain how people think differently and also how we should value the diversity in our language.

One of the most notable differences in the workplace is obviously gender, A huge amount of research has taken place on this topic, one of the most notable being Deborah Tannen's difference theory. In this she summarised a category called Status v Support, this is where men look to build their status and help others whereas women use language to seek and offer. Although these may appear contrasting, it could be argued that these go hand in hand and could encourage unity within the workplace.

Commentary 

I initially decided to go into more detail into diverse speech in age within speech, however I decided against this as I had a considerable amount of gender theory that I could incorporate into this article, for example Deborah Tannen's difference theory, this may also be recognisable to several of my target audience due to her book 'You Just Don't Understand', I saw this as another advantage of using gender theory.

I also originally had a considerable amount of rhetorical questions in this article, however I omitted all but one. My reason for doing this was because I considered my target audience (adult in a professional job) and decided that the inclusion of so many rhetorical questions may be considered as patronising to them.