Children who will later be identified as being dyslexic often do not have phonological awareness skills. Teaching these skills has been shown in research to prevent the occurrence of dyslexia in many children. Accordingly, many school systems now follow a program of early screening for phonological awareness skills.

No area of reading research has gained as much attention over the past two decades as phonological awareness. Perhaps the most exciting finding emanating from research on phonological awareness is that critical levels of phonological awareness can be developed through carefully planned instruction, and this development has a significant influence on children’s reading and spelling achievement.

Why Is Phonological Awareness So Important?

An awareness of phonemes is necessary to grasp the alphabetic principle that underlies our system of written language. Specifically, developing readers must be sensitive to the internal structure of words.

If children understand that words can be divided into individual phonemes and that phonemes can be blended into words, they are able to use letter-sound knowledge to read and build words. As a consequence of this relationship, phonological awareness is a strong predictor of later reading success. Researchers have shown that this strong relationship between phonological awareness and reading success persists throughout school.

Early reading is dependent on having some understanding of the internal structure of words, and explicit instruction in phonological awareness skills is very effective in promoting early reading. However, instruction in early reading – especially instruction in letter-sound correspondence – strengthens phonological awareness.

Success in early reading depends on achieving a certain level of phonological awareness. Instruction in phonological awareness is beneficial for most children and critical for others.

What Is Phonological Awareness?

Phonological awareness is the ability to break words into separate sounds. A child who has phonological awareness can tell you when two words rhyme and when two words start with the same sound. Further development of phonological awareness will allow the child to tell you when two words end with the same sound. For example, they can tell you that “bat” and “sit” end with the same sound but “bat” and “sad” do not end with the same sound.
Phonological awareness is a broad term that includes phonemic awareness. In addition, to phonemes, phonological awareness activities can involve work with rhymes, words, syllables, and onsets and rimes.

The key to the process of learning to read is the ability to identify the different sounds that make words and to associate these sounds with written words. In order to learn to read, a child must be aware of phonemes. A phoneme is the smallest functional unit of sound. For example, the word cat contains three distinctly different sounds. There are 44 phonemes in the English language, including letter combinations such as /th/.

In addition to identifying these sounds, children must also be able to manipulate them. Word play involving segmenting words into their constituent sounds, rhyming words, and blending sounds to make words is also essential to the reading process. The ability to identify and manipulate the sounds of language is called phonological awareness. There are five levels of phonological awareness ranging from an awareness of rhyme to being able to switch or substitute the components in a word.

Children generally begin to show initial phonological awareness when they demonstrate an appreciation of rhyme and alliteration. For many children, this begins very early in the course of their language development and is likely facilitated by being read to from books that are based on rhyme or alliteration.

Teaching Phonological Awareness

Early experience with nursery rhymes can help children begin to notice and think about the phonological structure of words. Several research studies have shown that the children who know more about nursery rhymes at age 3, are those that tend to be more highly developed in general phonological awareness at age 4 and in phonemic awareness at age 6.

You don’t have to stop with nursery rhymes though. Read rhyming books and sing rhyming songs and chants. Have children identify the rhyming words using picture cards and do rhyming sorts with picture cards.

Also play games that teach children to isolate individual sounds in a word. For example, this game can be played with the “BINGO” song. There was a letter had a sound and you can say it with me b, b, b, like ball…… Play the game – “What’s the First Sound in this Word” This can be done orally or with picture cards

When children learn how to “listen to language”, they are also learning to connect oral language with the written word. Once they hear, know, and are able to manipulate sounds, they begin to realize how words work. 
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Love you more, to live more
Regular sexual relationships help us live longer. A study conducted in Sweden in 1981 showed thatthe rate ofmortality was higher in men about 70 years which did a good period of sexual activity. In 1997, some British researchers have kept under observation four years 918 men aged between 45 and 59 years.Research has shown that during the period analyzed, the mortality rate by at least two men having sex twice a week was lower than in those who had less than one contact per month.

Sexual Activity and Cancer
Sex may prevent certain cancers? A question that I still grind to researchers worldwide. So far, the results of studies are contradictory. In 1990, a Japanese study conducted on 100 men showed a decreased risk of prostate cancer for those with a greater number of sexual relationships. However, the same research has shown an increased risk for those with one sustained sexual activity between 30 and 50 years. Another study, conducted in Washington, showed that prostate cancer risk is directly proportional to the number of sex partners. A large study conducted in France on thousands of nuns, aged between 50 and 84 years revealed an increase in mortality rate related to breast and genital cancer. We can not believe abstinence only culprit? Some experts say yes, others not so. The latter believe that the explanation could be related to lack of pregnancy, not necessarily regular sexual relations.Studies continue …

Make love and peace of Roads …
Some doctors in Wales have made ​​a study of 2,400 men who wanted to demonstrate the close connection between physical exercise practiced regularly and cardiovascular diseases. Team Medical has developed a questionnaire that participants who did not have heart disease you have completed and one of the questions concerned the frequency of sexual relations. The result: men who had, on average, three orgasms a week over a period of ten years shows an approximately two times lower risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke. Many doctors say that the voices of physical love is the best natural way to prevent heart problems.

Without old Sex and youth
In Britain, scientists have conducted a study of 3,500 people said that those who make love at least three times a week look ten years younger. The experiment involved volunteers aged between 18 and 102 years. The researchers wanted to know why some people appear much younger than normal for their age. They found that these had more personal things in common (not smoked, had a relatively stress free life, had a feeding model), including the statement that had, on average, at least three sexual intercourse per week. This beneficial effect of sex was confirmed, moreover, and many subsequent studies. ”It’s more than a simple exercise, talking about orgasm, hormones – hence benefits,” said the initiator of the study.

And the longer list of benefits is eventual …
1) Sex Reduce Depression – a Study of 300 American women found thos Whose That never used condoms partners, we’re less prone to depression Than partners used thos Whose Protection. That is Responsible for prostaglandin, a hormone found only in sperm.

2) Gender pain away – after orgasm, oxytocin Levels increased about five times, and this leads to the release of endorphins, Which fight pain – from headaches to arthritis. And increasing the level of estrogen Reduce menstrual pain.  

3) Gender cold you away – Pennsylvania Researchers Say That thos Who Have sex once a week Twice or HAD the level of antibody immunoglobulin A with 30% higher, Which boosts the immune system.

Visit a good Sex forum MedLife for more articles and reviews about a healthy life, common diseases, treatments, symptoms and much more. Medlife is one of the most appreciated health blogs and sex forum in the world written by the best students in medicine.

Your little darling is cheerful, and you want to sing and dance with him? or to sing sweet songs that have shaped and rocked your childhood? Here’s a site that should please and delight your baby http://www.comptinesanimees.com, animated rhymes of yesterday and today.
You’ll find rhymes of old, (the clear fountain, there was a small ship …), more or less known, to learn nursery rhymes, rhymes mimed, English nursery rhymes, nursery rhymes in Spanish or Hebrew, as well as generic cartoons. 
The site meets the two requirements of images and sounds.
Making music awareness, a sound approach particularly suited to young children, usually with subtitles as karaoke, make visual awareness, by animations in full color, and shapes adapted to the visual perception of the baby. 
Because baby learns and absorbs quickly, make rhymes in different languages, can acquire sounds that will be very useful later in learning a foreign language.
Through a revolutionary technique for automatic reading, the site rhymes animated, suggested choosing the rhyme starting (default first), and scroll one after the other, all the nursery rhymes so that your baby who does not know yet to click with the mouse, can quietly watch the screen of your computer for a few tens of minutes without any intervention on your part.
This site, I created and adapted for my daughters (9 months) and (23 months), observing their needs and requests. It is not uncommon that a sequence of rhymes is requested loop one day, then baby, do not listen to certain songs more cowardly, another day. The site allows you to manage all these cases.Parents, do not hesitate to spend a great time with your baby, to the rhythms of songs and lullabies childish.

A rhyming dictionary provides a peek into words that sound similar to a word with an easy to use format. It’s mostly a database of words that are organized around a root sound with a look up facility to find the root. Modern online dictionaries like Merriam-Webster also have a” words that rhyme” function, but it doesn’t provide the same capabilities as the paper book.

Use a Rhyming Dictionary to Find the Root Sound

Pick a word, then look at the index of your rhyming dictionary. The rhyming dictionary will give you the number of the root. The root is identified by a number 1-500. One common mistake in using a rhyming dictionary is thinking of the number provided as a page number, this is incorrect. Once you have the root number, leaf through the pages to locate the number.

Example Explaining How to Find Rhymes

I picked word clomp. Although clomp looks like lamp, they sound much different. The sound of clomp rhymes with pomp, romp and stomp. In looking in the rhyming dictionary, I find the root number for clomp is 288. I find root 12 is”-omp” on page 294 and its one of the words where there aren’t many similar rhymes.

Use a Rhyming Dictionary to Beef up Boring Verbs

We’ve all run into the situation where you write your blah first draft and your character walks here, walks there, and then walks some more and more. What if he clomped through the tulips, then stomped in the muck, and then caught his girl’s hand and romped through the open fields, it makes even explanatory text much more fun to read.

Use a Rhyming Dictionary to Jazz Up Sensual Moments

When writing a scene, where mood is important, verb sounds can help establish the feel, i.e. the reason jazz feels like blue as well as being contemplative and moody, is because the sound connects to the action blew that shows how the saxophone or clarinet is being blown. Using “blue” as a root word, finds you blur and blurt nearby in the index but also coo, ooh, glue, brew, ecru, bestrew, boohoo, curfew, curlicue, toodle-oo, taboo, adieu, peekaboo that can all sound like that horn blowing and suggest bar scenery. Using condensed rhyming sounds can make your prose sing a love song or a song sung blue.

Use a Rhyming Dictionary to Create a Oddball Character

Next to blue in the Rhyming Dictionary, the root for “-y” is nearby, and sounds like baby. A quick scan could produce a grubbly, flabby lackey. How easy can you get?

Rhyming dictionaries aren’t expensive, they just happen to be rather esoteric these days. They make wonderful gifts for poet friends, for other suggestions read “Best Gifts for Poets”.

I love my girlfriend more than words can say,
Can’t stop thinking of her! – Not even for one day.

She fills my world with happiness and joy,
A feeling that I don’t believe anyone can destroy!

Oh, how I’m bound to this sweet young love,
she is the best I could ever dream of.

It’s hard to explain, she’s simply amazing,
And whenever we’re together, our love is blazing.

She makes me want to get up every day.
And that’s all because I know she’ll stay,

- With me forever, that what she say.
And I believe her because, what else can I do?

I love her for gods sake, and I’ve enjoyed what we’ve been through.
Because we always solve our problems, no matter what is going on,

- Whereupon we feel the power that keeps us together,
It can sometimes be hard, just like a rock, but sometimes, soft as a feather.

You might’ve guessed that “love” is the word,
And I’m still under effect, as I remain un-cured.

(Mnemonic glyphs from Giordano Bruno’s Ars Memoriae (The Art of Memory) 1582)

Back through the mists of time, we suddenly find ourselves 500 years B.C. in ancient Greece where philosophy and wisdom first took root. This impressive society is also the first to form the concept of civilization and culture, and first to form a nation. Here the first trappings of science can be found.

South lies Athens where wise thinkers spend their time contemplating the nature of the universe. Their thoughts are kindled by what they can see. There is so little light pollution that the stars and the milky way shine bright in the sky. The delicate embroidery of the stars can be seen in humbling detail. Constellations jump out at the awestruck stargazers.

Across the street a man stands at the entrance to the banqueting hall, clearly enjoying the crisp night time air, speaking with a messenger, taking a break from the festivities inside. You recognize the man as Simonides, famous poet, but you do not recognize the messenger who is a stranger to the city. With terrifying suddenness thunder echoes through the streets. Disaster strikes, and the building behind Simonides collapses. A stunned silence permeates the streets as those few who happened to be close by pause and watch, helpless in those moments of incomprehension. Simonides himself stands aghast at the sight of the collapsed hall. He had been inside it only moments ago.

People rush to the scene, and pull the rubble from the collapsed building. They struggle through the night searching for survivors but to no avail. The diners lie crushed under the rubble, unrecognizable. Simonides is the only person to survive the banquet.

Now all that remains to be done is to offer the unfortunate diners proper funeral rites, but this presents a problem. Each is crushed beyond recognition and yet no family wishes to perform the rites for a stranger. If they cannot recognize their loved ones, then no rites can take place. Why should such expensive rites be for the benefit a stranger?

Simonides finds that by mentally imagining the banquet hall the way it was, and taking a walk around this imagined scene in his head, he is able to remember perfectly the position of each of them. Astounded by his own feat of memory, and wondering if he could employ it in other uses, Simonides tries to understand the techniques behind it. In doing so, the ancient and fascinating art of mnemonics is born. What happened next is best told by Cicero;

“He inferred that persons desiring to train this faculty must select places and form mental images of the things they wish to remember and store those images in the places, so that the order of the places will preserve the order of the things, and the images of the things will denote the things themselves, and we shall employ the places and images respectively as a wax writing-tablet and the letters written on it. (Cicero, De Oratore, II, lxxxvi – translation: Sutton & Rackham, 1942).”

In the ancient world such mnemonics became popular, until everyone could remember torrents of information as easily as our computers do today. Unfortunately such techniques died out gradually until at last, during the middle ages, only the scholarly monks such as the Jesuit missionaries were aware of them.

One such missionary was a man called Matteo Ricci, who in 1578 departed from Lisbon in Portugal on a journey to far off lands. He arrived in Goa which was at that time a Portuguese Colony, in September of 1578, where he remained for 4 years. In 1582 Ricci was dispatched to China.

Using the techniques his teachers at the Jessuit college had taught him he learned the Chinese language and became one of the few western scholars to master the very difficult Chinese classical script. Indeed, he was able to read a Chinese book, and then read it forwards or backwards word for word, such was his power of memory thanks to the art of mnemonics. Added to this his own appreciation and respect for indigenous Chinese culture, and one need not wonder why Chinese leaders and scholars were so impressed by him. The powerful Chinese families, noting Ricci’s remarkable feats of memory, all sent their sons to study with him so that they would not be at a dissadvantage. In the course of these lessons Ricci was able to influence them towards Christianity. It has been said that Matteo Ricci was the most successful Missionary ever, in terms of the sheer number of people he converted. He achieved this thanks in part to the ancient art of mnemonics, and the amazing feats of memory that gave him such high standing in Chinese culture as a great Scholar and teacher.

Meanwhile Giordano Bruno, then staying in Paris, published several works on mnemonics, including De umbris idearum (On The Shadows of Ideas, 1582), Ars Memoriae (The Art of Memory, 1582), and Cantus Circaeus (Circe’s Song, 1582). All of which were based on his models of organised mnemonics for knowledge and experience. Thus it was Bruno who finally pinned down Mnemonics, ensuring its survival into the modern age.

It remained a little known, though effectively utilised art, which filted down through circles of learned scholars until finally being popularized, first by British historian Frances A. Yates’s 1966 book ‘The Art of Memory’, and then again by the psychologist, educational consultant (and proponent of mental literacy) Tony Buzan, in a 1970s tv series for the BBC and then dozens of books.

Mnemonics, no longer a dry academic discipline taught by monks, is now popular among children and students, colleges and universities. Amazingly it is possible to teach anyone how to use mnemonics to remember any amount of information, and so it has become another welcome technique to help people learn all the information thrown at them in the course of their studies, and gain excellent results by the end of them.