Letter of the Week: K

Monday, January 20th marks our nation’s annual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement he championed. A big, important historical figure. A big, important topic. I don’t think there is an age that is too young to start introducing the man or the movement. I do think both need to be scaled down to be appropriate to the child's developmental level. This week we are going to tackle both in a small way. Sticking with our letter-sound of the week (K), we are going to focus on the idea of ‘kindness’.

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Letter of the Week: N

A New Year, a new week, and a new letter! With 2014 still all fresh and shiny, we are going to continue the celebration and explore what New Year's is all about.

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Happy New Year! Let's Review

Hello 2014! How was your 'time off' for Christmas and New Year's and winter break? I am still finding my footing, but getting geared up to jump back in to our Letter of the Week project! Ready???

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Letter of the Week: W

Contrary to what we might think based on our recent weather, winter begins next weekend. In honor of the change of seasons we will be talking about all things cold, snowy and wintery! Technically, ‘w’ is a consonant. From a speech perspective, /w/ is a wind sound. It is a sound cousin to /h/ as both are made by an airstream relatively unobstructed by the lips and tongue.

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Letter of the Week: R

Are you ready for a new sound? It is Reindeer time! ‘R’ is a consonant and one of the later developing sounds. In fact, it is typically one of the last sounds to be mastered (often not until a child is 6 or 7). It can also be one of the trickiest. /r/ is a hard working sound as one of the most common sounds in English. To complicate things, it changes slightly depending upon where in the word it appears and the vowels around it. Have you heard the term "r-controlled vowels"? Yup. /r/ can be "vowel-like". So, for our purposes here I'll talk about 'r' in general terms.

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