The development of a child’s spelling and vocabulary skills is crucial for all aspects of learning across the curriculum. As I mentioned in my last blog post, knowing words, and being able to use them in context, not only helps your child to properly understand any questions they are being asked but also enables them…
April 23rd is United Nations English Language Day. This date was chosen because it is Shakespeare’s birthday (thought to be 23rd April 1564). Shakespeare’s plays and poems have had an enormous impact on the development of the English language. The origin of many words and phrases that are commonly used in our language today can…
In 1999, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) declared that every year the 21st March was to be World Poetry Day. Why would they want to draw our attention to poetry as a literary form? One reason is that reading and listening to poetry can enrich our lives. Poetry is ‘heightened language’,…
A number of us may be familiar with the term ‘semantics’ when used in an idiomatic sense, i.e. ‘that’s just semantics’. This kind of statement is often used as a put-down when someone is trying to complicate an argument with a wordy explanation. However, in truth, semantics is a very important subject. Semantics is the…
‘Alice in Wonderland’ is a delightful story written by Lewis Carroll (a mathematician whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson). The story originated from an experience when Carroll was out rowing with three daughters of a friend of his, Henry Liddell. In order to entertain the girls during the five-mile journey, Carroll made up a…