language

Reading is more than sounding out words and decoding. That’s why we use the whole language approach to teaching it

When I was younger, I decided to learn Greek. I learnt the letter-sound correspondences and could say the words – the sounds, that is. But although I could and still can decode these words, I can’t actually read Greek because I don’t know what the words mean. Being able to make the connection between the [...]

By |2020-03-09T11:29:21+11:00November 25th, 2019|Categories: Education|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

The concept of schizophrenia is coming to an end – here’s why

The concept of schizophrenia is dying. Harried for decades by psychology, it now appears to have been fatally wounded by psychiatry, the very profession that once sustained it. Its passing will not be mourned. Today, having a diagnosis of schizophrenia is associated with a life-expectancy reduction of nearly two decades. By some criteria, only one [...]

By |2021-03-03T16:41:47+11:00May 27th, 2019|Categories: Mental Illness|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

Sleep Makes Our Memories More Accessible, Study Shows

galleryhip Sleeping not only protects memories from being forgotten, it also makes them easier to access, according to new research from the University of Exeter and the Basque Centre for Cognition, Brain and Language. The findings suggest that after sleep we are more likely to recall facts which we could not remember while [...]

Hopefully, Literally, Begs The Question: The Three Most Annoying Misuses In English

Atrocities in English are committed every day. Here are three of the worst. You may be surprised, but hopefully you won’t literally explode with anger. When we talk of words, even if we don’t know it, we tend to divide ourselves into two schools of thought - the descriptivists and the prescriptivists. Prescriptivists tend to [...]

Brain development in the first three years of life- Radio New Zealand interview

Nathan Mikaere Wallis is part of the Brain Wave Trust, and X Factor Education, Christchurch. He has been a lecturer at the Christchurch College of Education, lecturing in human development, brain development, language and communication and risk and resilience. Nathan has a background of working with children in counselling settings relating to domestic violence, sexual [...]

Trying to silence the Student Voice

I bet there’s certain things kids say that grate on you. I bet there are slang terms that, quite simply, you don’t understand.   Every now and then you’ll come across a helpful list of the latest “kids speak” like this one. Go on, read it. It’s brilliant.   I’ll bet if you think back, [...]

Frontal Lobes May Not Matter for Brain Power

"Probably the most widespread assumption about how the human brain evolved is that size increase was concentrated in the frontal lobes," study lead author Robert Barton, from the anthropology department at Durham, explained in a university news release. "It has been thought that frontal lobe expansion was particularly crucial to the development of modern human [...]

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