Reasons why I unfollow online tarotists
... after watching their deck compilations
1) “I couldn’t connect with this deck.”
You’re supposed to use the same spiritual source for all of your divinations: your higher self, the Universe, or divine patrons. “I couldn’t connect with it” literally means you were unable to connect with yourself or with your deities via that particular deck but were able to do so with the others. That’s nonsense. Do you drive a red car better than a silver one? Or, it’s like saying the water is tastier from the left tap than from the right, while both of them are connected to the same well.
That being said, the number one reason I stop watching a Tarotuber is: the cause of misconnection is deck mistreatment. Mistreated decks won’t be precise, can lie too, and contradictions are more common, but it’s never the decks’ fault.
How could I trust a reader’s predictions if she (most cartomancers are women) mistreats her decks? If there’s one mistreated deck, chances are the others are not treated well either.
2) “I haven’t used this deck.”
*looking around in a John Travolta way* What are you waiting for? How connecting with your deck is not the very first thing you do? It’d take 3-5 mins at max to introduce yourself and browse all the cards.
I can’t imagine what kind of professional / full-time cartomancer someone is if she doesn’t have as much free time for a new deck as a coffee break.
3) “I don’t know the meaning of XY, but...”
Said mostly in the case of Oracle cards. If a cartomancer doesn’t bother to study the most important bit of cards (that is symbolism), how could she be legitimate?
I don’t want to hear someone just bullshiting around or someone who only relies on her intuition - then I’d seek a clairvoyant, not a cartomancer.
I get triggered whenever cartomancers purchase deity-themed decks, but they can’t pronounce the gods’ names - blasphemy -, let alone knowing what forces they rule over. Sis, don’t use such cards if a Percy Jackson fan knows more about deities than you.
4) “I love this deck so much” & “These are my least favorites...”
First of all, you must love all of your decks. Equally. ((The first deck is an exception, again.)) All of the decks draw power from the same source; distinguishing them doesn’t make any sense. Or is it the design that you appreciate more? What if your parents loved your sister more because she was prettier?
Second of all, don’t impulsively buy something. Read the reviews. Look up the card designs and themes on Google, Youtube, or the website that sells them.
As for me, I don’t like anything that has to do with crystals. Then I don’t buy decks with crystal imagery on them.
I don’t like toxic positivity. Then I don’t buy decks that elaborate as deep messages as a fortune cookie.
I’m not an encyclopedia. Then I don’t buy decks whose theme is unfamiliar to me.
I’m a Venusian; everything needs to be aesthetically pleasing for me, so I carefully examine the design of the available/uploaded pictures of some cards of the desired decks. Don’t like the drawing style? Then I don’t buy it, hence there’s no disappointment when I get them.
But if the disliked decks of yours were gifts... maybe tell people to not buy anything for you unless they’re certain of your taste because cartomancy decks are not one-size-fits-all.
5) Hoarding - and most decks are rarely or never used
Although you need a source to communicate with the decks, they have their own identities. They’re not mundane items like shoes, designer bags, makeup palettes, or comic books. So, for a collection of over 10-30 decks, I’d make sure I used different ones every single day, taking care of them equally. None of them would be forgotten.
I don’t see the reasoning behind purchasing new pricey decks if they get “thrown into a corner” as dust catchers. Because yes, this reckless habit plays a role in deck mistreatment. Don’t be surprised that a deck is disconnected from you if it’s been treated like a Walmart coupon.
6) Mess - untidy room, improper storage
Guess I don’t need to discuss it much... I keep my decks in their original boxes on a special place dedicated to them, and a clean cloth is placed under them. Before I offered them to my deities, I promised them tidiness and protection; they thank me with accurate readings in return.
Not surprisingly, I get a headache when someone else reads on filthy surfaces, among book piles, gadget cables are everywhere, or the decks are “bare” on a shelf and their cards slide side to side. Cartomancy decks are occult tools; treat them as such.
7) Cards kept reversed in their storage
I was taught that let the higher powers decide the positions of my cards. Indeed, I got more inaccurate interpretations when I kept reversed cards from the previous readings, and my former shuffling technique didn’t allow the cards to freely turn sides either.
We need a fresh start for every reading. Even if someone uses the ‘washing machine’ technique (placing the cards on a table and mix them around freely), they should collect the cards upright after the session.
Of course, it doesn’t apply for cartomancy types like Lenormand and Kipper where there’s no reversed meaning because they were meant to be used upright anyway.
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Teach your child to read
We hear a lot about teaching children to read too early, and it’s certainly true that it's not right for every child. When your child starts school in September, their teacher will begin to introduce letter sounds and reading from the first term. So you can simply leave it to them and trust it will happen in good time.
But as you are reading this, you’re probably thinking about doing some simple exercises with them before then. Maybe they’ve already begun to look at letter sounds at nursery or pre-school. While we’d never support pushing a child to read before they’re ready, if your child seems keen to start, it’s always good to work with their enthusiasm.
So what’s reasonable to expect them to have mastered by September? Learning the letter sounds is a good start. Once they know which sounds go with which symbols (letters) on the page, it’s a very easy glide into reading whole words and sentences.
Learning to read comes in two parts
There are two main aspects of reading: reading the words and comprehending their meaning.
Reading can be broken down into two parts: decoding and tricky words.
Decoding. This is phonics. When a child encounters an unfamiliar word, they try to sound it out by using their knowledge of letter sounds. For example, seeing the word cat and knowing that it is made up of the sounds c, a and t.
Tricky words. These are words that can’t be sounded out, such as was (unhelpfully pronounced woz). They have to be memorised.
Over time, as children get better at reading, they recognise more words automatically, without first having to decode them. These words become part of what’s known as their ‘sight vocabulary’.
Comprehension is about being able to follow a story and what the individual words mean as a whole, not only on their own.
What is phonics?
The individual sounds in a word are called phonemes. A phoneme is often a letter, but it can also be a combination of letters. So a is a phoneme (like the a in cat and apple). But, so too are ai, as in rain, and th as in think.
To make matters more difficult, each phoneme can be written in a variety of ways, so the u sound can be written u, o, oo and ou, as in jug, front, flood and double. The way a sound or phoneme is written is called a grapheme.
By now you can see that some words will be easier to sound out than others. Cat contains regular, easy to decode sounds. Thought, on the other hand, though consisting of seven letters, is only made up of three sounds: th, or and t. It requires much more skill to decode.
When teaching reading, we therefore start with the phonemes that have the most straightforward spellings. Schools often begin with s, a, t, p. By learning to recognise just these four letters and the sounds that they make, we can read a handful of words and even some simple sentences, like Pat sat at a tap.
At the same time, teachers will introduce some tricky words, as these are also often the most commonly used (such as no, go, I, the, to). Now much longer sentences can be created. They are still mostly nonsensical, but adding a few tricky words allows a child who has only been reading for a week to attempt: I go to the tap to pat a rat.
The next sounds to be introduced are i n m d. Can you see the possibilities after just two weeks? Dad, stand, mend, pasta, stamp, etc. Remember, at this stage, however, to keep to the main sound for each letter. So a is always as in apple and not in space.
Week 4: g, o, c, k
Week 4 ck, e, u, r
Week 5: h, b, f, ff, l, ll, ss
So, by half term most of the alphabet has been covered and your child will be well on the way to being a reader.
During this period, when phonics is taught intensively, ‘real’ books are avoided - apart from at story time, of course. Everything a child reads should be decodable, so stick to a reading scheme, such as Oxford Reading Tree’s Read with Biff, Chip and Kipper.
If reading schemes seem uninspiring it’s because each book is strictly limited to words that can made from the sounds that the child already knows. So a Level 1 book will be made up only of words containing the letters s, a, t, p, plus any tricky words that have been introduced.
Adults imagine that it must be a joyless time but it’s only for a short period and children are exhilarated to discover that they can read so effortlessly.
Here are our top tips for simple, stress-free letter sounds (and maybe a little bit of reading) by September:
Say letter sounds correctly
Confusingly for children, and their teachers, there are 26 letters in the alphabet but 44 phonemes (sounds). When we teach children to read, we start with the sounds letters make rather than their names. The letter a is taught like the a in cat. The letter i usually makes an i sound as in igloo. But the i phoneme, the i sound, can also be made in the following ways:
england
women
busy
build
gym
sieve
To make matters worse, the letter i can make other sounds, too, like pint, and combined with other letters can make yet more: friend, rain. That’s why we teach children the most common sounds to begin with, so a as in cat, e as in egg, i as in igloo, o as in octopus and u as in umbrella.
Try also to say the pure phoneme and not add ‘uh’ to the end. So it’s d instead of duh, although this is easier said than done. Once children know the sounds letters make, they can break unfamiliar words down into their constituent sounds, spell them out and start to read.
Learn the alphabet and match letters to sounds
Knowing the alphabet is not the same as learning phonics. A helpful way to introduce this idea to your child is to talk about animals and the sounds they make. For example, the name is cow and the sound it makes is moo. In the same way, the letter is ‘a’ and the sound is a (as in apple).
Learning the alphabet is straightforward. Sing the alphabet song at every opportunity so that your child is familiar with all the letter names. Then help to match the names to the symbol (i.e. the letter) by singing the song whilst pointing to an alphabet chart or frieze. YouTube is your friend here. The One Hundred Toys gremlins all enjoy Super Simple Songs’ videos and the playlist below is great because the alphabet songs are followed by those for phonics, which reinforces the idea that letters have both names and sounds:
You can also play games such as I-Spy. Play it the traditional way using letter names and then repeat using sounds instead. Letter sound flash cards work well for this kind of activity, too.
Another fun activity is to create a sound tray. Get a tray or box and ask your child to fill it with things that start with today's sound. So, if you are focusing on s, you might collect a snake, a sock and a sieve. But not a shoe. Remember, it's the initial sound that's important, not the letter
Start to read simple words
Long before your child reads their first word, you can teach them to 'read' sounds. This is called oral blending. For example:
[remember to say letter sounds not the names]
Put on your h-a-t, hat.
Please bring me my c-oa-t, coat.
Where is the b-oo-k, book?
Then, when you read with your child, even before they are able to recognise all the letters, you can do the same activity by segmenting a word in the text. On Sunday the caterpillar ate through one green l-ea-f.
By the time your child has learnt their letters, blending will be firmly established and decoding words will be much quicker.
Blend sounds to make words
The same skill of blending is used for reading words on the page.
Sound out the individual phonemes, e.g. c-a-t
Repeat the sounds more quickly, with less of a pause between each one, e.g. c-at
Put all the sounds together and say the word: cat
If your child has trouble with some of the sounds, you can perform Steps 1 and 2 yourself, which will usually enough for them to work out the rest.
Only beginner readers need to sound out every word. Over time, their sight vocabulary, those words they recognise immediately, will grow. But, they will still need to work out new and long words.
Sounds can be represented by more than one letter
More advanced readers will notice that some sounds are made up of more than one letter, for example ch, sh and ng. That is impossible to sound out if you read it as t-h-a-t. Instead, learn to recognise that when t and h are together, they make th. So that is read as th-a-t.
Tricky words
Many common words can’t be sounded out: was, is, and the, for example. These are known as tricky words and have to be learnt by sight. Repeated practice is the only way to do this and flash cards, though often derided, have an important role to play here.
Here’s a list to get you started: like, said, no, you, too, come, my, she, me, they, of, was, we, he, the, day, all, go, are, play, away, going.
Some of the above start as tricky words and become decodable once the phoneme has been taught, for example the ay sound in play. Others, like come, are true tricky words.
Practise daily
Learn the letter sounds over a short period. Build up a knowledge of the letters and sounds quite quickly with your child and keep practising so that it becomes automatic.
The same goes for tricky words. Put them on a post-it and stick them on the fridge or use flash cards. Look at the words 3 - 4 times a day.
Don't rely on the pictures
The true test of reading is the ability to recognise words and letters without relying on other cues. When children encounter a difficult word, they will often look at the picture for a clue. This is a legitimate strategy, but only if they have tried decoding first. Cover the pictures occasionally, and see if it highlights problems that you hadn’t noticed.
Encourage accuracy
As adults, we don’t sound out every word as we read. Almost every word we encounter is already in our sight vocabulary. Children, however, rely on a number of different strategies. Often, they will guess the word using the first letter as a clue, for example saying house when the word on the page was home. </p> <p>Or they will use what are known as syntactic cues, where a word’s position in a sentence suggests that is it going to be a certain type of word. e.g. ‘Bernard went to the shop’ may be read as ‘Bernard went to a shop’ because it makes sense in the context of the sentence. These mistakes can be hard to weed out because the child wasn’t actually looking at the word. They thought they knew what the sentence was about so they sped past the mistake. Where this happens, gently ask your child to go back to the beginning and read the sentence again - as many times as it takes - until they spot the error themselves.
Read books from a reading scheme
If you’re not already familiar with reading schemes, you soon will be. These books differ from ‘real’ books in that they only contain words that are appropriate for you child’s reading level. As your child grows in confidence, they can progress to the next level in the series, where the new, more difficult words are introduced.
The first level of a reading scheme comprises books without words. The pictures tell the story. You can ‘read’ this to your child and encourage them to ‘read’ it back to you.
Level 2 books contain words made up of just a few letters, usually based around s a t p i n. For example, the Oxford Reading Tree book, I am Kipper, contains the following text:
I am Pam, I tap, tap, tap.
I am Mat, I pat, pat, pat.
I am Pat, I pop, pop, pop.
etc.
As more sounds - and tricky words - are learnt, the books become more challenging.
It is also important to read daily to your child, both fiction and non-fiction. Keep it fun by choosing ‘real’ books rather than reading schemes: this is not the time to see if your child can apply their phonics knowledge. Reading regularly will:
Instil a love of books
Broaden vocabulary
Improve comprehension
Model ‘correct’ language
All of the above are picked up incidentally. Just choose a book that your child enjoys.
Independent reading is also vital. A comfortable and inviting reading corner somewhere at home might be all that’s needed to instil the reading habit in your child. Gather some cushions, a small bookcase or box, and a good mix of interesting books. It doesn’t have to be anything special, just a quiet corner to enjoy undisturbed reading. Refresh the collection occasionally, whether by buying something new or borrowing from the library and keep the selection varied. Comics, newspapers, flyers and recipe cards all count, as do holiday brochures and the prospectus from your child’s new school.
Learning to read is about more than simply learning to decode and recognise tricky words. Ultimately, reading is about comprehension. We read to learn.
Help your child to understand more of what they read by following these guidelines:
Look at the cover of the book. What is it about? Is it story or some other kind of book? Who is the author? Do you think that you will like this book?
Predict what is going to happen next. Stop after you have read a few pages and ask your child to imagine how the book might end.
Draw characters in the book and discuss their physical characteristics personalities. This helps draw attention to details.
Identify unfamiliar words and discuss their meaning before tackling the book so the flow isn’t disrupted too much.
Take a few key events from the book and try to arrange the events in order (use drawings if you prefer)
Independent reading should be at what is called ‘instructional level’, where nine out of 10 words are familiar. This way your child can read quickly, understand the text without support and work out what unfamiliar words mean from the context. Too many difficult words reduces comprehension and dampens the spirit.
A full life, rich in interesting experiences is the best way to increase comprehension. This doesn’t have to mean trips to Timbuktu; a train to the seaside or a day collecting bugs in the woods will both make a strong impression and introduce lots of new vocabulary.
Read the other posts in this series here:
1. A Starting School Scrapbook
2. Your Expectations
3. Learning to Read
Coming soon:
Writing, Self Care, Maths, Listening, Resilience and more.
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