Foundations of Reading

Automaticity

Quick, effortless, and accurate recognition of individual words when reading

Alliteration

Words that start with the same initial sound

Onset

The initial consonants or consonant blends in syllables

Rimes

The vowels and remaining consonants that follow the onset

Phonological Awareness

The ability to identify and manipulate sounds in spoken language

Phonemic Awareness

One specific component of phonological awareness that focuses on the ability to identify and manipulate sounds at the phoneme level only

Phonemes

The smallest unit of speech

Phoneme Isolation

The ability to identify specific phonemes in spoken words (initial, medial, and final sounds)

Phoneme Identification

Identifying the common sound in a list of words that have either the same beginning, middle, or ending sound

Phoneme Characterization

Identifying the word that doesn’t belong when given a set of words in which all but one have the same beginning, middle, or ending phoneme

Blending

A complex skill where students are given the phonemes that make up a word in isolation, and they must identify the whole word formed by putting the phonemes together

Segmenting

Students are given a whole word and must identify the individual phonemes that make up that word

Phoneme Deletion

Removing one phoneme from a word and identifying what new word was formed

Phoneme Substitution

Changing one phoneme in a word and identifying what new word was formed

Elkonin Boxes

A series of connected boxes, students listen to a word, and slide a counter into a box each time they hear a new sound

Phonics

The relationship between letters and the sounds they make (letter-sound correspondence)

Fluency

Reading accurately with the appropriate speed and intonation

Syntactic Cues

Readers use knowledge about correct oral language structures and the ways sentences are put together to decode and make meaning

Semantic Cues

Readers use prior knowledge from personal experiences along with meaning contained in the text and pictures to make sense of what they are reading