Language and Literacy Development

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering language and literacy development, theoretical models of reading, phonetics, phonology, morphology, orthography, and spelling instruction.

The Simple View of Reading

Reading Comprehension ($RC$) is the product of Word Reading ($D$ for decoding) and Language Comprehension ($LC$), represented by the formula $RC = D \times LC$.

Scarborough's Reading Rope

A visual framework developed by Hollis Scarborough (2001) illustrating skilled reading as the braiding together of two main strands: Language Comprehension (increasingly strategic) and Word Recognition (increasingly automatic).

Chall's Stages of Reading Development

Pre-Reading, Initial Reading, Confirmation & Fluency, Reading for Learning the New, Reading Multiple Viewpoints, and Construction & Reconstruction.

Schema

In Jean Piaget's cognitive theory, a fundamental building block of knowledge that organizes categories, concepts, or linguistic rules. Folder in our brain

Assimilation (Cognitive Theory)

Jean Piaget- new information is incorporated directly into an existing schema without changing its structure, such as a child overapplying a past-tense rule by saying 'goed' or 'wented'. Shitzu is a dog

Accommodation (Cognitive Theory)

The cognitive adaptation process in which an existing schema is restructured or a new category is formed because incoming information is too different to fit prior structures (e.g., no longer calling the neighbor's dog 'cat'). Restructuring

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

Piaget's four-stage framework: Sensorimotor ($0-2$ years; cooing, babbling, egocentric/socialized function), Pre-Operational ($2-7$ years; symbolic language, goes from simple words to simple sentences), Concrete Operations ($7-11$ years; socialized language, reasoning, visible rules), and Formal Operations ($12\text{ years}-\text{adulthood}$; abstract thinking, nonliteral language, hypotheticals).

Behaviorist Theory of Language Acquisition

B. F. Skinner's theoretical account asserting that there is no internal mechanism for learning language; instead, language is a learned behavior acquired through caregiver imitation and shaped via operant conditioning.

Operant Conditioning in Language Acquisition

A behaviorist behavioral modification framework consisting of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment

Language Acquisition Device (LAD)

An innate neurological mechanism proposed by Noam Chomsky that provides human children with biological hardwiring and universal constraints for rapidly deducing and acquiring their native language's grammar.

Universal Grammar

Noam Chomsky's proposed innate template or structural blueprint shared across all human languages, defining the narrow boundaries of grammatical structures children can construct.

Language Acquisition Support System (LASS) or Social Interactionist Theory

Jerome Bruner's interactionist concept stating that social scaffolds—including parents, caregivers, child-directed speech, peers, teachers, and environment—are essential to support biological language learning capacities.

Five Domains of Language

The five core structural domains of language identified by Eigsti (2012): phonology (sound system), morphology (word formation), syntax (sentence rules), lexicon (vocabulary), and pragmatics (social communication rules).

Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3 Vocabulary

An educational vocabulary classification: Tier 1 comprises high-frequency, basic everyday words (most kids know when they enter school); Tier 2 comprises low-frequency, general academic words(compare, contrast, evidence); and Tier 3 comprises low-frequency, disciplinary domain-specific words(photosynthesis, chlorophyll).

Prescriptive vs. Descriptive Grammar

Prescriptive grammar outlines stylistic or social rules people believe must be followed, whereas descriptive grammar captures the systematic structural rules speakers naturally and actually use.

Pragmatics

The domain of language focusing on its social utility, including register, turn-taking, direct vs. indirect speech acts, literal vs. nonliteral language, perspective taking, conversational repair, nonverbal cues, and discourse genres.

Phonology

The study of speech sounds and the linguistic rules governing how they combine and interact within a language's sound system.

Phonetics

The scientific study of speech sounds consisting of articulatory phonetics, acoustic phonetics, and auditory phonetics

Place of Articulation

The anatomical location within the vocal tract where airflow is obstructed to create a consonant (bilabial, labiodental, interdental, alveolar, palatal, velar, glottal). Where blockage is happening

Manner of Articulation

The configuration or method by which airflow is obstructed through the vocal tract during consonant production (stops, fricatives, affricates, nasals, liquids, glides). Continuous or no?

Voicing

A phonological feature that describes whether the vocal cords vibrate (voiced, such as /b/, /d/, /z/) or do not vibrate (unvoiced, such as /p/, /t/, /s/) during sound production.

English Consonant Inventory

A classification matrix organizing English consonants across manner of articulation (obstruents: stops, fricatives, affricates; sonorants: glides, nasals, liquids), voicing, and place of articulation.

Allophone

A non-contrastive phonetic variant of a single phoneme that changes based on context without changing the word's meaning (e.g., the aspirated [$t$] in Tim vs. the medial flap [$t$] in Betty).

Coarticulation

The overlapping of adjacent articulatory movements during connected speech, causing each phoneme's physical sound to be influenced by surrounding phonetic context.

Internal Structure of a Syllable

The hierarchical organization of a syllable into an Onset (initial consonant or cluster) and a Rime, which further divides into a Nucleus (vowel sound) and a Coda (final consonant).

Lexical Restructuring Model

Metsala and Walley's (1998) model explaining that early childhood words are represented holistically, but restructure into discrete segmental units (onsets, rimes, phonemes) as vocabulary expands rapidly between ages $2$ and $7$.

Phonological Awareness Umbrella

A metalinguistic umbrella encompassing multiple developmental sub-skills: words in sentences (word level), syllables, onset-rime, rhyme/alliteration, and phonemic awareness (isolation, blending, segmenting, addition/deletion/substitution).

Phonemic Awareness

A specialized subcategory of phonological awareness involving the explicit ability to identify, segment, blend, delete, and substitute individual phonemes in spoken language.

Reciprocal Causation (Phonemic Awareness and Reading)

The bidirectional relationship wherein phonemic awareness is necessary to learn to decode words, while instruction in decoding simultaneously promotes and refines phonemic awareness.

Morpheme

The smallest meaningful grammatical unit in language; words consist of one or more morphemes that carry semantic or syntactic information.

Free Morphemes vs. Bound Morphemes

Can stand alone as independent words (e.g., sky, play)

Inflectional vs. Derivational Morphemes

Inflectional morphemes modify a word for grammatical agreement (e.g., plural -s, past tense -ed) without altering grammatical class, whereas derivational morphemes combine with stems to create new words often changing grammatical class (e.g., elate to elation, happy to happily).

Historic Layers of English

The historical etymological origins of English words described by Moats and Tolman (2009): Anglo-Saxon (Old English), Norman French (introduced in 1066), Latin (introduced in the 1500s), and Greek (introduced in the 1500s).

Morphological Awareness

The explicit metalinguistic ability to reflect upon, identify, and manipulate morphemes within words, which strongly correlates with word reading ($r = 0.5$), vocabulary ($r = 0.54$), and reading comprehension ($r = 0.41$).

Orthography

The study of writing systems and conventions of spelling, in which graphemes represent specific units of language such as meanings, syllables, or phonemes.

Syllabary

A writing system in which each distinct grapheme represents an entire spoken syllable, such as Japanese Hiragana or Cherokee.

Regularity vs. Consistency (Orthography)

Regularity is whether graphemes follow standard grapheme-phoneme rules (e.g., 'B' representing /b/), whereas consistency measures whether identical letter bodies/rimes have the same pronunciation among orthographic neighbors (friends like gave and wave vs. enemies like gave and have).

Ehri's Stages of Reading Development

Pre-alphabetic, Partial alphabetic Full alphabetic, Consolidated alphabetic

Alphabetic Principle

The fundamental concept that predictable, systematic relationships exist between written letters (graphemes) and spoken sounds (phonemes).

Connectionist Models of Reading Development

Seidenberg and McClelland's (1989) model positing that reading occurs through simultaneous, reciprocal interaction across four processors: Orthographic Processor, Phonological Processor, Meaning Processor, and Context Processor.

Reading System Framework

Stafura and Perfetti's (2014) reading architecture mapping written text through word identification (orthographic, phonological, semantic units) and word-to-text integration (sentence representation, text model, situation model, prior knowledge).

Systematic Phonics Instruction

An explicit, sequential teaching methodology that presents grapheme-phoneme correspondences in a cumulative, diagnostic order from simple to complex to foster automatic word recognition.

Phoneme

The smallest unit of sound in speech that distinguishes one word from another, crucial for decoding and comprehension in reading. Individual speech sounds can change meaning of a word (cat, bat)

Initial Reading

Children learn letter-sound correspondences (ABC’s)

Conformation & Fluency

Children read simple, familiar texts with increasing fluency. They can read some text faster

Reading for Learning the New

Elementary school children begin reading using one source at a time

Reading Multiple Viewpoints

Secondary students read to learn using a variety of sources. Reading comprehension becomes stronger than listening comprehension.

Construction and Reconstruction

Reading is strategic. Construct understanding through synthesis and analysis (college papers)

Phonology

Sound system of language, speech sound system

Lexicon

Vocabulary of language

Morphology

System of forming words (doghouse vs housedog, plurals, adding s to end of words) Rule system governing how meaningful units of language can be combined to form words

Syntax

Systematic rules for combining words

positive reinforcement

giving (positive) what the child asked for (reinforcement increases likelihood of behavior reoccurring)

negative reinforcement

stopping (negative=taking something away) interruptions when pronunciation is correct

Positive punishment

scolding child for speech

negative punishment

ignoring use of curse words

Negative vs. Positive (Skinner’s operant conditioning)

Negative takes something away (can be taking away punishment for good behavior) Positive adds/gives something (can be spanking or candy)

Punishment vs. reinforcement

Punishment reduces likelihood of a behavior reoccurring. Reinforcement increases likelihood of a behavior reoccurring

Nativist Theory of Language Acquisition (Chomsky)

Children have an innate instinct, or are hardwired for learning language. There are critical periods for language learning

Articulatory Phonetics

Study of how speech sounds are produced (How mouth makes sounds, m vs p)

Acoustic Phonetics

Study of physical properties of speech sound waves generated by vocal tract and how they are transmitted (how sound is traveling through air)

Auditory Phonetics

Study of how the brain translates sound waves into speech sounds (how brain interprets sound waves)

Bilabial

Sounds formed using both lips

Labiodental (b,p)

Sounds formed using lips and teeth (f,v)

Interdental

sound produced by tongue going between the teeth (th)

Alveolar

Tongue goes to back of teeth (t, d, s, l)

Palatal

Tongue at roof of mouth (sh, j, ch)

Velar

Tongue at back of mouth (k, g, ng)

Glottal

tongue at very back (h)

Fricatives

force air through narrow channel in vocal tract (f,v,s)

Affricates

slower release of air (Ch, j, sh)

Nasals

air goes through nose (m,n,ng)

liquids

small obstruction (l, r)

Glides

rapid changes when combined with another sound (w,y)

Coda

constants that come after vowel (can be dropped; he, she)

Nucleus

vowel

Rime

vowel + what comes after vowel

Onset

what comes before vowel- can be empty: at

Simple words

Can’t be analyzed into smaller, meaningful parts (tree, turn)

Complex words

consists of at least 2 meaningful parts (trees, returning, doghouse)

Bound Morpheme

cannot stand alone and must attach to other bases or roots (e.g., re-, -ing, -ed).

Orthography

Study of writing systems

Grapheme

smallest unit of print

Pictographs

represent concrete objects (pictures)

Ideographs

Represent abstract ideas (numbers, location)

Logographies

Focusing on specific words

Shallow Orthographies

Consistent relationships between graphemes and Phonemes (spanish, german)

Deep Orthographies

Less consistent relationship between individual graphemes and phonemes (english)

Graphemes and Phonemes

Graphemes represent phonemes

Types of Graphemes

single letters, digraphs, trigraphs

Friend

orthographic neighbors with same pronunciation (gave, wave)

Enemies

orthographic neighbors with different pronunciations (gave, have)

Regular-inconsistent

follow grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules. Not all orthographic neighbors have the same pronunciation (GAVE vs. have)

Regular consistent

Follow grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules. Orthographic neighbors have same pronunciation (back, sack)

irregular-inconcistent

Do not follow grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules. Not all orthographic neighbors have same pronunciation (gave, HAVE)

Irregular-consistent

Do not follow grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules. Orthographic neighbors have same pronunciation. (COLD vs. bold)

Language Comprehension-Scarborough

Background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, literact knowledge

Word Recognition-Scarborough

Phonological awareness, decoding, sight recognition

Pre-alphabetic

Children rely on visually salient and contextual cues to identify words, they do not use letter-sound cues. (Recognizing logos)

Partial alphabetic

Children use letter names or sounds to read or write. They cannot decode unfamiliar words