Early Reading

Word Lists

a list of words taken out of context and written or printed consecutively

Example.

Word lists will specifically require students to read the words without the help of context from a sentence or story, an important factor in determining their stage of word recognition.

Onset and Rime Production

the ability to hear and understand that the sound(s) before the vowel in a syllable is the onset, and the vowel and everything that comes after it in a syllable is the rime

Example.

In the word cat, the onset is /c/ and the rime is /at/

Conventional Spelling

know and use basic spelling rules and spell most words correctly

Early Reader (Stage of Reading Development)

early readers begin understanding that reading from the printed page needs to make sense – both from the pictures and from the print

Phonics / Graphophonemic Principle

using the relationship between symbols (letters and words) and sounds of a language to read and write

Letter Recognition

the ability to name the letters in the alphabet and identify the characteristics of each letter

Example.

Letter recognition requires direct instruction that connects the letter shape to the letter name.

Semantic Encoding

processing information by associating it with a story or meaning

Phoneme Substitution

the ability to substitute one phoneme for a different one

Example.

replace the first sound in 'bug' with 'r' . Rug

Phoneme Segmentation

the ability to break down a word into separate sounds, as they say and count each sound

Example.

How many sounds are there in the word bug? /b/ /u/ /g/? There are three.

Word Families

a group of words with a shared ending letter group/sound

Example.

back, black, stack, shack, quack, lack, tack

Phoneme Isolation

the ability to hear and recognize the individual sounds in words

Example.

What is the first sound you hear in dog? /d/

Morpheme

a combination of sounds that has meaning in speech or writing and cannot be divided into smaller grammatical parts; this includes prefixes and suffixes

Example.

write, cat, laugh, box

Phoneme Addition

the ability to make a new word(s) by adding a phoneme to an existing word

Example.

What new word can you make by adding a sound to the beginning of at? Bat, cat, rat, and sat.

Alphabetic Principle

the understanding that there is a logical/systematic relationship between the sounds of spoken English and the letters and letter–patterns of written English

Vocabulary / Vocabulary Development

the ability to effectively know and use words in their listening, speaking, reading, and writing

Automatic Stage

the final stage of word recognition in which a person decodes fluently and knows many strategies to identify new words

Example.

Students in the automatic stage of word recognition are able to read fluently and with greater comprehension because their focus shifts more toward the meaning of the text as a whole and less on individual words.

Precommunicative Spelling

use scribble shapes and sometimes letter-like shapes for spelling words but are unable to make the forms

Partial Alphabetic Stage

a stage of word recognition in which students combine their limited alphabetic knowledge with context clues to read

Example.

a child sees a picture of a truck in a book about vehicles, locates a word that starts with 't' on the same pages, and says "truck"

Reading Fluency

ability to read with appropriate speed, accuracy, and prosody

Semiphonetic Spelling

some letter awareness, but unable to use all letters in the word

Example.

"Play" is spelled p-a

Word Web

a form of scaffolding which helps students to understand and retain new words and concepts

Example.

During reading, as students encounter each word, they write down around the word different words or phrases that will help them remember the meaning.

Grapheme

a written letter or a combination of letters that represents a single sound

Example.

"ph" makes a "f" sound

Homophones

words that are pronounced the same as another word but have a different meaning and may be spelled differently

Example.

carat, carrot, caret: to, too, two

Contraction (Semantics)

a shortened version of a word or group of words; the removed letters are replaced with apostrophes

Example.

do not becomes don't

Commonly Confused Words

words that have similar meanings, spellings, or pronunciations, leading to confusion during literacy development

Example.

new vs. knew; affect vs. effect

Phonological Awareness

the understanding and ability to hear individual words, syllables, and sounds in spoken language apart from print

Phonemic Awareness / Sound Awareness

the ability to hear, identify, and re-create individual sounds in spoken words

Example.

A student can hear that /b/ makes first sound in the word blue.

Reading Comprehension

the ability to read a text and understand its meaning

Example.

Jessie read the book and was able to explain to me why the character lied in Chapter 3.

Syllable Awareness / Syllabication / Syllable Segmentation

the ability to hear individual parts/syllables of words

Example.

“Education” has four syllables “ed-u-ca-tion”

Prefix

a letter or letters at the beginning of a root word that changes its meaning

Example.

re, de, un

Transitional Spelling

use some conventional spelling but still misspell many irregular words

Word Awareness

knowing that individual words make up a sentence

Example.

“A brown cat jumped over the car.” has 7 words

Phoneme Deletion

the ability to recognize and understand a word or sound(s) that remain when a phoneme is removed

Example.

"What is bat without the /b/?" "at"

Emergent Reader (Stage of Reading Development)

when children understand that written language has meaning and gives messages

Language Acquisition

the process by which individuals learn a language

Phonology

the systematic organization of sounds in languages

Word Wall

an on-going bulletin board with terms used frequently in the classroom; words are often added as they are introduced

Pragmatics

the study of how we understand the meaning of language based on the situation it's used in

Pre-Alphabetic Stage

a stage of word recognition in which students have no working knowledge of the alphabetic system and "read" words based on memorizing what they look like

Example.

a child says "Wal-Mart" when passing the store's sign

Invented Spelling

child's attempt to spell based on best judgement

Syntax

rules that govern the construction of words in order to make phrases, clauses, and sentences

Consolidated Alphabetic Stage

a stage of word recognition in which students read by using memorized letter chunks, affixes, and syllables to read words

Example.

A student in this stage would not need to sound out each letter in a word like "reminder" but would decode it by breaking it into recognizable chunks, "re-mind-er."

Phoneme Blending

the ability to blend two sounds to make a word

Example.

Blend together these sounds to make a word: /b/ /a/ /t/ to form bat.

Oral Language

system that relates sounds to meanings through communicating by word of mouth

Alphabetic Knowledge

the ability to recognize, name, and write letters

Morphology

the study of forms of words, including affixes, roots, stems, and parts of speech

Example.

The word "bicycles" is made up of three individual morphemes. The prefix bi-, the stem cycle, and the suffix -s.

Full Alphabetic Stage

a stage of word recognition in which students use their full working knowledge of letter-sound correspondence to decode unfamiliar words letter-by-letter

Example.

a child comes across the word "desk" while reading and sounds it out "d-e-s-k"

High-Frequency Word

a word that appears often in grade-level text; can be decodable or irregular

Example.

Words like "and", "the", "as" and "it" are high-frequency words.

Suffix

letter or letters at the end of a root word that changes its meaning

Example.

s, es, ed, ing, ly, er, or, ion, tion, able, and ible

Language Experience Approach (LEA)

promotes reading and writing through the use of personal experiences and oral language; materials are learner-generated

Phoneme

the smallest individual sounds in a word

Example.

The word “bit” has three phonemes – b – i – t.

Etymology

the study of the origin and history of words

Phonetics

the sounds of human speech

Orthography

the standards present in a language's conventions

Example.

spelling, capitalization, punctuation, emphasis

Decoding

in reading out loud, being able to sound out words by breaking them into simple forms; in reading for comprehension, the understanding of how to read each letter or letter pattern in a word to determine the word's meaning

Phonetic Spelling

spell the way they hear the word pronounced

Example.

"Made" is spelled m-a-d.

Semantics

the study of word or symbol meaning

Example.

"love" which has many different meanings in English

literal vs figurative meaning of "Raining cats and dogs"

Early Fluent / Fluent / Proficient Reader (Stage of Reading Development)

readers recognize many words and can apply phonics and word analysis skills to figure out unfamiliar words

Rhyme Awareness / Rhyming

the ability first to hear words that rhyme and then to be able to produce a rhyme(s)

Example.

“Blue” and “Flew” rhyme