Praxis #5302 Reading Specialist Review

A comprehensive set of vocabulary flashcards based on the Praxis #5302 Reading Specialist lecture notes covering literacy development, instructional strategies, assessment types, and learning theories.

Phonological Awareness

The ability to recognize and manipulate the sounds at the word, syllable, or phoneme level.

Phonemic Awareness

The ability to hear and manipulate individual phonemes; considered the most advanced phonological awareness skill.

Elkonin boxes

A tool used as an instructional approach for phoneme characterization, blending, and segmenting.

Concepts of Print

Awareness of how books, print, and written language function, including understanding that print contains meaning and is read from left to right.

Alphabetic Principle

The understanding that letters and letter patterns represent the sounds of spoken language.

Decoding Skills

The ability to apply knowledge of letter-sound relationships to correctly pronounce written words by translating graphemes into phonemes.

Reading Fluency

The ability to read with automaticity (speed and accuracy), rate (speed of text), and prosody (natural expression, phrasing, and intonation).

Reading Comprehension

The understanding of what has been read and the creation of meaning by integrating it with prior knowledge.

Close reading

Careful and purposeful rereading of a text.

Dyslexia

A condition affecting brain organization that controls the ability to process how language is heard, spoken, read, or spelled, often characterized by poor phonological awareness.

Automaticity

The ability to read a word immediately without thinking, developed through repeated exposures to words and their parts.

Verbal Memory

The ability to encode and recall meaningful language units, such as a list of words.

Processing Speed

The amount of time it takes to perceive, process, and formulate a response to information, usually through visual and auditory channels.

Orthographic Coding

The ability to store in memory and retrieve from memory letters and word patterns.

Disciplinary Literacy

Reading, writing, and communicating within a specific discipline.

Implicit/Analytic Phonics

Teaching students to analyze letter-sound relations in previously learned words.

Synthetic Phonics

Teaching students explicitly to convert letters into sounds and then blend them into words.

High Frequency Words (HFW)

The most commonly used words in text, often taught in isolation and context as sight words.

Encoding

The process of using letter-sound knowledge to write, effectively translating phonemes into graphemes.

Morphological Awareness

The study of the smallest units of meaning in language.

Writing Mechanics

The components of writing including spelling, grammar, and capitalization.

Formal Assessment

Systematic, data-based tests used for statistics and comparisons, such as standardized or norm-referenced tests.

Informal Assessment

Content and performance-driven assessments like checklists and rubrics used to inform instruction.

Criterion-Referenced Assessment

An assessment where each score is compared to a predetermined standard or established grade-level expectation.

Norm-referenced Assessment

An assessment that compares a student's performance to a sample of their peers, usually reported in percentiles.

Reliability

The extent to which a test yields consistent results on retesting or multiple versions.

Validity

The ability of a test to measure what it is intended to measure.

Language Experience Approach (LEA)

A whole language approach where beginning literacy learners relate experiences to a teacher who transcribes them for use in reading and writing activities.

Etymology

The study of word origins.

Consonant Blend

Two or more consecutive consonants which retain their individual sounds, such as /bl/ in block.

Consonant Digraph

Two consecutive consonants that represent a single phoneme or sound, such as /ch/ or /sh/.

Diphthong

A sound produced by combining two vowels into a single syllable or running the sounds together, like -oy or -ou.

Homophones

Words that are pronounced the same but have different meanings and/or spellings.

Response to Intervention (RTI)

A multi-tiered system of support consisting of Tier 1 (general curriculum), Tier 2 (targeted teaching), and Tier 3 (individualized instruction).

Three Cueing System

A method for figuring out unknown words using Graphophonic (visual), Syntax (structure), and Semantics (meaning) cues.

R-controlled Vowels

Vowels that appear before the letter r, which changes the vowel's sound (e.g., ar, er, ir, or).

Phoneme Isolation

The ability to identify specific individual phonemes in spoken words.

Phoneme Characterization

An activity where students identify which word in a list has a different beginning, middle, or ending phoneme.

Homograph

Words spelled the same but potentially pronounced differently with different meanings, like bat (mammal) and bat (sports equipment).

Derivational Affix

Groups of letters added to words to change the meaning or the part of speech.

Inflectional Affix

Affixes that serve a grammatical function without changing the word's part of speech, such as -s, -ed, or -ing.

Emergent Reading Stage

The stage where readers interact with text through pre-reading behaviors, understanding concepts of print, and identifying letters.

Early Reading Stage

The stage where readers use a combination of strategies and cueing systems, expand high-frequency word knowledge, and begin reading silently.

Transitional Reading Stage

The stage where readers engage with text for extended periods, use complex spelling patterns to decode, and recognize text structures.

Fluent Reading Stage

The stage where readers read complex texts quickly and accurately with expression, using high-level thinking skills and multiple perspective analysis.

Pre-alphabetic Phase

The first phase of Ehri's model where students use visual cues or environmental print to 'read' words without alphabetic knowledge.

Full Alphabetic Phase

The phase where readers attend to every letter, possess extensive graphophonemic knowledge, and decode sequentially.

Consolidated Alphabetic Phase

The stage where students use chunks, syllables, and morphemes to decode rather than individual letters.

Precommunicative Stage

A spelling stage where the child uses alphabet symbols without showing knowledge of letter-sound correspondence.

Phonetic Stage

A spelling stage where children use a letter or group of letters to represent every speech sound they hear in a word.

Orthography

The conventional spelling system of a language, consisting of alphabet, pattern, and meaning layers.

Denotative meaning

The literal or dictionary meaning of a word.

Connotative meaning

The emotions and associations connected to a particular word.

Metacognition

The process of readers thinking about their own thinking to self-monitor and ensure meaning.

Neurological Impress

A multisensory fluency approach where a teacher and student read a text aloud together, with the student slightly behind the teacher.

Stanine Scores

Whole number scores from 1 to 9 representing a wide range of raw scores, with 5 being average.

Universal Screener

An assessment given to all students in a grade level to quickly identify those in need of intervention.

Notice and Note Strategy

A strategy supporting metacognition that uses six text-dependent anchor questions to analyze character development and theme.

Within Word Pattern Spelling Stage

An intermediate spelling stage where students transition to independent reading and focus on difficult vowel patterns.

Informal Reading Inventory (IRI)

An assessment using graded word lists and passages to determine independent, instructional, and frustration levels.

Nonsense Word Fluency

A standardized assessment identifying a child's ability to associate letters with sounds and blend those sounds.

Expository Texts

Nonfiction texts that explain things using facts and typical structures like cause/effect or compare/contrast.

Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development

The gap between what a learner has mastered and what they can learn with instructional support.

Frayer Model

A graphic organizer for vocabulary that includes a definition, characteristics, examples, and non-examples.

Author's Craft

The style of writing including word choice, structure, point of view, and tone chosen by the author.

Synthesize

The ability to gather information from multiple sources and combine it to create new meaning.

SQ3R Method

A study method involving Survey, Question, Read, Recall, and Review.

Cloze reading

A reading practice where students fill in blanks left in a text using background knowledge and semantics.

Tier Two Vocabulary

Words found frequently in both fiction and nonfiction texts across multiple domains.

Analytic Rubric

A rubric that breaks down assessment criteria into categories with explanations for different levels of performance.

Holistic Rubric

A rubric that evaluates the quality of an assignment as a whole rather than scoring individual components.

Dysgraphia

A disorder affecting written expression, including difficulties with letter formation, handwriting, and organizing thoughts.

Schema Theory

A theory stating that people mold memories to fit information that already exists in their minds.

Scarborough's Reading Rope

A model showing how language comprehension and word knowledge strands intertwine to create skilled reading.

Executive Functioning

The cognitive abilities and processes that allow humans to plan or inhibit their actions.