Phonology, Writing Systems & Early Reading Concepts

Vocabulary flashcards covering key terms from the lecture on writing systems, phonology, and early reading instruction concepts.

Alphabetic Principle

The concept that written symbols (letters) represent individual speech sounds and can be combined to form words.

Logographic Writing System

A writing system in which each symbol represents a whole word or idea rather than individual sounds (e.g., Chinese).

Phonology

The rule system governing how phonemes are sequenced, patterned, and pronounced to convey meaning; also the study of this system.

Phoneme

The smallest unit of sound that can change the meaning of a word (e.g., adding /s/ to “tart” to make “start”).

Vowel

A speech sound produced without obstructing or diverting the airflow from the lungs (e.g., /a/, /e/, /o/).

Consonant

A speech sound that requires the lips, tongue, or other articulators to obstruct or divert airflow (e.g., /b/, /t/).

Articulation

The physical production of speech sounds using the mouth, tongue, lips, and lungs.

Diphthong

A pair of vowels that together create a single gliding sound (e.g., ‘oo’ in “book,” ‘ou’ in “loud”).

Long and Short Vowel Sounds

Alternate pronunciations of a single vowel letter, depending on word position (e.g., long ‘a’ in “cake,” short ‘a’ in “cat”).

Phonemic Awareness

A conscious awareness that spoken words are made of individual sounds (phonemes) that correspond to letters; enables segmenting, blending, and rhyming.

Segmenting

Phonemic-awareness skill of breaking a word into its individual sounds (e.g., /k/ /æ/ /t/ for “cat”).

Blending

Phonemic-awareness skill of combining individual sounds to form a word (e.g., /k/ + /æ/ + /t/ → “cat”).

Rhyming

Identifying words that share similar ending phonemes (e.g., “share,” “bear,” “care”).

Phonics

An instructional approach that teaches sound-symbol correspondences to help learners decode (sound out) words.

Sound-Symbol Correspondence

The relationship between a written letter or letter group and the sound it represents in speech.