WFoRT Vocab/Important Terms and Ideas Flashcards

Phoneme

The smallest part of spoken language that makes a difference in the meaning of words. (English has about 42 phonemes.) Most words, have more than one phoneme. Sometimes one phoneme is represented by more than one letter.

Grapheme

The smallest part of written language that represents a phoneme in the spelling of a word. May be just one letter, such as b, d, f, p, s; or several letters, such as ch, sh, th, ck, ea, ight.

Phonemic Awareness

The ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds - phonemes -spoken words. (NOT involve a connection to the written form of language.)

Phonological Awareness

Includes phonemic awareness. In addition to phonemes, phonological awareness activities can involve work with rhymes, words, syllables, and onsets and rimes.

Syllable

A word part that contains a vowel, or, in spoken language, a vowel sound.

Onset and Rime

Parts of spoken language that are smaller than syllables but larger than phonemes. An onset is the initial consonant sound of a syllable; a rime is the part of a syllable that contains the vowel and all the follows it. [STOP] (st = onset; op = rime).

Phonics

The understanding there is a predictable relationship between phonemes (sounds of spoken language) and graphemes (the letters and spellings that represent those sounds in written language)

Alphabetic Principle

Understanding that phonemes (speech sounds) are represented by letters and letter pairs.

Emergent Literacy

One's earliest experiences of authentic literacy in the home (oral language, read alouds and scribbling) Typically students are in early childhood or kindergarten. They have not begun formal reading instruction; however, emergent literacy skills begin to develop even before children begin to speak.

Book Handling Skills

Illustrates a child's knowledge of how books "work" (how to hold the book, tracking print from left to right, front and back cover, title page, dedication page etc.)

Word Awareness

A student is able to hear and discriminate between words in a sentence. They are able to hear the individual words and count how many words they hear.

Phoneme Isolation

The ability to identify where a sound appears in a word, or to identify what sound appears in a given position in a word. Initial sound: What sound do you hear at the beginning of the word? Final sound: What sound do you hear at the end of the word? Medial sound: What sound do you hear in the middle of the word?

Phoneme Blending

The ability to hear the individual sounds in a word, put the sounds together and say the word that is made. (eg. /s/ /ay/ = say).

Phoneme segmentation

The ability to break words down into individual sounds. (eg. "run" /r/ /u/ /n/).

Phoneme Manipulation

The ability to modify, change, or move the individual sounds (phonemes) in a word.

Phoneme Addition

The ability to ADD a phoneme (sound) to the beginning or end of a word. Using letter SOUNDS, not letter NAMES (eg. Add /s/ to the beginning of the word 'tar' [star]).

Phoneme Deletion

The ability to DELETE a phoneme (sound) from the beginning, end or middle of a word. Using letter SOUNDS, not letter NAMES (eg. Say 'stop' without the /s/ [top]).

Phoneme Substitution

The ability to DELETE a phoneme from a word and ADD in another phoneme to create a new word. Using letter SOUNDS, not letter NAMES (eg. say the word 'best' but change the /b/ to /r/ [rest])

Should phonics instruction be explicit or implicit?

Explicit (Synthetic): it is direct and systematic in how letters and their corresponding sounds are introduced.

Semantic (Meaning) Cues

Readers use this cue to help them understand if what they are reading makes sense

Syntactic (Structure) Cues

Readers use this cue to assist with deciding whether the text sounds right

Graphic/Visual (Phonics) Cues

Readers use these cues to help identify unknown words

What are the 5 stages of spelling development?

1.) Precommunicative

2.) Semiphonetic

3.) Phonetic

4.) Transitional

5.) Correct

Precommunicative

Children use letters but do not correspond to any sounds. They lack distinction between upper and lower case letters, left to right and understanding spacing.

Semiphonetic

Children start to understand letter-sound correspondence and may use single letters to represent entire words (eg. U for you, M for am).

Phonetic

Children begin to use letter or groups of letters to represent all of the sounds they hear in a word. May have not mastered all of the phonics/spelling "rules" yet but attempts at spelling are systematic and easy to understand (eg. tak for take, enfor in).

Transitional

Children start to incorporate more advanced or unconventional spelling patterns. They show they've begun to understand more letter combinations used in spelling (eg. highked for hiked, mite for might).

Correct

Children know common letter-sound patterns AND generalizations (rules) for spelling. They understand common alternative spellings, prefixes, suffixes, and irregular words. This stage does not mean that the spelling is 100% accurate all the time

Decoding

The process of reading words in text, or converting writing to spoken words.

Encoding

The process of using letter/sound knowledge to write, or converting spoken words to written text.

Consonants

Children are first taught to identify single beginning consonants, and then single ending consonants (eg. b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, ,n , p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z).

Short Vowels

a, e, i, o, u - short vowels are first introduced in CVC words

Short a: cat, had, fun

Short e: bed, red, ten, net

Short i: hit, win, lip

Short o: fog, hop, pot

Short u: sun, cup, hug

Consonant Blends

Two or three consonants side-by-side in a word; each consonant makes its own sound [You can remember what a blend is because it contains a BLend (bl) ]

BLack caMP

SLide shaRK

GRape inseCT

Consonant Digraphs

Two consonants side-by-side in a word that make ONE sound

You may sometimes see TRIGRAPHS (3 letters that make one sound). An example is the - tch in witch

• You can remember what a digraph is because it contains a digraPH (ph)!

Long Vowels

Long Vowels (a, e, i, o, u) say their name

The first long vowels students are taught are in CVCe words.

R-Controlled Vowels

When a vowel is followed by an r, the r changes the sound that the vowel makes.

**Sometimes teachers refer to the "r" as the "bossy r" because the r "bosses" the vowel to make a new sound.

ar: farm, shark, hard

er: her, hear, germ*

ir: bird, girl, first*

or: horn, storm, fork

ur: hurt, church, surf*

• er, ir, & ur all make the same sound

Hard & Soft C and G

Y as a vowel

Hard Soft

followed by an a, or or u followed by an e, i, or y

hard c: cut, cap, cat soft c: circle, cycle, cement

hard g: gut, gate, goat soft g: gem, gym, giraffe

The consonant sound of "y" is /y/ as in the word "yellow." Typically at the beginning of the word "y" makes the consonant /y/ sound.

When "y" is in the middle or end of a word and does not have a vowel before it, "y" sounds like a long-i or long-e

long i long e

cry, fry my, cycle, sky baby, easy, funny, lazy

Vowel Digraphs/Vowel Teams

Two vowels side-by-side in a word that make ONE sound

"Bossy" Consonants

L,R, and W are "bossy" consonants and something change the sound of vowels

Bossy L: ball, chalk, call

Bossy R (also called R-influenced)

Bossy W: word, worm, watch, swat

High Frequency Words

A list of words that are most commonly used and make up at least 50% of all children's text

Sight Words

Words that students can learn to recognize in their whole form, rather than sounding them out.

Morpheme

"Chunks" of words that carry meaning (in the word dogs, "dog" and the "s," are both morphemes)

Base Word

A simple word from which you can build a family of words around it. (Start with "place" you can say places, placing, replace, placement)

Root Word

The origin of a word. ("Locus" - local, locality, relocation)

Prefix

Morpheme added to the beginning of the word.

Suffix

Morpheme added to the end of the word

Affix

Prefixes, suffixes, and inflectional endings

Homograph

Words that are spelled the same but have different origin and meanings. They my or may not be pronounced the same.

Homophone

Words that are pronounced the same or sound the same but may have different spellings, meanings or origins (eg. new and knew)

Syllabication

Breaking a word into parts or chunks, called syllables, to aid in decoding and making meaning.

Word analysis

Using a word's structure (the relationship between spelling and pronunciation) to decode and attach meaning to an unfamiliar word.

Chunking

Breaking a word into manageable parts. (Helps a reader decode)

• Beginning readers might chunk onset and rime

• More advanced readers chunk by syllables

Closed Syllable

A syllable with a short vowel spelled with a single vowel letter ending in one or more consonants.

Examples:

• DAP-ple

• HOS-tel

-BEV-er-age

Vowel-C-e ("Magic e") Syllable

A syllable with a long vowel spelled with one vowel + one consonant + silent e (VCe).

Examples:

• com-PETE

• de-SPITE

Open Syllable

A syllable that ends with a long vowel sound, spelled with a single vowel letter.

Examples:

• PRO-gram

• TA-ble