Phonics Vocabulary Test Terms

These flashcards cover key vocabulary terms relevant to the phonics vocabulary test, providing definitions to aid in study and comprehension.

Affricate

A complex consonant sound that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative.

Automaticity

The ability to perform tasks without conscious thought, often used in the context of reading.

Bound Morpheme

A morpheme that cannot stand alone as a word and must be attached to a free morpheme.

Coarticulation

The influence of one sound on another in speech, making sounds less distinct.

Consonant Blend

A combination of two or more consonants pronounced together, where each retains its own sound.

Diphthong

A complex vowel sound that begins with one vowel sound and glides into another.

Explicit Instruction

Direct teaching that involves clear, structured, and systematic teaching methods.

Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondence

The relationship between a letter or a group of letters and the sound they represent.

Medial Sound

The sound that occurs in the middle of a word.

Morphemic Analysis

The process of breaking down words into their base and affixed forms.

Orthography

The conventional spelling system of a language.

Phonemic Awareness

The ability to recognize and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words.

Segmentation

The process of breaking words down into their individual sounds or syllables.

Syllable Stress

The emphasis placed on certain syllables within a word.

Vowel-Consonant-E Pattern

A phonics pattern where a vowel is followed by a consonant and a silent 'e', affecting the vowel sound.

Absorbed Prefix

A prefix whose spelling or pronunciation has been altered to match the initial sound or spelling of the base word (e.g., 'in-' becoming 'im-' in 'impossible').

Adjective

A word that describes or modifies a noun or pronoun.

Adverb

A word that describes or modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.

African American English

A dialect of American English spoken by many African Americans, characterized by distinct grammatical, lexical, and phonological features.

Affricate

A complex consonant sound that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative (e.g., the 'ch' in 'chair' or 'j' in 'jump').

Affix

A morpheme added to a word to create a new word or a new form of the same word; includes prefixes and suffixes.

Alphabet Knowledge

The ability to name and recognize letters of the alphabet.

Alphabetic Principle

The understanding that there is a systematic and predictable relationship between written letters and spoken sounds.

Ambiguous Vowel

A vowel sound that can be represented by various spelling patterns, making its pronunciation less predictable (e.g., the 'ou' in 'cough', 'through', 'tough').

Assessment-Instruction Cycle

A continuous process where student learning is assessed to inform future instructional decisions, and then instruction is given, leading to further assessment.

Assimilated Prefix

A prefix that changes its spelling to match the beginning sound of the root word (e.g., 'sub-' becomes 'sup-' in 'support'). This is synonymous with an absorbed prefix.

Automaticity

The ability to perform tasks without conscious thought, often used in the context of reading words instantly and effortlessly.

Base Word

A word to which affixes (prefixes and suffixes) can be added (e.g., 'help' in 'unhelpful').

Blending

The process of combining individual sounds (phonemes) or syllables to form a word.

Bound Morpheme

A morpheme that cannot stand alone as a word and must be attached to a free morpheme (e.g., '-ing', 'un-', '-s').

Closed Sort

A word sort where the categories are provided by the teacher.

Closed Syllable

A syllable that ends in a consonant sound and usually has a short vowel sound (e.g., 'cat', 'dog').

Coarticulation

The influence of one sound on an adjacent sound in speech, making sounds less distinct and blending them together.

Complex Consonant Patterns

Consonant letter combinations that do not consistent of simple digraphs or blends and often have varied pronunciations (e.g., 'tch', 'dge', 'igh').

Compound Word

A word made up of two or more smaller words that are combined to form a new word with a new meaning (e.g., 'sunflower', 'baseball').

Concept Sort

A categorizing activity where students group words or pictures based on shared conceptual attributes.

Concepts of Print

The understanding of how print works, including knowing that print carries meaning, recognizing the front of a book, title, author, and directionality of reading.

Conjunction

A word used to connect clauses or sentences or to coordinate words in the same clause (e.g., 'and', 'but', 'or').

Consonant

A speech sound characterized by a partial or complete obstruction of the breath by the tongue, lips, or teeth.

Consonant Alteration

Changes in the pronunciation of consonants when certain suffixes are added (e.g., 'magic' to 'magician' where 'c' changes sound).

Consonant Alteration Conventions

The rules or patterns governing how consonant sounds change when certain suffixes are added.

Consonant Blend

A combination of two or more consonants pronounced together, where each retains its own sound (e.g., 'bl' in 'blue', 'str' in 'street').

Consonant Doubling Conventions

Rules for doubling a consonant before adding a vowel suffix to maintain the short vowel sound (e.g., 'run' to 'running').

Consonant-Vowel-Consonant Pattern

A common spelling pattern where a consonant is followed by a vowel and then another consonant (CVC), typically resulting in a short vowel sound (e.g., 'cat', 'bed').

Copula

A verb, such as 'is', 'are', 'was', 'were', that connects the subject to a complement (a predicate noun or adjective).

Dependent Clause

A clause that cannot stand alone as a complete sentence because it does not express a complete thought, usually introduced by a subordinating conjunction or relative pronoun.

Derivational Relations Stage

The final stage of spelling development, where students explore relationships between spelling and meaning, especially in polysyllabic words with related roots and affixes.

Derivational Suffix

A suffix that changes the grammatical function of a word (e.g., '-tion' changes 'act' (verb) to 'action' (noun)) or changes its meaning.

Deep/Opaque Orthography

A spelling system where there is an inconsistent or non-transparent relationship between letters and sounds, making it harder to predict pronunciation from spelling (e.g., English).

Dialect

A particular form of a language that is peculiar to a specific region or social group.

Differentiated Instruction

An instructional approach that tailors teaching and learning to meet the individual needs of students.

Digraph

Two letters that represent a single sound (e.g., 'sh' in 'ship', 'ph' in 'phone').

Diphthong

A complex vowel sound that begins with one vowel sound and glides into another within the same syllable (e.g., 'oi' in 'coin', 'ou' in 'house').

Dyslexia

A learning disorder characterized by difficulty reading due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words.

-ed Conventions

The rules governing the pronunciation of the '-ed' ending for past tense verbs, which can sound like /t/, /d/, or /ɪd/.

E-Drop Conventions

The rule that a silent 'e' at the end of a word is often dropped when a vowel suffix is added (e.g., 'drive' + '-ing' = 'driving').

Elision

The omission of a sound or syllable when speaking, often for ease of pronunciation or for stylistic effect (e.g., 'fish an' chips' instead of 'fish and chips').

Emergent Stage

The earliest stage of literacy development, when children are learning the basic concepts of print and developing an awareness of sounds in language.

Encode

The process of translating spoken words into written words (e.g., spelling).

Explicit Instruction

Direct teaching that involves clear, structured, and systematic teaching methods, making the learning goals and expectations clear to students.

Free Morpheme

A morpheme that can stand alone as a complete word (e.g., 'cat', 'run', 'happy').

Gradual Release of Responsibility

An instructional model where teachers progressively shift responsibility for learning from themselves to the students, typically involving 'I do', 'We do', 'You do together', 'You do alone' stages.

Grapheme

A written symbol or a group of written symbols that represents a single phoneme (e.g., 'c', 'ph', 'igh').

Grapheme-Phoneme Correspondence

The relationship between a written letter or a group of letters (grapheme) and the sound they represent (phoneme).

Hard C

The sound of the letter 'c' similar to /k/ (e.g., 'cat', 'cup').

Hard G

The sound of the letter 'g' similar to /g/ (e.g., 'go', 'gate').

Homograph

Words that are spelled the same but have different meanings and sometimes different pronunciations (e.g., 'bow' for a knot vs. 'bow' for a weapon).

Homophone

Words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings (e.g., 'to', 'too', 'two').

Independent Clause

A clause that can stand alone as a complete sentence because it expresses a complete thought.

Inflectional Ending/Suffix

A suffix that changes the form of a word to indicate tense, number, possession, or comparison, but does not change its grammatical category (e.g., '-s', '-ed', '-ing').

Invented Spelling

A child's attempt to spell words based on their current understanding of letter-sound relationships, often showing developmental patterns.

Irregular Word

A word that does not follow typical phonics rules and must be learned as a whole word (e.g., 'said', 'was').

Letter

A character representing one or more of the sounds used in speech; an alphabet symbol.

Letter Name Knowledge

The ability to identify and name the letters of the alphabet.

Letter Name-Alphabetic Stage

A stage of spelling development where students use the names of letters to make judgments about spelling, often misapplying long vowel sounds (e.g., 'DR' for 'drive').

Letter Recognition

The ability to identify individual letters of the alphabet.

Letter-Sound Correspondence

The connection between a letter or group of letters and the sound(s) they represent.

Long/Tense Vowel

A vowel sound that says its name (e.g., the 'a' in 'cake', 'e' in 'me').

Long Vowel Patterns/Conventions

The various spelling patterns that represent long vowel sounds (e.g., VCe, vowel teams like 'ai', 'ea', 'ee').

Medial Sound

The sound that occurs in the middle of a word.

Metalinguistic

Awareness and understanding of the properties and function of language itself.

Morpheme

The smallest meaningful unit of language (e.g., 'un-', 'dog', '-s').

Morphemic Analysis

The process of breaking down words into their base words, roots, and affixes to determine meaning.

Morphology

The study of the forms of words and how they are structured, including the study of morphemes.

Morphophonemic

Refers to the interaction between morphology and phonology, where spelling reflects both sound and meaning relationships.

Multisyllabic

Having more than one syllable.

Noun/Noun Phrase

A word (noun) or a group of words (noun phrase) that names a person, place, thing, or idea.

Onset

The initial consonant or consonant blend of a syllable, preceding the vowel (e.g., 'c' in 'cat', 'str' in 'street').

Open Sort

A word sort where students determine the categories for grouping words themselves.

Open Syllable

A syllable that ends in a vowel sound and usually has a long vowel sound (e.g., 'go', 'me').

Orthography

The conventional spelling system of a language.

Pattern Sort

A word sort where students categorize words based on common spelling patterns.

Phoneme

The smallest unit of sound in a language that distinguishes one word from another (e.g., /b/ in 'bat' vs. /p/ in 'pat').

Phonemic Awareness

The ability to recognize and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words without print.

Phonics

A method of teaching reading and spelling by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters.

Phonogram

A letter or combination of letters that represents a sound (also known as a rime or word family).

Phonological Awareness

A broad skill that includes identifying and manipulating units of oral language, such as words, syllables, and individual sounds.

Phonological Processing

The use of phonological information to process oral and written language. It includes phonological awareness, phonological memory, and rapid naming.

Phonology

The study of the sound system of a language, including the rules governing the distribution and sequencing of speech sounds.

Picture/Sound Sort

An activity where students sort pictures based on their beginning, middle, or ending sounds.