Language Arts Prim/Elementary School

the English language uses a combination of the 26 letters in the alphabet singly and in combination to represent how many different sounds (phonemes)

42 to 44

Phoneme

The smallest unit of spoken language that makes a difference in a words meaning

How many consonant phonemes are there in the English language

25

vowels that come right before the letter r, where the r changes the sound the vowel makes

r controlled vowels are vowels influenced by the following 'r', such as in words like 'car' and 'her'. They typically do not follow standard vowel sound rules.

voiced consonant phoneme

sound you make when your vocal cords vibrate.

unvoiced consonant phonemes

sound you make without your vocal cords vibrating. The sound is created mainly by air moving through your mouth.

How many vowel sounds phonemes is in the English language

15 plus 3 r controlled

High vowel

The tongue is raised high in the mouth. Examples: /i/ in see and /u/ in food.

Mid vowel

The tongue is positioned between high and low in the mouth. Examples: /ɛ/ in bed and /ə/ in about.

Low vowel

The tongue is lowered in the mouth. Examples: /æ/ in cat and /ɑ/ in father

Front vowel

The front of the tongue is raised or positioned toward the front of the mouth. Examples: /i/ in see and /ɛ/ in bed.

Central vowel

The back of the tongue is raised or positioned toward the back of the mouth. Examples: /u/ in food and /ɑ/ in father.

Rounded vowels

Vowels produced when the lips are rounded into a circle or pushed forward. Examples: /u/ in food and /oʊ/ in go.

Unrounded vowels

Vowels produced when the lips are not rounded. The lips may be spread or relaxed. Examples: /i/ in see and /æ/ in cat.

Tongue position

describes how high or low and how far forward or back the tongue is.

Lip position

describes whether the lips are rounded or unrounded when producing a vowel sound.

diphthong

vowel sound that begins as one vowel sound and glides into another vowel sound within the same syllable. Lip position changes from rounded to a smile

schwa

A vowel sound that is a short, relaxed, unstressed sound, often described as “uh.”

Grapheme

written representation of one sound

Phonics

The relationship between letters (graphemes) and the sounds they represent (phonemes). It helps children learn to read and spell words.

Syllable

A word or part of a word that contains one vowel sound. Each syllable has one vowel sound and is spoken as a beat.

Closed Syllable

A syllable ending in a consonant. The vowel usually makes a short sound.

Open Syllable

A syllable ending in a vowel. The vowel usually makes a long sound.

Vowel-Consonant-e (VCe) Syllable

A vowel followed by a consonant and a silent e. The first vowel usually makes a long sound

Vowel Team Syllable

Two or more letters work together to represent a vowel sound.

R-Controlled Syllable

A vowel is followed by r, which affects the vowel sound.

Consonant-le Syllable

An ending syllable with a consonant followed by le. It usually occurs at the end of a word.

digraph

two letters that work together to make one sound.

Consonant Blend

two or more consonants together where you can still hear each individual consonant sound.

Onset

The part of the syllable that comes before the vowel

rime

The vowel and everything after it in a syllable. Not in every syllable

Phonograms

A letter or group of letters that represents a sound in a word. Sometimes substituted for rime. Example: in the word back, /ack/

Morphemes

The smallest unit of a word that carries meaning. A word can have one or many. Often referred to as word part clues

Free Morpheme

A type of Morpheme that can stand alone as a word

Bound Morpheme

a type of morpheme that must be attached to other morphemes to make a word

Compound Word

A word made by joining two smaller words together to create one word with a meaning of its own.

affix

a letter or group of letters added to a base word or root to change its meaning or grammatical form.

prefix

an affix added to the beginning of a word to change its meaning.

derivational suffix

added to the end of a word to create a new word or change its meaning or word class (such as changing a verb into a noun).

inflectional suffix

added to the end of a word to show grammatical information without creating a new word or changing its basic word class.

Phonological awareness

The ability to hear, recognize, and work with the sound structures of spoken language, without needing to look at written letters or words.

Phonemic Awareness

The ability to hear, identify, and work with the individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words, without needing to see written letters.

The difference between Phonemic awareness and Phonics

Phonemic awareness is the understanding that spoken language can be broken into phonemes. Phonics is the understanding of the relationship between phonemes and graphemes (letters and sounds in written language)

Blending

putting individual sounds together to make a word.

Segmenting

putting individual sounds together to make a word.

Manipulation

changing the sounds in a word by adding, removing, or replacing sounds to make a new word.

4 developmental levels of Phonological Awareness

1. word

2. syllable

3. intrasyllable

4. phoneme