literacy and the arts final vocabulary

Receptive language

listening & understanding what is said

Objectives for development: lots of exposure to rich, varied, & standard forms language

Expressive language

being able to pronounce and use words correctly

Objectives: lots of opportunities to use language; expand and extend language during conversation

Explicit Vocabulary instruction

teaching words and their meanings deliberately and systematically

spontaneous/Embedded Vocabulary Instruction

teaching words in context, when they come up in conversation or reading

Vocabulary tier 1

basic/everyday words like

dog, house, water, hungry, mom, dad, go, eat, little

vocabulary tier 2

Academic words/language of books like

humor, injured, through, roared, charged, replied, gulped, exclaimed

vocabulary tier 3

specialized/content area words that come up like

chrysalis, phase, peninsula

Juicy words

Fun, unusual words that come up, like

hysterical, obsessive, presence, slurp

word consciousness

kids are aware of and interested in words, what they mean, and how they work

literacy

The fundamental skill of encoding and decoding written symbols, words, and sentences

learning stations

Spaces in the classroom are filled with materials for independent student activity, focusing on current topics of study within content areas and including literacy materials as well.

themes

The central, universal idea or underlying message that an author explores about human nature, society, or the world.

word lists

a curated collection of vocabulary words often paired with kid-friendly definitions, visual aids, or context sentences, used to build reading fluency, writing skills, and spoken communication

show and tell

A child brings an object from home to the classroom, displays it to their peers, and gives a short oral presentation about it.

Experiments

hands-on activities where young children actively explore, test, and observe everyday phenomena rather than memorizing abstract facts

Dramatic play

An activity where children accept and assign roles and act them out. The children use their imagination to explore different identities, everyday scenarios, or fantasy worlds.

morning message

A daily message written by the teacher on large chart paper about items of interest to the children. The teacher uses it to teach skills.

create stories

The practice of using narratives with a beginning, middle, and end, compelling characters, and a plot to teach, illustrate, or reinforce academic and social concepts. Instead of delivering a recitation of facts or abstract rules, educators weave information into a meaningful sequence that builds context and emotional connection.

read stories

to look at, interpret, and understand a written or printed narrative, either true ir fictional, that describes a sequence of events

retell stories

the act of explaining or presenting a narrative, either spoken, written or filmed - again in your own words or in a new form

vocabulary meeting

Coming together to discuss the classroom vocabulary strategies for teaching students.

vocabulary graphic organizers

a visual framework that helps learners explore, analyze, and remember the meaning of new words.

semantic maps

A visual diagram or graphic organizer that shows how words, ideas, and concepts connect to one another.

context clues

The use of syntax and semantic meaning of text to aid in word identification

vocabulary journals

A personal notebook where students collect, organize, and interact with new or unfamiliar words they encounter while reading, listening, or studying.

mystery words

a hidden or secret word that students must discover by solving a puzzle, using phonics clues, or tracking down letter sounds

word parts

Also known as morphemes, the smallest units of meaning that make up words

vocabulary games like bingo

educational learning game that adapts traditional bingo by replacing numbers with vocabulary words.

e.g., Pictionary, charades, word association

1. Aesthetic Talk

combine sensory perception, artistic expression, and critical reflection to expand traditional learning beyond the basic print

Efferent Talk

describes discussions, questions, or sharing of information centered around gathering and reporting objective facts or carrying away specific knowledge from a lesson

1. Checklists

a structured, closed-ended assessment or job aid used to record the presence or absence of specific behaviors, skills, or task completion criteria

1. Anecdotal records

A brief, objective, and factual written account of a specific student action, behavior, or interaction observed in a natural classroom setting.

1. Audio & video recordings

the use of sound, spoken word files, moving images, and multi-sensory media to support how students access, interpret, create, and evaluate information

1. Ask students to identify pictures in a book

the ability to read, understand, interpret, and create visual texts

1. Stages of Language Development 

   1. Print has function

a gradual, overlapping progression where children learn that print carries meaning and serves specific communication functions

1. Forms of print

the ability to read, write, speak, and listen effectively to gain and convey meaning from print

1. Conventions of print

The foundational understanding that written language has structure, carries specific meaning, and follows predictable rules

1. Developmental Levels of Word Recognition 

   1. Sight & context

Describe how children transition from relying on visual and context clues to automatically recognizing words

1. Letter-sound cues

describe how children move from visual guessing to sounding out words and eventually recognizing them automatically

1. Sounding out words

the early literacy process of looking at written letters, saying their individual sounds aloud, and blending those sounds together to pronounce a word

1. Concepts of books & print (What do kids need to know to become literate?)

the foundational awareness of how written language works, including how books are handled and how text is organized

Alphabetic knowledge

The foundational ability to identify, name, form, and know the sounds of all uppercase and lowercase letters in the alphabet

1. Alphabetic Principal

the core understanding that spoken sounds(phonemes) are represented by written letters and letter combinations(graphemes) in a predictable system

1. Language Experience Approach

a literacy method that uses a learner’s personal experiences and spoken words to teach reading and writing

1. Environmental Print

Everyday written text found in public spaces, homes, and packaging

Rebus

Rebus books and writing combine text with small icons or images to help beginning readers decode difficult words, build sight word recognition, and connect spoken language to print.

1. Morning Message

a short, daily written note from a teacher to their students, read aloud and explored together as a whole group

Experience Charts

a shared, teacher-written display that records a group’s common activity

Student-Made Books

physical texts created by learners themselves, combining writing, illustrations, and publishing, to build reading, writing, and comprehension skills.

Pocket Charts

A hanging classroom tool with clear horizontal plastic rows used to hold removable letter cards, word cards, and sentence strips.

Teachers and students physically manipulate these cards to build vocabulary, practice phonics, sequence sentences, and develop early reading skills through hands-on interaction

Picture Clues

Illustrations, drawings, or photos in a text that give visual hints to help young readers figure out unknown words, predict story events, and understand overall meaning

Sight Vocabulary 

The total collection of words a reader recognizes instantly, automatically, and effortlessly on sight without needing to sound them out

Very Own Words

an emphatic collocation used to stress that something belongs exclusively to a specific person or thing, rather than being shared or generic

High Frequency Words

The words that appear most often in written and spoken language

Examples) the, is, to, of. Learning these words is essential for early reading because just 100 of them make up about half of all printed text

Word Walls

a collection of words that are displayed in large visible letters on a wall

Fry Sight Word Inventory

An informal, criterion-referenced assessment tool used in literacy instruction to measure a student’s ability to automatically recognize high - frequency words.

Cloze Procedure (Using Blanks)

A reading comprehension and assessment technique where specific words are intentionally deleted from a text passage.

Readers must use context clues, grammar, vocabulary, and semantic awareness to fill in the missing blanks and restore meaning.

Functions of Language/Halliday (1975)

a social, functional resource for learning how to mean.

Language development is learning “how to mean.” 

Language development is the natural process of learning to speak and understand spoken words, while literacy is the learned ability to read and write those symbols.

Seven functions of language

Describe the practical social and psychological purposes children use communication to meet their needs.

1. Instrumental

2. regulatory

3. interactional

4. personal

5. heuristic

6. imaginative

7. representational

Behaviorist theories/Skinner (1992)

A set of acquired behaviors shaped entirely by environmental stimuli, reinforcement, and conditioning.

Language is influenced by the environment

Language is not an innate human ability; instead, it is an external behavior influenced by the environment, where children learn to read and write and speak through imitation and continuous feedback

1. Adults model & reinforce. Children imitate & learn.

Describes how adults model and reinforce language behaviors, which children then imitate to learn and achieve literacy

Nativist theories/Chomsky (1975)

Humans are biologically hardwired to acquire spoken language through an innate Language Acquisition Device and a universal Grammar.

1. Learning language is a natural & inherent ability.

The innate, biological ability of humans to perceive, comprehend, and produce language

LAD (Language Acquisition Device)

a hypothetical mental mechanism proposed by linguist Noam Chomsky in the 1950s and 1960s to explain how children naturally learn to understand and speak language

Universal Grammar

The human brain has a built-in, innate capacity for language

Piaget’s stages of development

Children move through four predictable stages of mental growth as they interact with the world.

1. Sensorimotor stage

The first phase of cognitive development, spanning from birth to about 2 years of age, where infants learn about the world through their senses and motor actions

1. Preoperational Stage 

Spanning roughly ages 2-7

During this period, children make massive leaps in language, memory, and imagination, though they cannot yet perform complex mental operations or logical reasoning

1. Concrete Operational Stage

Spanning roughly ages 7-11

where children develop logical thinking about tangible, physical objects and real-world events.

Formal Operational Stage

fourth and final stage of cognitive development begins around ages 11 and 12 and continues into adulthood.

Individuals move beyond physical, tangible objects to complete ideas, philosophies, and concepts they cannot see or touch.

Vygotsky’s ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development)

The distance or difference) between what a learner can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance and collaboration from an adult or a more knowledgeable peer.

Constructivism

An approach where readers and writers actively build meaning by connecting new texts and language experiences to their prior knowledge, cultural background, and social interaction, rather than passively memorizing rules or decoding words in isolation.

Approximation

An attempt or behavior by a learner, such as a developing reader, writer, or speaker, that is close to, but not yet an exact or mastered version of the conventional standard.

Overgeneralization of rules

a learning phenomenon where a person applies a grammatical, phonological, or structural rule to an exception or an unsupported context where it does not belong.

Neural Shearing/Neural Pruning 

The natural biological process where the brain eliminates weak, unused, or redundant neurons and synaptic connections to maximize learning efficiency and cognitive function.

Use it or lose it principal

Phonology

The study and application of the sound structure of spoken language to help students learn how to read, spell, and speak.

Semantics

the study of word and sentence meaning

Phonemes 

The smallest unit of spoken sound in a language that can change the meaning of the word.

Intonation

The rise and fall of the pitch of the voice during speech. It carries distinct meanings depending on the context.

Pitch–

how high or low a sound is perceived, or a short, objective presentation used to propose an idea or project

Stress–

The psychological and physiological response to any real or imagined demand, challenge, or disruption in life

Junctures–

Decisions, interventions, or changes in the environment significantly impact their future success.

Content Words

a word that carries the core meaning, ideas, and specific information in a sentence

Function Words

words that have little intrinsic or lexical meaning on their own, but serve a vital grammatical and structural role to connect content words and build coherent sentences

Holophrase

a single word that expresses a complete thought, idea, or full sentence

Telegraphic speech

an early stage of language development where children use short, two- to three-word phrases containing only essential content words, while omitting grammatical function words, articles, prepositions, and inflections

Syntax

how words, phrases, and clauses combine to form well-formed sentences

T-units/kernel

Two fundamental units of measurement used by educators to analyze language development and behavioral interventions.

Subject-verb

A fundamental rule stating that the subject and the verb in a sentence must match or agree in number, singular or plural

Subject-verb-object

a fundamental sentence structure where the subject comes first, the verb comes second, and the object comes third.

Subject-verb-indirect object-direct object

The subject performs the action, the verb expresses that action, the indirect object receives the direct object, and the direct object receives the main action of the verb.

Subject-linking verb-adjective

Connects the subject of a sentence to an adjective, noun, or pronoun that describes or re-identifies it rather than showing an action.

Culturally responsive teaching

An instructional approach that uses students’ cultural backgrounds, experiences, languages, and perspectives as tools to make learning more meaningful and accessible.

Culturally relevant assessment (CRA)

Educational framework that uses students’ cultural backgrounds, languages, and lived experiences as assets to make learning more meaningful.

Formative assessment

to check student understanding, identify learning gaps, and help teachers adjust their instruction

Summative assessment

Measure student learning and achievement at the end of an instructional period, such as a unit, by comparing it against a set standard or benchmark.

Authentic assessment

an evaluation method where students demonstrate what they know and can do by completing real-world tasks rather than taking traditional, memorization based tests like multiple choice of fill in the blank exams.

Running Record

A formative assessment tool used by educators to observe, score, and analyze a student’s oral reading behavior in real time.