erly lit exam 1 study guide (spring 2026)

**refer to quiz 1 study guide for knowledge about - "reading and the brain", "emergent literacy", & "phonological awareness"

phonics

the systematic instruction of teaching students how to associate sounds with letter patterns

pre-alphabetic phase

• Children have little or no alphabet knowledge.

• They recognize words using visual cues like pictures, logos, or word shapes.

• Words are treated like pictures rather than decoded.

• They rely on context clues and guessing to identify words.

• They notice meaning (semantic clues) more than sounds (phonological clues).

• This is a normal early stage of reading development before phonics instruction.

partial alphabetic phase

• Children begin using letter–sound (grapheme–phoneme) connections.

• This stage is called phonetic cue reading, but the connections are incomplete or unreliable.

• Children often use the first letter sound and context to guess words.

• They may occasionally use the last letter or other letters to help identify a word.

• This phase is more reliable than visual cue reading, but children still cannot easily read new words.

• Instruction should focus on strengthening letter–sound knowledge and phonemic awareness and using all letters in a word.

full alphabetic phase

• Readers pay attention to every letter in a word.

• They use phonological recoding (converting letters into sounds) to read words.

• Children have stronger letter–sound knowledge and phonemic awareness.

• They decode words sequentially, often slowly, especially unfamiliar words.

• This stage is more reliable than earlier guessing strategies.

• Typically develops by late kindergarten or early first grade.

• Instruction should focus on segmenting and blending sounds and attending to every letter.

• Repeated exposure to words helps build orthographic mapping (linking spelling, sound, and meaning in memory).

consolidated alphabetic phase

• Readers decode using chunks of letters instead of individual sounds.

• Recognize letter patterns such as blends, digraphs, vowel teams, and word families.

• Also recognize syllables, prefixes, suffixes, and morphemes as units.

• Orthographic mapping strengthens, making word recognition faster.

• Considered the most advanced stage of reading development.

• Typically begins around second grade and continues to improve with practice.

• Instruction should focus on recognizing patterns and chunks within words.

automatic phase

• Final stage of word-reading development.

• Word reading becomes quick and effortless.

• Most words are recognized automatically as sight words.

• Unfamiliar words can be decoded quickly and efficiently.

• Readers can focus mainly on understanding the meaning of the text.

• Most proficient adolescents and adults are in this phase.

phonological & orthographic processor

which two processors are involved when learning phonics?

synthetic phonics

• (part to whole) students transform letters and letter combinations in sounds and blend them together (segmenting & blending) 

  • systematic & explicit

  • practice materials

  • decodable books

analogy phonics

• (analogizing) the teacher starts with a phonogram or rime a student knows to make the connection to a new, unknown word

  • example – student knows my but doesn’t know why

decoding

when phonics is used to read words

encoding

when phonological awareness AND phonics are used to write/spell words

graphemes

a letter or group of letters that represent one speech sound 

• example high = 2 graphemes ( h igh)

• mad 3 graphemes (m a d)

• neighbor has 4 graphemes (n eigh b or)

true

t/f: the number of phonemes & graphemes will always be the same in a word

alphabetic principle

the understanding that there 26 squiggly things (upper & lowercase) called letters that make sounds

alphabetic principle

the _______ _______ is essential for matching speech to print

single constants

Definition	Example
Any letter that is not a vowel.	b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, y, z

short vowels

Example

ă, ĕ, ĭ, ŏ, ŭ (short vowel mark is called a breve).

beginning consonant blends

Definition	Example
2 or more consonants, you hear both sounds, comes at the beginning of a word. The word can have a long or short vowel.	2 letter blends …   r-blends – br, cr, dr, fr, gr, pr, tr l blends – bl, cl, fl, gl, pl, sl other blends – sc, sk, sm, sn, sp, tw, st, sw  3 letter blends …   spl, scr, squ, str, spr

ending consonant blends

Definition	Example
2 or more consonants, you hear both sounds, comes at the end of a word. The word will have a short vowel	st, sk, sp, nd, nt, nk, ng, mp, rd, ld, lp, rk, lt, lf, pt, ft, ct, xt

consonant digraphs and trigraphs

Definition	Example
2 or 3 consonants that come together to make one sound.	Digraphs - sh, th, (has 2 letters, ph, ch, wh, ck,  Trigraphs (has 3 letters) dge, tch

digraphs

has 2 letters

trigraphs

has 3 letters

long vowels

Definition	Example
The sound made when the vowel says its name	ă, ē, ī, ō, ŭ (long vowel mark is called a macron)  ** ū can make 2 sounds ū like in mule, and /oo/ like in ruler

vowel teams/pairs

Definition	Example
Two to four letters to work together to make a long vowel sound.	2 letters ai, ay, au, aw, ee, ēa, ĕa, eā,  oa, ōw, ew, oū, ue, oo, oo, ui, oe, iē,  3 letters igh 4 letters eigh

R controlled vowels

Definition	Example
The vowel precedes the r and the presence of the r distorts the sound of the vowel	er, ir, ur, ar, or

L controlled vowels

Definition	Example
The vowel precedes the l and the presence of the l distorts the sound of the vowel.	all, cold, bell, bull, pill, pencil, animal, camel, colt, roll, halt, chalk, milk

dipthongs

Definition	Example
When two vowels are combined and it starts as one vowel sound and moves into the other vowel sound.  You can hear both vowel sounds	oi and oy – boil, coin, boy, toy ow and ou – down, brow, mouse, couch

word families

the purpose of _____ ________ is to help students see patterns between different words. (Think analogy phonics)

• this helps students to begin seeing words in chunks

  • think consolidated alphabet stage in Ehri’s Phases

• ex: ake

  • cake

  • flake

  • lake

  • rake

  • brake

  • stake

  • fake

  • make

word chain

• help students see patterns/relationships among words (NOT rules)

• helps students become flexible with building words 

• helps students to continually review what has been previously learned

• ex: pat, cat, fat, fit, fig, pig, peg, pet, met, let, lit, pit, pat

• activity in class = decoding using blending boards

word sorts

• help students see patterns among words

• is a higher order thinking skill and increases their problem solving (when doing open sorts)

• two types: closed sorts & open sorts

closed sorts

where the categories are given to the students

open sorts

when students look at the set of words, determine the patterns they see in the set of words, and categorize them based on those patterns

oddball open sorts

an open sort with words that don’t fit the patterns

Know the difference between heart words and high frequency words (Week 5 PPT Slide 28)

heart words

• can be considered temporarily irregular, but when students learn different letter patterns the word can become regular (saw, she, might)

• emphasize that parts of the word are regular, and there are some parts that just have to be learned by heart

high frequency words

• most commonly found sight words found in reading materials for grades 3-9

• instruction is not explicit (let’s learn this word by continual practice)

• instruction does not emphasize irregular/regular parts

Understand how to teach heart words (See your script in Canvas Week Five)

i

which of the following are activities to help in building fluency?

a. grapheme visual drill (learning symbols to match sounds)

b. word chains

c. word building w/letter tiles (electronic or actual cards) 

d. phonograms (word families) (remember onsets/rimes)

e. word sorting 

f. Elkonin boxes w/letters 

g. spelling

h. dictation

i. all of the above

grapheme visual drill

learning symbols to match sounds

word chains

• helps students to see minute changes between words

• helps them to be flexible readers

dictation

• make up sentences using your target words

• have students write the sentences

invented spelling

when students use their phonemic awareness skills to spell words

• although the words are not spelled conventionally, then make sense with the sound/spelling relationships

• examples …   

  • luv = love

  • is crem= ice cream

  • gam = game

true

t/f: invented spelling is an appropriate strategy that is to be used TEMPORARILY

letter patterns

as students knowledge of ______ ______ increases, the expectation is that their spelling reflects their new knowledge

e

which of the following are reasons that we want students to use invented spelling?

a. we want students to not be intimidated by the writing process 

b. invented spelling helps students with their encoding skills

c. it also helps students to practice their letter-sound correspondences

d. invented spelling decreases as students learn & practice new spelling patterns – so don’t worry! 

e. all of the above