Key Literacy and Phonological Skills for Early Reading Development

Automaticity

effortless word recognition

Connected text

multiple related sentences

Elkonin boxes

sound boxes where each square represents one phoneme.

Morpheme

the smallest unit of meaning in a word

Orthographic mapping

the process of storing a word permanently in memory for instant retrieval

Phoneme

an individual sound

Phonemic awareness

the ability to blend, segment, and manipulate individual sounds.

Sight words

words that can be read instantly

Word family

a group of words that may share a common root, pattern, or group of letters

Letter string

a group of letters that appear in a word

Literacy

the ability to read and write

Phonics

a method of teaching beginners to read and pronounce words by learning the phonetic value of letters, letter groups, and especially syllables.

Phonological awareness

the ability to recognize that spoken words are made up of individual sound parts.