Literacy BEd1

The alphabetic principle

understanding that letters and letter patterns represent the sounds of spoken language. It is fundamental in learning to read and write.

Invented spelling

writing strategy where children spell words based on their phonetic understanding, often resulting in unconventional spelling. This reflects their developing knowledge of the alphabetic principle.

Shared/Interactive Writing

collaborative instructional practice where teachers and students compose text together, allowing for real-time feedback and discussion about writing conventions and strategies.

Phonological awareness

is the ability to recognize and manipulate sounds in spoken language, including syllables, onsets, and rimes. It is a crucial skill for developing reading and writing abilities.

Phoneme

is the smallest unit of sound in a language that can distinguish meaning. Understanding phonemes is essential for effective reading and spelling.

Phonemic Awareness

is the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. It is a key skill for developing reading proficiency and is foundational in phonics instruction.

Grapheme

is the smallest unit of writing in a language that represents a phoneme. Graphemes can be a single letter or a combination of letters used to convey sound.

Word recognition

the ability to read the words on the page accurately and automatically, i.e. knowing letter-sound relationships, blending sounds, recognising words quickly without effort

Language comprehension

The ability to understand what the words and sentences mean, such as vocabulary, background knowledge, understanding sentences and stories, making inferences

Conventions of Print

the accepted rules and practices for presenting written text so that it is consistently readable and understandable.

diphthong

a sound formed by the combination of two vowels in a single syllable, in which the sound begins as one vowel and moves towards another (as in coin, loud, and side)

Onset & Rime

the two parts of a syllable, where the onset is the initial consonant or consonant blend and the rime is the vowel and any following consonants.

Syllable

speech unit that contains one vowel sound

26 letters

44 phonemes

Consonant blend

combination of two or three consonant letters blended in such a way that each letter in the blend keeps its own identity

Vowel diphthongs

Two vowels together that produce a sound unlike that of either vowel

Comprehension

the extraction and construction of understanding

Three Levels of Comprehension

Literal, Inferential. Metacognitive

Literal comprehension

extracting the details of the text and recognising the author’s purpose

Inferential

Requires the reader to read between the lines and interpret the text using their background knowledge and explicit knowledge within the text

Metacognitive

The awareness of one's thinking and self-regulation and self-monitoring of a learner’s thoughts

Print Knowledge

knowledge of written language, both in how it operates and how it is spelled (orthography)