Emergent Lit

ACCENT    

(or stress) is the relative force with which a syllable is pronounced. The primary accent is the one that receives the strongest and heaviest emphasis. Unstressed syllables receive the weakest emphasis. 

ALPHABETIC PRINCIPLE 

is when alphabetic symbols represent spoken sounds. English orthography (or written English) is based on this principle. 

ALPHABETIC WRITING SYSTEM 

is when individual spoken sounds are represented by individual written symbols. The letters and sounds work together in a systematic way to connect spoken language to its written equivalent. 

BLENDING    

is combining individual phonemes to make spoken words. Blending also involves putting onsets and rimes together in words. 

BLENDS 

are two or three letters that represent separate but closely associated sounds. They are sometimes called "clusters." 

CONSONANT DIGRAPHS 

are two different consonant letters that represent a single consonant phoneme. 

CONSONANTS 

are one of the two classes of sounds in a language (vowels are the other). There are 25 consonant phonemes and 19 consonant graphemes in the English language. 

DELETION    

involves mentally removing part of a word to make another word. 

DIGRAPHS 

are two different letters that represent a single phoneme. 

GRAPHEMES 

are written symbols. They are basic, minimal, indivisible units of writing, the letters of the alphabet. There are 26 graphemes in the English alphabet. 

ISOLATION    

is the ability to identify where phonemes occur in words--at the beginning, middle, or ending. 

LONG VOWELS    

are the vowel sounds you hear in the middle of words like cake, heat, ride, road, and cute. Long vowels are marked with a macron, or flat line, above the letter. 

ONSET    

is the part of the syllable that comes before the vowel. 

PHONEMES    

are spoken sounds. They are basic, minimal, indivisible sound units in words. The English sound system has 44 phonemes. 

PHONEMIC AWARENESS 

involves the knowledge that spoken words are made up of discrete sounds. It also involves the ability to manipulate these sounds in different ways. 

PHONICS 

is the study of sound-symbol relationships in learning to read and spell. 

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS 

is an umbrella term that includes the study of speech sounds, how they are made, and other aspects of the speech act. 

R-CONTROLLED VOWELS    

are vowels followed by the letter r. They have neither a long nor short sound. 

RHYMING 

is the ability to recognize and produce rhyming words. 

RIME 

is the vowel and any consonants that follow it in a syllable. 

SCHWA    

is a vowel sound that occurs only in unaccented syllables. It is represented by the symbol /_/. 

SEGMENTATION 

is the ability to break words into their component phonological parts. 

SHORT VOWELS 

are the vowel sounds you hear in the middle of words like cat, bed, big, hot, and mud. These sounds typically occur in a Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) pattern and they are marked with a breve, or small u shape, above the letter. 

SILENT LETTERS 

are consonant letters that have no corresponding sounds in words. 

SUBSTITUTION 

involves changing words by replacing one sound with another. 

SYLLABLES 

are clusters of phonemes that make up larger sound units in words. All syllables must have a vowel. Syllables can be open or closed. 

VOWELS    

constitute the second largest category of sounds in any language (consonants are the largest). There are 19 vowel phonemes in the overall sound system of American English and 5 vowel graphemes. 

VOWEL DIGRAPHS 

are two vowel letters that combine to make a single sound. 

VOWEL DIPHTHONGS 

are two vowel letters that make a unique sound different from either of the vowels in isolation.