Glossary

Accented syllable - a word part that is emphasized over the other syllables in a word and where the vowel is fully stressed. For example, in the word elephant, the first syllable /ĕl/ is the accented syllable.

Accuracy - a characteristic of reading fluency that reflects error-free decoding and is necessary for comprehension. The goal of accuracy is 98%.

Affix - a meaningful part of a word that is attached before or after a root or base word to modify its meaning; a morpheme category of prefixes, suffixes, and infixes.

African American English (AAE) - a language variety used by most, but not all, African American children.

Alphabet – a set of letters or symbols in a fixed order that are used to represent the speech sound of a language. There are 26 letters in the English alphabet.

Alphabetic principle - the alphabetic principle is the understanding that there are systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken sounds.

Anglo-Saxon - a Germanic language spoken in Britain before the invasion of the Norman French in 1066.

Antonym - a word that has the opposite meaning of another word.

Articulation - the production of speech sounds, which involves the tongue, teeth, lips, jaw, and vocal cords, as well as airflow through the mouth and nose.

Authentic text (also, called "real text") – Text in which vocabulary and sentence complexities have not been altered to achieve a specific readability level. Authentic text is distinct from decodable text, which is designed to support the practice of reading words that include phonics patterns students have been taught (see definition for Decodable text).

Automaticity - a characteristic of reading fluency that reflects effortless word recognition as a result of automatic decoding.

Background knowledge - pre-existing knowledge that a reader brings to the text and is necessary to make inferences and draw conclusions; background knowledge is derived from life experiences, conversation, and reading.

Base word - a free morpheme to which affixes can be attached.

Beginning Blends - two or three consecutive consonants that come before a vowel grapheme and retain their individual speech sounds. For example, the word step begins with the blend 'st.' Both the /s/ sound and the /t/ sound are pronounced.

Bilingual - a term to describe an individual who speaks two languages.

Blend - two or three consecutive consonants that come before or after a vowel grapheme and retain their individual speech sounds. For example, the word blend has two blends: the ‘bl’ and ‘nd’ can be separated into individual sounds /b/ /l/ and /n/ /d/.

Blend syllables - the ability to combine a sequence of isolated word parts, each containing a single vowel sound, to produce a recognizable word.

Blending – accurate and seamless pronunciation of individual speech phonemes, resulting in a word being read fluently.

Bound morpheme - a word part that carries meaning but must have another morpheme (such as a prefix, suffix, or a root) attached to it to be a whole word.

Breve - a symbol that goes on top of a vowel to show that the sound is short. It looks like this: /ă/

Closed syllable - a word or word part that has one vowel letter and ends in a consonant. The vowel makes its short sound (cat, shed, last).

Cognates - words in two languages that share a similar meaning, spelling, and pronunciation, such as the English-Spanish cognate inspiration / inspiración.

Cognitive load - the amount of working memory load being utilized when children are embarking on a new task.

Coherence - a quality of text that is logical and well-sequenced so that it makes sense to the reader.

Cohesive ties - are words and linguistic devices that help link ideas within a text. For example, pronouns are used to reference nouns, and phrases can be repeated or reworded to reinforce an idea.

Complex sentence - an independent clause modified by one or more dependent clauses.

Compound sentence - two independent clauses linked by a coordinating conjunction.

Comprehension monitoring - a process a reader uses before, during, and after reading to ensure that they are understanding what is stated in the text.

Consonant - a basic speech sound in which the breath is at least partly obstructed and which can be combined with a vowel to form a syllable.

Consonant + -le syllable - a final unaccented word part that contains a consonant followed by ‘l’ and a silent ‘e’ (table, bundle, syllable).

Context - the language that surrounds a given word or phrase that provides clues to its meaning.

Continuant Sounds - spoken sounds that can be elongated, extended, or stretched out, allowing for a continuous flow of air from the mouth. All vowel sounds are continuous. ‘S’, ‘m’, and ‘n’ are examples of continuous consonant sounds.

Continuous phonemes - spoken sounds that can be elongated, extended, or stretched out, making a continuous flow of air from the mouth. All vowel sounds are continuous. ‘S’, ‘m’, and ‘n’ are examples of continuous consonant sounds.

Coordinating conjunction - a word that links two words, phrases, or clauses that have similar meanings: for example, and, but, or.

Corrective feedback (also called Positive Corrective Feedback) - feedback which first affirms the behavior that the student performed accurately and then provides instructions to help students examine what was performed incorrectly so they can try and correct the error. If the student fails to perform accurately on the second try, the teacher should model the skill again.

Cumulative - the feature of structured literacy which provides skill instruction that builds on concepts previously mastered.

Cumulative instruction - instruction that builds upon previously learned concepts. Cumulative instruction is a feature of structured literacy.

Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) – a method of monitoring student progress through direct and continuous assessment of academic skills. CBMs are standardized, timed assessments that assess student performance against criterion-referenced benchmarks and national norms. CBMs are most often used to measure basic skills in reading and mathematics.

Decodable text – text that is written only with words that contain patterns that a student has been explicitly taught to decode and with irregularly spelled high-frequency words that have been specifically taught. Decodable text is distinct from other kinds of text, specifically “authentic text” or “leveled text.”

Decoding - the process of applying letter-sound relationships to translate a printed word into speech sounds.

Derivational suffix - a meaningful word part that is attached to the end of a base word or root and can change the part of speech of the root or base word to which it has been attached; a type of bound morpheme.

Diagnostic assessment - a standardized assessment that pinpoints the skills a student has and has not mastered

Dialect - a regional variety of language that can affect word structure and pronunciation as well as vocabulary and syntax. Dialects represent versions of a single oral language that are both intelligible but differ in systematic ways from each other. These differences occur in pronunciation, syntax, and/or spellings of words.

DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Early Literacy Skills) – one of several nationally normed curriculum-based assessments used in kindergarten through sixth grade for benchmark and progress monitoring. DIBELS is available to download for free from https://dibels.uoregon.edu (opens in new window).

Differentiated instruction - instruction that is based on data and delivered in a format that meets the needs of the individual student.

Digraph - two inseparable graphemes that spell one sound (phoneme). For example, the word digraph ends with the consonant digraph “ph” which is pronounced as a single phoneme /f/. Two-letter vowel sounds, such as 'oi', are also digraphs.

Digraph blend - three or more consecutive consonants coming together in a word where two of the consonants make a diagraph that is inseparable and spell one phoneme and which is preceded or followed by another consonant that is blended with the digraph. For example, in the word throat ‘th’ is a digraph and the ‘r’ which follows it is blended: /th//r/

Diphthong - a sound formed by the combination of two vowel (opens in new window) sounds in a single syllable (opens in new window), in which the sound begins as one vowel (opens in new window) and moves toward another (as in coin, loud, and side ).

Direct instruction - a type of instruction where the teacher defines and explains a concept explicitly, guides students in applying the concept, and provides practice until the student reaches mastery.

Discourse - speaking and writing; discussion about a specific subject.

Discourse structure - a term to describe how written or spoken language is organized.

Double deficit - an impairment of both phonological processing and speed of naming sequential arrays of letters, numbers, objects, and/or colors.

Doubling consonant rule - a spelling pattern in which a one-syllable word with a short vowel ends with /f/, /l/, /s/, or /z/, so the consonant letters are doubled and spelled ‘-ff’, ‘-ll’, ‘-ss’, or ‘-zz’. Examples include off, fall, buzz.

Dual language - a method for learning to speak and read two languages at the same time.

Dyslexia - a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. Dyslexia affects as many as 1 in 5 students, and is equally evident in girls as in boys.

Elkonin boxes - a teaching device used during phonemic awareness instruction to support the sequence and number of sounds the student hears in a word. When working with words, the teacher can draw one box for each sound in a target word. Children push a token into one box as they say each sound in the word. Elkonin boxes can also be used in phonics instruction to support phoneme-grapheme mapping. Named for a Russian psychologist, these are sometimes called sound boxes.

Emergent literacy – a term used to describe the stage of development during which children acquire the foundational knowledge about language and print which is required to learn to read and write. For most children, the emergent literacy stage begins at birth and continues through the preschool years.

Ending Blends - two consecutive consonants that come after a vowel grapheme and retain their individual speech sounds. For example, the word milk begins with the blend 'lk.' Both the /l/ sound and the /k/ sound are pronounced.

Etymology - the study of word origin.

Explicit - a feature of the structured literacy approach to instruction that includes a step-by-step process of teacher narration and actions that are clear, specific, direct, engaging, and related to the learning objective.

Explicit instruction - the step-by-step process for teaching a skill or concept. It includes narration and modeling by the teacher. Actions of the teacher are clear, specific, engaging, direct, and related to the learning objective. Students are not asked to guess.

Expository - a type of non-fiction that informs, explains, compares, describes, or argues.

Figurative language - written or spoken language that is used in a way that is not meant literally. For example, “The beach chair was hot as a firecracker after being in the sun all day.” This figurative language suggests that the chair was very hot but not literally as hot as a firecracker.

Finger stretching or tapping - strategies for segmenting phonemes; each finger represents a single phoneme, and students raise (aka stretch) a finger or tap a finger to the thumb for each sound they hear in a word.

Flash word - a kind of high-frequency word that can be decoded (for example, be, that, this).

Flexing a vowel – a method for adjusting the pronunciation of the vowel that occurs in an unaccented syllable when the vowel does not sound as a true short or long vowel. For example, in the word wagon, the second syllable ‘-on’ is unaccented, and the ‘o’ is not pronounced as a pure short ‘o’ or long ‘o’. Instead, it is a schwa which sounds something like a short ‘u’.

Fluency is the ability to read text with accuracy, automaticity, and appropriate expression at a conversational rate.

Formal assessment – standardized measures that have data supporting the conclusions made from the test. Results are typically reported as percentiles, stanines, or standard scores.

Formative assessment - any check for understanding administered by the teacher to measure progress and inform instruction. See Mastery Assessment.

Free morpheme - a word part that carries meaning, can stand alone as a word, and to which affixes can be attached.

Frustrational reading level - represented by reading accuracy that is insufficient to support comprehension, generally below 90%.

General American English (GAE) - the variety of English used in media, finance, and education; used to be called Standard English.

Genre - the classification of literature based on its structure, content, and style: for example, poetry, drama, fiction, and non-fiction.

Gradual release - a process of instruction which begins with clear modeling by the teacher while students observe. It is followed by shared participation in which students attempt the skill while being supported by the teacher. It ends with students demonstrating the task or skill independently with minimal teacher support.

Grapheme - a letter or group of letters used to represent phonemes (speech sounds). Graphemes do not always have a one-to-one correspondence with letters in words. For example, the word fun has three letters and three graphemes: ‘f,’ ‘u,’ ‘n.’. The word light has five letters but only three graphemes: ‘l’, ‘igh’, ‘t’.

Guided reading in a structured literacy approach - a type of small group reading instruction that applies explicit and systematic teaching processes (see structured literacy). Assessment is used to identify the areas of need, and lessons are carefully designed to teach those identified areas of weakness. Additional extended practice opportunities are provided.

Heart word - a term coined by Linda Farrell and Michael Hunter to refer to irregularly spelled words that include parts that are not decodable according to familiar patterns and must be learned “by heart.” Heart words appear so frequently in text that they need to be read and spelled automatically. Examples of heart words are said, are, and where.

High Frequency Words (HFW) - the most common words in running text that, when read instantly, assist with fluent reading (for example, a, the, of). There are two types of high frequency words: "flash words," which are decodable, and "heart words," which are partly or not at all decodable.

Immersion program - a method for teaching students to read and write in a second language in a setting where their native (first language) is not spoken.

Implicit word learning - learning that occurs through incidental exposure to a concept or skill rather than through direct, explicit instruction.

Independent centers - a classroom format for enabling students to practice a skill independently that they have been previously taught explicitly. Centers should be introduced with clear instructions and modeling of expectations by the teacher. Recording sheets or some form of monitoring are important to ensure progress.

Independent reading level - represented by reading accuracy that is sufficient to support comprehension, generally above 95%.

Inflectional suffix - a meaningful word part in English that is attached to the end of a base word or root; it does not change the part of speech but marks its tense, number, or degree.

Informal assessment – assessment used to evaluate an individual student's skills, performance, and progress. Informal assessment does not compare a student against a statistical norm. There are many types of informal assessments, including teacher observation, running records, end-of-unit tests, pop quizzes, etc.

Informational text - also called expository text, a type of nonfiction writing designed to convey factual information about a specific topic.

Integration - the process of incorporating more than one skill at a time during a lesson: for example, highlighting vocabulary while reading decodable text.

inventive spelling - when students use a letter or group of letters to represent speech sounds they hear in a word; choices do not always conform to conventional English spelling. Also known as invented or phonetic spelling.

Irregular high-frequency words – a set of high-frequency words that readers cannot “sound out” because they do not have dependable grapheme phoneme relationships. Examples include does, was, and were. However, some graphemes in most irregular words can be decoded (for example, /d/ in does). Only about 12% of high-frequency words are irregular, the remaining high-frequency words can be decoded.

Kernel sentence - a simple declarative sentence with one verb; For example, The dog ran.

Language Variety - a variety of a major language used by speakers united by culture, race, or geographic region, for example, African American English or Southern English; formerly called dialects.

Learning differences - the unique and individual ways in which some people process new information. In the United States, one in five students has a learning difference, meaning they experience challenges with organization, memory, or attention. Learning differences are especially related to academic subjects such as reading, writing, and math.

Letter - an individual symbol of an alphabet that represents a speech sound (phoneme).

Letter name fluency - the ability to identify the names and shapes of the upper and lower case letters of the alphabet accurately and with automaticity.

Letter sound correspondence - the matching of a speech sound to its corresponding letter or group of letters.

Letter sound fluency - the ability to identify with accuracy and automaticity the sounds that the upper and lower case letters of the alphabet spell.

Leveled text – text that has been assigned a reading level based on various factors: vocabulary, number of different words, support from context, support from pictures, page layout. Leveled texts contain high-frequency words and other words that may not be decodable. Leveled text is designed for students who have mastered word recognition skills because reading these texts does not provide practice for decoding unfamiliar words accurately. Instead, students predict words from context and use picture clues to guess new words.

Linguistic - having to do with language.

Linguistic variations - the placement of sounds in words that differs between languages. For example, some sounds that occur at the beginning of words in English may only occur at the ends of words in other languages.

Long vowel - a vowel letter whose sound spells its name. Vowel letters include ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’, and ‘u’.

Macron - a symbol that goes on top of a vowel to show that the sound is long. It looks like this: /ā/

magic 'e' syllable - a word part whose spelling pattern contains a long vowel sound, spelled with a vowel-consonant-e pattern (for example, make, mistake, demonstrate). Also known as silent 'e' or vowel-consonant-e (VCe).

Magic ‘e’ (also called silent ‘e’, sneaky ‘e’, bossy ‘e’, or final 'e') - a spelling pattern where there is a vowel, consonant, and final ‘e’; the ‘e’ is silent and the medial vowel spells a long sound (for example, mice, note, race).

Manipulatives - instructional support tools used to scaffold the learning process by providing visual and/or tangible representations of a literacy or math concept. For example, plastic chips can be used as tokens or placeholders to represent speech sounds when learning to count phonemes in a word, letter tiles can be used when mapping graphemes to phonemes, or plastic linking blocks work as manipulatives to illustrate numeracy concepts such as addition and subtraction.

Mastery assessment - a quick appraisal of a student’s knowledge following instruction to determine if they can accurately and consistently perform a skill. Administering mastery tests several weeks after instruction serves as a check that the knowledge has been sustained.

Mental model - a visualization that represents a concept or scenario that occurs in the mind when prompted by an idea or experience, sometimes referred to as situation model. The mental model is the highest level of comprehension. (See also surface code and text base.)

Metacognition - the awareness and process of thinking about one’s own thinking and learning.

Miscue analysis – an analytical procedure for assessing a student's word reading and reading comprehension based on samples of oral reading. Miscue analysis has no basis in research and is predicated on the belief that students' mistakes when reading are not random errors but are actually their attempt to make sense of the text with their experiences and language skills. Miscues are used in running records according to one of three categories: semantic, syntactic, or graphophonemic. Miscues that do not affect meaning are typically not counted as errors, even if the word is decoded incorrectly.

Morpheme - the smallest unit of meaning in a language; it may be a word or word part and may be a single syllable or more than one syllable. For example, the word umbrella has three syllables but only one morpheme. If we add an ‘s’ to the end of umbrella (umbrella + ‘s’ = umbrellas), the word now has two morphemes.

Morphology - the study of the smallest units of meaning in words.

Morphophonemic - a characteristic to describe a word or word part having to do with its meaning (morpho) and its sound (phonemic).

Multi-syllabic - having more than one syllable.

Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) - a term related to Response to Intervention. Sometimes the terms are used interchangeably, but the approaches differ in several ways. Among several distinctions between the two approaches is that MTSS emphasizes a system-wide responsibility for student support at all grade levels and throughout the district or state. Meanwhile, RtI can be implemented at any level (classroom, grade, or school, district).

Multiple-meaning words - words that have more than one meaning, often the most common words in a language. For example, the word pitch can be a verb meaning to throw something or a noun that means the quality of a sound, the angle of a slope, or a solid form of tar.

Multisyllable words - words that have more than one word part with each part containing a vowel sound with or without surrounding consonants. For example, fan-tas-tic is a multisyllable word.

Narrative - a type of spoken or written language that conveys a sequence of events, usually with a fiction or non-fiction story; it is often contrasted with an expository text, which reports factual information and the relationships among ideas.

Nonsense word fluency - the ability to decode spelling patterns in invented words with accuracy and automaticity.

Nonsense words - invented words that are spelled with decodable patterns but have no meaning in the language. Reading nonsense words provides a way to assess pure decoding skills since context is eliminated as a factor for determining what the word might be.

Onset-rime - an entry skill to phonemic awareness that builds an understanding of rhyming. Onset is the initial consonant, consonant blend, or consonant digraph, in a syllable or word. Not all words have onsets (at, in, oar). The rime is the first vowel sound and any other letters that follow it in a syllable. For example, in the word jog, the onset is /j/ and the rime is /ŏg/.

Open syllable - a word or word part that ends with a single vowel letter. The vowel makes its long sound (go, table, celebration).

Oral language - the production and understanding of spoken words using syntax, vocabulary, and semantics for the purpose of communicating with others.

Oral reading fluency - the rate of reading text at a pace suitable for supporting meaning. Oral reading fluency is nationally normed so that an individual’s rate can be compared to other students in the same grade and at the same time of year across the country.

orthographic mapping - a mental process used to store and remember words. See this article.

Orthography - a writing system for representing language.

Phoneme - the smallest unit of spoken language that combines to form words.

Phoneme addition - the act of adding a single speech sound to a word to produce a new word. For example, a student adds /s/ to the beginning of the work park to form the word spark.

Phoneme blending - the act of combining a sequence of individual sounds to produce a recognizable word. For example, a student combines this sequence of phonemes: /k/ /ǎ/ /t/ to form the word cat.

Phoneme deletion - the act of removing a phoneme from a word to produce a new word. For example, a student removes /s/ from the word smile to produce the word mile.

Phoneme identification - the ability to distinguish the individual phonemes in the initial, final, or medial (middle) position of spoken words. For example, a student is able to identify the short ‘a’ (/ă/) sound in the medial position in the spoken word cat.

Phoneme manipulation - adding, deleting, or substituting phonemes in spoken words to create a new word. For example, a student is able to add the phoneme /r/ after the initial phoneme /t/ in the word tie to make the word try and then move the initial phoneme /t/ to the end of the word to form the word write.

Phoneme segmentation - breaking a word into its separate speech sounds. For example, the word brake is segmented as /b/ /r/ /ā/ /k/.

Phoneme substitution - the act of replacing one phoneme in a word with another phoneme to make a new word. For example, a student is able to replace the initial phoneme /p/ in the word peg with the phoneme /l/ to create the word leg.

Phonemic awareness - the ability to identify, distinguish, and manipulate the individual sounds (phonemes) in a spoken word without reference to their corresponding letters (graphemes).

phonetic spelling - when students use a letter or group of letters to represent each speech sound that they hear in a word; choices do not always conform to conventional English spelling.

Phonics - a method for teaching reading by applying the systematic, predictable relationship between written letters and spoken sounds (the alphabetic principle).

Phonics instruction – a way of teaching reading that stresses the acquisition of letter sound correspondences and their use in reading and spelling. The primary focus of early phonics instruction is to help beginning readers understand how letters are linked to sounds (phonemes) in order to read and spell words. Children apply phonics patterns to decode new words, which helps them become confident, independent readers.

Phonological awareness - the conscious awareness of all levels of speech sounds in words, including syllables, onset-rime, and phonemes. Phonemic awareness is a subcategory of phonological awareness.

Positive error correction - the constructive response a teacher provides to a student immediately following an error or mistake in performing a reading, writing, or other academic task. The teacher first affirms the part of the task that the student performed correctly, then redirects the student to attempt the task again after prompting the student to attend to the part that was performed incorrectly.

Pragmatics - the system of rules and conventions for using spoken language and related gestures in a social context.

predicate - the action of the subject; names what the subject is doing.

Predictable text – a text that contains words or phrases that are repeated over and over again, often with words that aren’t repeated but are closely aligned to and supported by the pictures. Predictable text makes it easier for children to guess at words, which may initially seem to help with reading fluency. However, when children guess they are not developing their ability to read words confidently by decoding them. By grade 4, most text will not be predictable, and guessing from context will not be an effective approach to word recognition.

Prefix - a word part that carries meaning and is attached to a root or base word to change or add to the root or base word’s meaning.

Pronunciation - the accurate production of a word or word part and how that word or word part sounds when spoken.

Propositions - ideas generated and connected by the reader in the process of comprehending written language.

Prosody - a characteristic to describe fluent reading that has to do with rhythm, expression, and intonation.

R-controlled syllable - a word part that contains ‘ar’, ‘er’, ‘ir’, ‘or’, or ‘ur’ where the vowel sound is influenced by the sound of the ‘r’ (park, sister, exporting).

RAND heuristic of reading comprehension - a graphic model for reading comprehension designed by the Research and Development Group (RAND, 2002) to illustrate a definition of reading comprehension. The graphic shows the reader, the reading activity, and the text situated within a socio-cultural context.

Rapid automatized naming - a simple assessment task a child is asked to perform with predictive power of future reading ability. The task involves naming, as rapidly as possible under timed conditions, an array of familiar items (such as objects, colors, letters, or numbers).

Readability level – a level of text difficulty based on an objective measurement of factors such as the average number of words per sentence and the average number of syllables per word.

Recording sheet - an instructional support document used by students to record responses to an activity during independent practice of a skill. The purpose of a recording sheet is to enable the teacher to monitor students’ independent work to ensure mastery and adjust instruction as needed.

Response to Intervention (RtI) - an approach to the early identification and support of students with learning and behavior needs. RtI mandates the use of research-based academic and/or behavioral interventions. RtI includes universal screening of all children and generally includes three tiers of instruction. Tier 1 is high-quality, code-based classroom instruction. Tier 2 is targeted supplemental instruction for students not making adequate progress in the regular classroom. Tier 3 is intensive, targeted intervention for students not making adequate progress in Tier 2. Students who do not achieve the desired level of progress in response in Tier 2 or Tier 3 intervention are referred for a comprehensive evaluation and considered for eligibility for special education services. Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS) is a term related to RtI. Sometimes the terms are used interchangeably, but the approaches differ in several ways. Among several distinctions between the two approaches is that MTSS emphasizes a system-wide responsibility for student support at all grade levels and throughout the district or state. Meanwhile, RtI can be implemented at any level (classroom, grade, school, district).

Rhyme production - the ability to produce new words with the same rime but different onsets. See onset-rime.

Rhyme recognition - the ability to determine if the rime is the same or different in a series of words. See onset-rime. For example, the rime in /c/ /ăp/ and /t/ /ăp/ are the same, but the rime in /t/ /ǐp/ is not the same.

Rhyming - the ability to identify and produce words which sound the same at the rime level. See onset-rime and rhyme recognition.

Root - a meaningful word part that does not stand alone as a word but can be used to form a family of related words, also known as a bound morpheme because it must have another morpheme (prefix or suffix) attached to it for complete meaning.

Schema - a mental model or framework for thinking about an idea or topic.

School Language - the language system used in schools, which is based on General American English (GAE) and can include academic language.

Schwa - a lazy vowel that occurs in an unaccented (unstressed) syllable in multisyllable words. Schwa sounds more like a short ‘u’ or short ‘i’ as opposed to a pure short or long vowel sound: for example, wag-ən and el-ə-phant.

Schwa syllable - a word part that is an unaccented syllable and where the vowel spells a schwa sound instead of a short or long sound. These spellings may not always be the same. For example: happen, nation, abandon.

Scope and sequence - a comprehensive and sequential outline of content and competencies to be addressed in a particular academic subject and within a certain period of time. In the context of phonological awareness, larger units of sound are introduced before smaller units of sound; short vowels are introduced before long vowels.

Screener - a quick timed or untimed assessment given to all students to determine mastery of foundational skills

Segment words into syllables - the act of breaking a word into its parts at the syllable level. See syllables.

Semantics - the study of word meanings and relationships.

fragment - incomplete sentence; cannot stand alone because it lacks a subject or a predicate

Sequential - a feature of structured literacy where skills are presented in a logical order from simple to more difficult. In the case of letters, the letters are presented in the order of frequency with those used most often to spell words coming first. For example, by first learning the letters ‘a’, ‘m’, ‘s’, and ‘d’, which are used frequently in text, a new reader is able to begin to read and build words at the beginning of instruction.

Sequential language - the existence of a foundation in a first language (such as Spanish) when learning to read and speak a second language (such as English).

Short vowel - the sounds the letters ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’, and ‘u’ spell when they occur in a closed syllable (between two consonants, such as bat, or followed by a consonant, such as at).

Sight word (Also known as heart words) – any word that is instantly recognized in print and read with meaning. Once a student can read a word instantly, then it is a sight word for that student. The term sight word can also refer to words that are irregularly spelled (said) and can only be partially decoded. (Farrell & Hunter)

Situation model - the reader’s mental model that places content within a larger set of ideas, time frames, and circumstances.

skill explainer - a step-by-step guide on how to teach a particular skill, including an overview, lesson plans, videos, printable student activities, assessments, and other resources

Small group - a dynamic configuration for instruction consisting of three to six students with similar skill levels for the purpose of addressing learning needs efficiently and ensuring mastery of skills.

Stable syllable - a word part that occurs at the end of the word and often contains the spelling pattern consonant -le.

Stop phonemes (sounds) - sounds that are made by blocking airflow from the mouth and then releasing it, creating a short puff of air. All stop sounds are consonants. Some examples are ‘t’, ‘g’, and ‘p’.

Strategy - a plan of action executed to achieve a specific result. For example, the strategy of predicting creates an expectation by a reader that can then be confirmed or amended during reading to support comprehension.

Structural analysis - the study and application of affixes, base words, and roots.

Structured literacy - an evidence-based method for teaching reading that emphasizes explicit, systematic, sequential, and cumulative teaching of all important components of literacy. These components include both foundational skills (decoding, spelling, sight words) and higher-level literacy skills (vocabulary, reading comprehension, and written expression). It includes rich student-teacher interaction, cumulative practice and review, and positive corrective feedback. See this article.

subject - who or what the sentence is about (person, place, thing or animal); the naming part of a basic sentence.

Surface code - the actual words and syntax used by the author to express an idea explicitly; surface code represents the literal level of meaning.

Syllable - a word part organized around a single vowel sound that may or may not have surrounding consonants before or after the vowel. For example, fan- is the first syllable in the spoken word fantastic.

Syllable awareness - The ability to identify and isolate individual word parts at the syllable level.

Syllable types - There are six syllable types:

Closed: cat, cobweb

Open: he, silo

Vowel-consonant-e (VCE): like, milestone

Consonant-l-e: candle, juggle (second syllable)

R-controlled: star, corner

Vowel pairs: count, rainbow

Synonym - a word that means the same thing as another word but has a different spelling and pronunciation. For example, bottle and container are synonyms.

syntactic awareness - the ability to use knowledge of grammar to grasp the meaning that comes from the relationships between words in sentences. When students use their syntactic awareness to write sentences, they apply their knowledge of oral language to written language.

Syntax - the arrangement of words, phrases, and clauses that make up a sentence.

Synthetic phonics (also known as bottom-up approach) – an approach to teaching decoding that begins at the phoneme level. Instruction starts with teaching the phonemes (individual sounds) and graphemes (spellings of individual sounds) in isolation. Students are taught to write and read words by blending letter sounds (synthesizing) together. One-to-one spellings are mastered first for example, cat spells /k/ /ă/ /t/) and more complex spellings are mastered later (for example, bleach spells /b/ /l/ /ē/ /ch/).

Systematic Instruction – a feature of structured literacy that builds from the simple to complex following a sequence that is cumulative with lots of extended practice to build automaticity. Typically instructional routines aid in helping students focus on the targeted skill being taught.

Text base - the level of meaning in a text that represents the author’s intended message. Text base comprehension requires the reader to infer the author’s meaning which is not explicitly stated. It is the level of comprehension between surface code and mental model.

Three-cueing system – a model that includes three strategies, or cues, readers use to “solve” unfamiliar words in text: semantic, syntactic, and grapho-phonemic. Some cueing systems include a fourth cue, pragmatics (use of language in social context). The grapho-phonemic cue is usually applied last if the others fail to confirm the word. Good readers, however, prioritize grapho-phonemic information to read words accurately.

Tiers of vocabulary - a system for classifying words for instruction. Tier 1 are everyday words, such as water, run, happy. Tier 2 words are frequently occurring academic words which must be taught. For example, analyze, reverberate, sympathetic. Tier 3 words also must be taught but are generally associated with specific content areas: for example, cumulus, congressional, multiplicative.

Touch & Say - a two finger touch strategy where fingers point to spellings within a word, allowing students to isolate the sounds before blending them into a word.

Transitional language - a person’s first language (such as Spanish) which is mastered before learning to read and speak in a second language, such as English.

Trigraph - three inseparable consonant graphemes that spell one sound (phoneme). For example, the ‘tch’ in the word switch is a trigraph.

Unaccented syllables - a word part that is not stressed and often contains a vowel that spells the schwa sound. For example, in el-ə-phant, the middle syllable is unstressed.

Universal screener - quick, low-cost, repeatable tests of age-appropriate skills for every student. Schools typically administer universal screeners to all students three times a year. These assessments provide two important pieces of information. First, they provide evidence about how well the core curriculum and instruction are working in the school. Second, universal screening identifies those students who may not be making expected progress and who may need additional diagnostic assessment and/or intervention. Universal screening is part of the Response to Intervention process. Curriculum-based measurements are popular universal screeners.

Unvoiced sounds - speech sounds that are uttered without the vibration of the vocal cords. For example, /s/ is an unvoiced sound.

Vocabulary - the collection of words whose meanings a person understands and can use to comprehend and express ideas.

Voiced sounds - speech sounds that are uttered with the vibration of the vocal cords, which occurs when air passes through the soft tissue in the throat. For example, /z/ is a voiced sound.

Vowel Diphthongs - a sound formed by the combination of two vowel sounds in a single syllable, in which the sound begins as one vowel and moves toward another (as in coin, loud, and side).

Vowel team - a letter pattern that may spell either a long or short vowel sound but is spelled with two to four vowel letters. Diphthongs such as oi/oy and ow/ou are included in this syllable type, such as in cloud, window, employment.

Vowel-consonant-e (VCe) syllable - a word part whose spelling pattern contains a long vowel sound, spelled with a vowel-consonant-e pattern (for example, make, mistake, demonstrate). Also known as silent or magic 'e'.

Whole group - a configuration for instruction consisting of the whole class of students for the purpose of introducing grade-level material.

Word consciousness - a heightened sense of and interest in word choice, word characteristics, origin, and structure.

Word recognition - the ability to see a word and know how to pronounce it without consciously thinking about it. This domain of reading involves phonological awareness and accurate decoding of words at the phoneme level. Word recognition and language comprehension are the two domains of reading represented in the Simple View of Reading.

Words correct per minute (WCPM) - the metric used to calculate the rate of reading speed under timed conditions; a way to describe a fluency rate. WCPM is calculated by taking the number of words read within 60 seconds and subtracting the errors.