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All About Teaching Reading & Writing
Taxonomy
The Simple View of Reading

Word Recognition x Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension

Assessment

The process of measuring students' progress and providing information to help guide instruction

(active)
Word Recognition

The ability to see a word and know how to pronounce it without consciously thinking about it

(active)
Phonological Awareness

A group of skills that enable you to recognize and manipulate parts of spoken words

Articulation

Syllables

(active)Onset-Rime

Phonemic Awareness

Phonics

A method for teaching children the relationship between spoken sounds and written letters so they can learn to decode and encode

Sound-Letter Correspondence

Phonics Patterns

Common letter combinations found in words.

Short Vowels Skill Explainer
Closed Syllables Skill Explainer
Glued Sounds Skill Explainer
Open Syllables Skill Explainer
Spelling with 'c' vs. 'k' Skill Explainer
Consonant Digraphs Skill Explainer
Blends Skill Explainer
‘-ck’ Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
FLoSS(Z) Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
‘y’ as a Vowel Skill Explainer

Coming soon.

    Magic 'e' Skill Explainer
    Soft 'c' and Soft 'g' Skill Explainer

    Coming soon.

      R-Controlled Vowels Skill Explainer

      Coming soon.

        Vowel Teams and Dipthongs Skill Explainer

        Coming soon.

          '-tch' Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
          '-dge' Spelling Rule Skill Explainer
          Consonant '-le' Skill Explainer

          Coming soon.

            Schwa Skill Explainer

            Coming soon.

              Irregularly Spelled High-Frequency Words

              High-frequency words that have a part of their spelling that has to be memorized

              Irregularly Spelled High-Frequency Words

              Multisyllable Words

              Words that have more than one word part

              Prefixes

              How to add meaningful beginnings to words

              Suffixes

              How to add meaningful endings to words

              Language Comprehension

              The ability to understand the meaning of spoken words

              Reading Comprehension

              The ability to understand the meaning of printed text

              Text Considerations

              Characteristics of a text that impact the ease or difficulty of comprehension.

              Strategies and Activities

              How a reader approaches a specific text, depending on their purpose for reading

              Reader’s Skill and Knowledge

              The skills and knowledge a reader brings to the reading task that are necessary for comprehension

              Sociocultural Context

              Elements in a classroom that affect how well a child learns to read

              Fluency

              The ability to read accurately with automaticity and expression

              Fluency: Accuracy, then Automaticity

              Reading or decoding words correctly (accuracy) and reading at an appropriate rate (automaticity)

              Accuracy, then Automaticity Skill Explainer

              Coming soon.

                Fluency: Expressive Text Reading

                Reading characterized by accuracy with automaticity and expression

                Expressive Text Reading Skill Explainer

                Coming soon.

                  Writing

                  The act of putting thoughts into print using transcription and composition skills

                  Features of Structured Literacy

                  A systematic and explicit approach to teaching reading based on research

                  • Onset-Rime Skill Explainer

                  Segmenting Onset and Rime with Stephanie Fincher

                  At La Verne Heights Elementary School in the Bonita Unified School District in California, teacher Stephanie Fincher helps her students practice segmenting words into onset and rime using manipulatives to represent the sounds.

                  Video thumbnail for Segmenting Onset and Rime with Stephanie Fincher
                  Produced by Reading Universe, a partnership of WETA, Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book
                  Hide Video Transcript Show Video Transcript

                  Stephanie Fincher: Nice job. Okay, now we're going to work on segmenting our onset and rime. So our onset is still our small square, and our rime is our small rectangle. So we're going to go ahead and put them together for the whole word. I'm going to say the word, and then I'm going to segment them into their two parts. So my word is shell. Watch as I do this, just watch the first time. Shell. My onset is /sh/, my rime is /l/. So I separate them apart. I'm segmenting them. Let's try them together. So go ahead and keep yours together. And now listen to my words. Repeat the word after me. My word is bell. Say bell. Say bell.

                  Students: Bell.

                  Stephanie Fincher: Onset ...

                  Students: /b/

                  Ms. Fincher: Rime ...

                  Students: /l/

                  Stephanie Fincher: Good job. You pull them apart. Go ahead and put them back together. [The students are using cards for the sounds so on the desk, they are sliding the cards apart, then pushing them back together.] My word is well. Say, well.

                  Students: Well.

                  Stephanie Fincher: [She points to her two cards and pulls them apart ...]

                  Students: /w/, /l/

                  Stephanie Fincher: Good job. back together. [She pushes the cards back together.] My word is tell.

                  Students: Tell. /t/, /l/

                  Stephanie Fincher: Good. Let's try another one. Put it back together. Okay. My word is vest.

                  Students: Vest. /v/, /est/

                  Stephanie Fincher: Good, Vivian. Okay. Maddox, I want you to show me with your manipulative [teacher points to Maddox's cards.]. Are you ready? My word is vest. Say vest.

                  Maddox: Vest.

                  Stephanie Fincher: Look at yours [she points to his cards] and show me how to segment it.

                  Maddox: /v/, /est/ [he slides his cards apart to show the two different sounds as he says them.]

                  Stephanie Fincher: Nice job. Okay. My word is west.

                  Students: West. /w/, /est/

                  Stephanie Fincher: Nice job. My word is test.

                  Students: Test. /t/, /est/

                  Stephanie Fincher: Beautiful. Nice job. Okay, my next word is nest.

                  Students: Nest. /n/, /est/

                  Stephanie Fincher: Nice job! I heard you. Okay. My word is pest.

                  Students: Pest. /p/, /est/

                  Stephanie Fincher: Let me hear that one again. Put it together. [She points to their cards.] My word is pest.

                  Students: Pest. /p/, /est/

                  Stephanie Fincher: Okay, so I heard, did you hear a little /p/? It's a unvoiced sound, so we don't want to feel it on our vocal chords. [The group puts their fingers to their throats where their vocal chords are.] Say /p/.

                  Students: /p/

                  Stephanie Fincher: Now, let's try the word again. Are you ready? The word is pest.

                  Students: Pest. /p/, /est/

                  Stephanie Fincher: Now, when you tell me the first sound, try popping your lips. Ready?

                  Students: /p/ ... /p/

                  Stephanie Fincher: And the rime?

                  Students: /est/

                  Stephanie Fincher: Good job. Okay, let's try the word chest.

                  Students: Chest. /ch/, /est/

                  Stephanie Fincher: Good job.

                  Narrator: For more information, please visit ReadingUniverse.org. Special thanks to Laverne Heights Elementary School, Bonita Unified School District, and the Los Angeles County Office of Education. Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim and Donna Barksdale, the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, and two anonymous donors. Reading Universe is a service of WETA, Washington, DC, the Barksdale Reading Institute, and First Book.

                  Stephanie Fincher: This is Reading Universe.

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                  Reading Universe is made possible by generous support from Jim & Donna Barksdale; the Hastings/Quillin Fund, an advised fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (opens in new window); the AFT (opens in new window); the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation (opens in new window); and three anonymous donors.