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Common Reading Terms You May Need to Know
Following are some basic explanations of the more common terms you may hear being used to
describe your child's efforts to learn to read.
Alpha to Omega
Structured linguistic, phonetically-based program to teach the spelling patterns and
grammar of English
Automatic Reading
Automaticity is a general term that refers to any skilled and complex behavior that can be
performed rather easily with little attention, effort, or conscious awareness.
These skills become automatic after extended periods of training. Examples of
automatic skills include driving a car through traffic while listening to the
radio, sight reading music for the piano, and reading orally with comprehension.
With practice and good instruction, students become automatic at word recognition,
that is, retrieving words from memory, and are able to focus attention on constructing
meaning from the text, rather than decoding.
Balanced literacy
An approach to reading instruction that strikes a compromise between Phonics approaches
and Whole Language approaches -- ideally, the most effective strategies are drawn from
the two approaches and synthesized together.
Blending
Combining parts of a spoken word into a whole representation of the word. For
example, /p/ /oo/ /l/ can be blended together to form the word POOL.
Decoding
Using knowledge of the conventions of spelling-sound relationships and knowledge about pronunciation of irregular
words to derive a pronunciation of written words.
Diphthong
A gliding monosyllabic speech sound that starts at or near the articulatory position for one vowel and moves to
or toward the position of another. For example, oy in TOY or ou in OUT.
Dyslexia
A difficulty in learning to read despite traditional instruction, average intelligence,
and an adequate opportunity to learn. It is impairment in the brain's ability to
translate images received from the eyes or ears into understandable language. It does
not result from vision or hearing problems. It is not due to mental retardation, brain
damage, or a lack of intelligence.
Dyslexic students
Dyslexia can go undetected in the early grades of schooling. The child can become frustrated
by the difficulty in learning to read, and other problems can arise that disguise dyslexia.
The child may show signs of depression and low self esteem. Behavior problems at home as well
as at school are frequently seen. The child may become unmotivated and develop a dislike for
school.
The child's success in school may be jeopardized if the problem remains untreated.
Educational Software
Any software application that is intended for educational purposes and meets some established
standards and objectives for teaching a particular subject.
English as a Second Language
The study of English by students whose mother tongue is a language other than English.
ESL
An acronym for English as a Second Language.
Fluent Reading
Fluency is the ability to read a text accurately, quickly, and with proper expression and
comprehension. Because fluent readers do not have to concentrate on decoding words, they
can focus their attention on what the text means.
Home schooling
The practice of teaching children in the home as an alternative to attending
public or private elementary or high school.
Homophone
A word which is spelled differently from another word, but which is pronounced identically.
For example, HOARSE versus HORSE; or TWO versus, TO, versus, TOO.
Letter identification
Ability to correctly identify letters within small groups of letters.
No Child Left Behind Act
The No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law in 2002, has expanded the federal role in
education and set requirements for every public school in America. At the core of NCLB
are measures designed to close achievement gaps between different groups of students.
Orton-Gillingham method
This approach is language-based, multisensory, structured, sequential, cumulative,
cognitive, and flexible. Its breadth, perspective, and flexibility prompt use of
the term approach instead of method.
Phoneme
The vocal gestures from which words are constructed in a language; the smallest unit of
speech that serves to distinguish one utterance
from another (e.g. PAT and FAT are distinguished by the initial phoneme).
Phonemic awareness
A subset of phonological awareness; the knowledge that spoken words consist of a sequence of
individual sounds, and the understanding that phonemes are rearranged and substituted to
create new words. There are a finite set of phonemes which are arranged and rearranged to
create an infinite set of spoken words.
Phonetics
The system of sounds of a particular language.
Phonics
An approach to reading instruction that emphasizes letter-sound relationships and generalized
principles that describe spelling-sound relationships in a language.
Phonological awareness
Covers a range of understandings related to the sounds of words and word parts, including
identifying and manipulating larger parts of spoken language such as words, syllables, and
onsets and rimes. It also includes phonemic awareness (see above) as well as other aspects
of spoken language such as rhyming and syllabication.
Phonological memory
The phonological memory, component of work memory is responsible for processing phonological
information and is involved in the temporary retention of the verbal material. Children with
phonological disorders present alterations in the language phonological component, characterized
by the difficulty in organizing and classifying the sounds of speech which occur contrastively
in the language, without a known etiology.
Reading Intervention
A program for addressing the needs of students who are reading below the proficient level.
Sight word
A word in a reading lesson containing parts that have not yet been taught, but that is highly
predictable from the context of the story or which the child has memorized.
Sound-Symbol Association
This is the knowledge of the various sounds in the English language and their correspondence
to the letters and combinations of letters which represent those sounds. Sound-symbol
association must be in two directions: visual to auditory and auditory to visual.
Speech Recognition Technology
An alternative to traditional methods of interacting with a computer, it allows you to
speak into a microphone that is attached to the PC and the computer is enabled to
interpret the speech. Highly useful for dyslexic people.
Vocabulary
The words a reader knows. Listening vocabulary refers to the words a person knows when
hearing them in oral speech. Speaking vocabulary refers to the words we use when we
speak. Reading vocabulary refers to the words a person knows when seeing them in print.
Writing vocabulary refers to the words we use in writing.
Whole Language
An approach to reading instruction that de-emphasizes
letter-sound relationships and emphasizes recognition of words as wholes.
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