Welcome to the Terms to Know page! Here, you'll find a list of common literacy-related terms that may come up as you support your child's reading development at home. These terms are organized into categories for easy reference, with clear and straightforward definitions to help you navigate the world of literacy. Whether you're working on phonics, comprehension, or fluency, this page will serve as a helpful guide to the language of reading, making it easier for you to support your child's learning every step of the way.

Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

• Phonological Awareness: The ability to hear and work with sounds in language, including rhymes, syllables, and initial sounds.
• Phonemic Awareness: The ability to hear and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words.
• Phoneme: The smallest unit of sound in language. For example, the /k/ sound in "cat."
• Phoneme-Grapheme Correspondence: Matching sounds (phonemes) to written letters or letter combinations (graphemes), such as the sound /b/ represented by the letter "b."
• Phoneme Segmentation: Breaking words into their individual sounds. For example, "cat" becomes /k/, /æ/, and /t/.
• Phoneme Blending: Putting individual sounds together to form a word. For example, blending /k/, /a/, and /t/ to make "cat."
• Onset-Rime: Splitting words into two parts. For example, in "cat," the "c" is the onset, and "at" is the rime.

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Phonetics and Consonant Sounds

• Stops: Consonant sounds where the airflow is completely blocked for a moment and then released. Examples include "p," "b," "t," "d," "k," and "g."
• Stop Sounds: Another term for stops, where airflow is briefly blocked and then released.
• Nasals: Consonant sounds made by blocking the mouth but allowing air to flow through the nose. Examples include "m," "n," and "ng."
• Fricatives: Consonant sounds made by forcing air through a narrow channel, creating friction. Examples include "f," "v," "s," "z," "sh," and "th."
• Affricates: Consonant sounds that begin as stops and then release into a fricative. Examples include "ch" (as in "church") and "j" (as in "judge").
• Glides: Consonant sounds produced by slightly constricting the vocal tract but not enough to create friction. They are produced smoothly. Examples include "w" and "y."
• Liquids: Consonant sounds produced with some constriction, but not enough to block the airflow completely, allowing for a smooth, flowing sound. Examples include "l" and "r."
• Articulation: Refers to the way consonant sounds are produced by obstructing or modifying the airflow in different parts of the vocal tract.
• Continuous Sounds: Consonant sounds where the airflow can be sustained, meaning the sound can be held for a longer period of time without interruption. Examples include fricatives like "f," "s," and "sh," as well as liquids like "l" and "r," and glides like "w" and "y."

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Syllable Concepts

• Syllable: A unit of sound that typically includes a vowel sound, and often a consonant or consonants, either before or after the vowel. For example, the word "bat" has one syllable, and "banana" has three syllables: ba-na-na.
• Closed Syllable: A syllable where a consonant follows the vowel, causing the vowel to have a short sound. Example: "cat" (the vowel "a" is followed by the consonant "t," making the short "a" sound).
• Open Syllable: A syllable that ends in a vowel, which typically makes the vowel sound long. Example: "go" (the vowel "o" is not followed by a consonant, so it has a long "o" sound).
• Vowel Combination (Vowel Digraphs): Two vowels together that make one sound, such as "ea" in "team" or "ai" in "rain."
• R-Controlled Syllable: A syllable where a vowel is followed by an "r" that changes the vowel sound, making it unique or hard to pronounce. Example: "car" (the "a" is controlled by the "r" sound).
• Vowel-Consonant E (Silent E): A syllable pattern where a vowel is followed by a consonant and then a silent "e" at the end, causing the vowel to have a long sound. Example: "cake" (the "a" is long because it’s followed by a consonant and a silent "e").
• Consonant-Le Syllable: A syllable that ends with a consonant followed by "le," where the "e" is silent, and the consonant sound is usually not pronounced in isolation. Example: "bottle" (the syllable "ttle" is a consonant-le syllable).

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Consonants and Vowels

• Single Consonant: A consonant that stands alone to make a sound, like "b," "c," or "t."
• Vowel: A letter that represents a speech sound made with an open vocal tract, such as "a," "e," "i," "o," or "u."
• Single Vowel: A single vowel letter in a word, like the "a" in "cat."
• Short Vowels: Vowel sounds that are pronounced quickly and short, like the "a" in "cat" or the "e" in "pen."
• Long Vowels: Vowel sounds that are pronounced the same as their letter name, like the "a" in "cake" or the "e" in "me."
• Long Vowels with Silent E: A pattern where a vowel is followed by a consonant and a silent "e," making the vowel sound long, like "cake" or "ride."
• Silent Consonants: Consonants in a word that are not pronounced, like the "k" in "knight" or the "b" in "thumb."

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Blends, Digraphs, and Vowel Combinations

• Blends: Two or more consonants together in a word, where each keeps its sound. For example, "bl" in "black."
• Digraphs: Two letters together making one sound, like "sh" in "ship" or "ch" in "chat."
• Trigraphs: Three letters together making one sound, like "igh" in "high."
• Vowel Digraphs: Two vowels together that make one sound, like "ea" in "read" or "ai" in "rain."
• Variant Vowel Digraphs: Vowel digraphs where the vowels can represent different sounds, like "ou" in "house" and "ou" in "through."
• Diphthongs: Two vowel sounds combined in one syllable, where the sound glides from one to the other, like "oi" in "boil" or "ou" in "out."
• Schwa: The most common vowel sound in English, heard in unstressed syllables, like the "a" in "sofa."

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Morphemes and Phonograms

• Phonogram: A symbol or a group of letters that represent a sound or sounds in a word, such as "sh," "ch," or "igh." For example, "sh" in "shoes" or "igh" in "night."
• Morpheme: The smallest unit of meaning in a language. A morpheme can be a word or part of a word, like a prefix, suffix, or root. Example: "book" is a morpheme, and "un-" in "undo" is also a morpheme.
• Free Morphemes: Morphemes that can stand alone as a word with meaning. Examples include "book," "cat," and "run."
• Bound Morphemes: Morphemes that cannot stand alone and must be attached to a free morpheme to convey meaning. Examples include prefixes like "un-" (as in "undo") and suffixes like "-ing" (as in "running").

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Decoding and Word Recognition

• Decoding: Breaking down words into smaller parts to read and understand them.
• Letter-Sound Correspondence: Matching letters to their sounds. For example, "c" makes the /k/ sound.
• Vowel-Consonant-e (VCe): A pattern where a vowel is followed by a consonant and an "e" at the end, making the vowel sound long, like "cake."
• Vowel Teams: Two or more vowels together in a word making one sound, like "ea" in "read."
• Grapheme: A letter or group of letters that represent a sound in written language.
• Sight Words: Words that children must recognize by sight because they don’t follow phonics rules (e.g., "the," "said").
• Word Recognition: The ability to quickly recognize a word without sounding it out.

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Fluency and Prosody

• Fluency: The ability to read smoothly and quickly, with expression.
• Fluency-Building Interventions: Techniques to improve a child's reading fluency.
• Prosody: Reading with the right rhythm, tone, and expression, making reading sound natural and improving comprehension.

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Reading Comprehension

• Context Clues: Using surrounding words to help figure out the meaning of an unfamiliar word.
• Reading Comprehension Strategies: Techniques to help children understand what they read, like summarizing or asking questions.
• Reading Retell: When a child reads a story and then retells it to show understanding.
• Inference: Drawing conclusions based on clues in the text that are not directly stated.
• Reciprocal Teaching: A method where students take turns discussing and teaching each other what they’ve read.
• Semantic Mapping: A visual tool to show how words are related to each other, such as showing synonyms or antonyms.
• Text Structure: The way a text is organized, such as with headings and paragraphs, which helps with understanding the material.
• Cloze Procedure: An activity where words are missing from a passage, and the student fills in the blanks.

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Interventions and Specialized Support

• Dyslexia: A learning difficulty that affects reading, spelling, and writing, even though a child may have normal intelligence.
• Individualized Education Program (IEP): A customized plan designed to provide special education support for students with disabilities.
• Response to Intervention (RTI): A process to provide support for students who are struggling with learning before they receive more intensive intervention.
• Accommodations: Adjustments made to help students with disabilities succeed, such as extended test time or quiet spaces.
• Modifications: Changes made to what a child is expected to learn or do to make the learning easier.
• Assistive Technology (AT): Tools like computers or apps that help children with disabilities, such as speech-to-text programs.
• Multisensory Learning: Using more than one sense (sight, sound, touch) to help children learn more effectively.
• Explicit Instruction: Teaching in a very clear, step-by-step way, so the student knows exactly what to do.
• Structured Literacy: A clear, organized approach to teaching reading that focuses on phonics, word structure, and other essential skills.
• Orton-Gillingham Approach: A highly structured method of teaching reading and writing, often used with children who have dyslexia.
• Wilson Reading System: A reading program designed for children with reading difficulties like dyslexia.
• Barton Reading and Spelling System: A multisensory program used to help children with dyslexia improve their reading and spelling.

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Advanced Strategies and Assessments

• Curriculum-Based Measures (CBM): Short tests that teachers use to assess a child's reading progress.
• Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS): A set of tests to measure early literacy skills and monitor progress.
• Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN): The speed at which a child can name letters, numbers, or colors, which affects reading fluency.
• Fluency-Oriented Reading Instruction (FORI): A strategy where children read the same text repeatedly to build fluency.