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GLOSSARY
For additional definitions and more complete understanding of terms, please consult one of the resources listed at the bottom of the page.
comprehension—identifying and understanding the meaning of spoken and written words and text. Comprehension is closely linked with background knowledge, vocabulary, and decoding skills.
Conventional text—reading material that requires independent word reading strategies, provides more complex and less predictable sentence structure. (see Beginning Literacy Framework)
emergent literacy level—early
stage of reading that includes building interest and motivation, reading
letters and words left to right, relating pictures to words
emergent text—material
for very early stages of reading; to build print awareness, relate letter
sounds, relate words to pictures, etc.; no prerequisite skills needed
Enrichment text—material
designed to develop language and expand vocabulary, build background
information, support learning concepts about print and reading, build a love
of reading (see
Beginning Literacy Framework)
fluency—being able
to read connected text accurately, smoothly, and quickly with focus on
meaning.
literacy—being able
to read, write and comprehend.
phoneme—spoken
words are
made up of individual sounds (phonemes). The word for has three
phonemes, help has four; cane has three phonemes, as does
same or make.
phonemic awareness-
ability to
hear, count, and identify distinct sounds (not letter names); hearing,
matching, adding, chopping off, and rearranging sounds; and separating or
blending sounds to make words.
Can be
taught through games, manipulative activities, chanting, and reading and
singing songs and poems.
phonics-—the
relationship between written letters and sounds.
A method of
teaching beginners to read and pronounce words by learning the phonetic
value of letters, letter groups, and especially syllables.
phonological awareness—understanding
that spoken language can be taken apart in different ways: sentences into
words, words into syllables, and syllables into smaller, sounds like
phonemes and onsets and rimes, and that these sounds can be blended into
words, and the same sounds found in different words. It includes phonemic
awareness, and knowledge of rhyming, alliteration, and intonation.
sight words or
basic sight vocabulary—the
220 most common words that make up 70 percent of juvenile reading and 60
percent of adult reading. Most
sight words are not easily decodable.
Sight word recognition alone does not provide children with the strategies
they need to read and decode unfamiliar words.
syllable
- a unit of spoken language larger than a phoneme, which could be a word or
part of a word. The word 'sister' has two syllables ‘sis’ and ‘ter’.
Transitional text—materials
designed to focus
on
text, encourage use of skills and strategies gained with emergent texts and
other activities with print, build strategies for reading simple words. (see
Beginning Literacy Framework)
Glossaries and dictionaries:
Comprehensive Glossary of Reading Terms (over 200 terms),
Literacy Terms Dictionary,
Glossary of
Reading Terms: Southwest
Educational Development Lab
Center
for Community Child Health--Literacy Promotion, Glossary Pages 6-7.
Definition
of Literacy Terms for Parents
Dictionary.com provides
definitions of individual terms