I think that it is a mistake to assume that all teachers grasp the terminology of necessary reading strategies required in a successful classroom. Most teachers have not been taught to clearly define or breakdown how to actually teach a student to read. They are provided with the materials to teach but not a systematic approach to actually accomplish the task.
So it is probably naïve of us to toss around phrases like explicit phonics, nonsense words or phonemes and assume that teachers know the definitions of those words. That’s why I thought it might be helpful if I pulled together a quick reference of literacy terms for your review.
Glossary of Fundamental Literacy Terms
Auditory Discrimination - The ability to identify the differences between spoken words and sounds that are similar.
Auditory Processing - The ability to understand spoken language.
Base Words - Words from which many other words are formed. For example, many words can be formed from the base word migrate: migration, migrant, immigration, immigrant, migrating, migratory.
Blend - A consonant sequence before or after a vowel within a syllable, such as cl, br, or st; it is the written language equivalent of consonant cluster.
Cloze Passage - A cloze passage is a reading comprehension exercise in which words have been omitted in a systematic fashion. Students fill in the blanks, and their responses are counted correct if they are exact matches for the missing words. Cloze exercises assess comprehension and background knowledge, and they are also excellent indicators of whether the reading level and language level of the text are appropriate for a given student.
Cognates - Words in different languages related to the same root, e.g. education (English) and educación (Spanish).
Comprehension - Understanding the meaning of text by reading actively and with purpose (for learning, understanding, or enjoyment).
Comprehension Strategies - Techniques to teach reading comprehension, including summarization, prediction, and inferring word meanings from context.
Decoding - The ability to translate a word from print to speech, usually by employing knowledge of sound-symbol correspondences. It is also the act of deciphering a new word by sounding it out.
Direct Vocabulary Learning - Explicit instruction in both the meanings of individual words and word-learning strategies. Direct vocabulary instruction aids reading comprehension.
Explicit Phonics Instruction – Is the reverse of Implicit Phonics Instruction: incorporating blending and building from a single letter to a word. Explicit phonics instruction is essential for students with dyslexia or other learning disabilities.
Dysgraphia - Difficulty writing legibly and with age-appropriate speed.
Dyslexia - A language-based learning disability that affects both oral and written language. It may also be referred to as reading disability, reading difference, or reading disorder. Dyslexia can also cause difficulty with writing, spelling, listening, speaking, and math.
Dysnomia - Difficulty remembering names or recalling specific words; sometimes called a “word-retrieval” problem.
Fluency - 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.
Frustrational Reading Level - The level at which a readers reads at less than a 90% accuracy.
Grapheme - A letter or letter combination that spells a single phoneme. In English, a grapheme may be one, two, three, or four letters, such as e, ei, igh, or eigh.
Implicit Phonics Instruction - This method begins with a whole word and looks at beginning sounds, ending sounds, and context clues.
Independent Reading Level - The level at which a reader reads with about 95% accuracy.
Instructional Reading Level - The level at which a reader reads with about 90% accuracy.
Learning Disability (LD) - A neurobiological disorder that affects the way a person of average to above-average intelligence receives, processes, or expresses information. LD can impact one's ability to learn the basic skills of reading, writing, or math.
Limited English Proficient (LEP) - The term used by the federal government, most states, and local school districts to identify students who have insufficient English language skills to succeed in English-only classrooms. Increasingly, English language learner (ELL) or English learner (EL) are used in place of LEP.
Literacy - Reading, writing, and the creative and analytical acts involved in producing and comprehending texts.
Morpheme - The smallest meaningful unit of language. A morpheme can be one syllable (book) or more than one syllable (seventeen). It can be a whole word or a part of a word such as a prefix or suffix. For example, the word ungrateful contains three morphemes: un, grate, and ful.
Morphology - The study of how the aspects of language structure are related to the ways words are formed from prefixes, roots, and suffixes (e.g., mis-spell-ing), and how words are related to each other.
Nonsense Words – Using words like baf and carf to determine if students have simply memorized words or if they understand how to decode words.
Orton-Gillingham Method – Coursework that is presented to students through a multi-sensory methodology that encompasses the visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile modalities.
Phoneme - The smallest unit of speech that serves to distinguish one utterance from another in a language.
Phonemic Awareness - The ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in spoken words. For example, beginning readers display phonemic awareness by combining or blending the separate sounds of a word to say the word (/c/ /a/ /t/ – cat).
Phonics - A form of instruction to cultivate the understanding and use of the alphabetic principle; that there is a predictable relationship between phonemes (the sounds in spoken language) and graphemes, the letters that represent those sounds in written language, and that this information can be used to read or decode words.
Phonological Awareness - 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 onset and rime. It also includes phonemic awareness as well as other aspects of spoken language such as rhyming and syllabication.
Reading Disability - Another term for dyslexia, sometimes referred to as reading disorder or reading difference.
Response to Intervention (RTI) - Response to Intervention is a process whereby local education agencies (LEAs) document a child's response to scientific, research-based intervention using a tiered approach. In contrast to the discrepancy criterion model, RTI provides early intervention for students experiencing difficulty learning to read. RTI was authorized for use in December 2004 as part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
Slide - Effectively joining consonants and vowel sounds.
Striving Readers Act - Striving Readers is aimed at improving the reading skills of middle school- and high school-aged students who are reading below grade level. Striving Readers supports the implementation and evaluation of research-based reading interventions for struggling readers in Title I eligible schools that are at risk of not meeting — or are not meeting — adequate yearly progress (AYP) requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act, or that have significant percentages or number of students reading below grade level, or both.
Syllabication - The act of breaking words into syllables.
Syllable - A part of a word that contains a vowel or, in spoken language, a vowel sound (e-vent, news-pa-per).
Systematic Phonics Instruction – A teaching method that gives students the knowledge required to analyze and identify just about any word they encounter-even to the point of deciphering and reading words they have never seen before!
Vocabulary - Word knowledge. Listening vocabulary refers to the words a person recognizes when he hears them in oral speech. Speaking vocabulary refers to the words he uses when speaking. Reading vocabulary refers to the words a person knows when he sees them in print. Writing vocabulary refers to the words he uses in writing.
Word Attack - An aspect of reading instruction that includes intentional strategies for learning to decode, sight read, and recognize written words.
Did you know that learning disabilities one in seven people? If you want to learn download our free E-Book, Learning Disabilities 101!
Source: http://www.adlit.org/, http://www.ReadingHorizons.com