|
Glossary of Reading-Related
Terms
The Reading Coherence Initiative (RCI) at the Southwest
Educational Development Laboratory has put together this glossary
of terms related to reading and reading instruction so that people
can quickly and easily check terms as they encounter them. Also, as
people are trying to describe precise and technical concepts, they
may find this glossary a useful resource of precise and technical
terms.
Affix — An attachment to the
end or beginning of base or root word. A generic term that
describes prefixes and suffixes.
Age equivalent scores — In a
norm-referenced assessment, individual student's scores are
reported relative to those of the norming population. This can be
done in a variety of ways, but one way is to report the average age
of people who received the same score as the individual child.
Thus, an individual child's score is described as being the same as
students that are younger, the same age, or older than that student
(e.g. a 9 year old student my receive the same score that an
average 13 year old student does, suggesting that this student is
quite advanced). See also
grade equivalent scores.
Alliteration — The repetition of initial phoneme either across
syllables or across words. For example, "Happy hippos hop on
Harry." See onset
Allomorph — An alternative manifestation of a morpheme (a set
of meaningful linguistic units). Allomorphs vary in shape or
pronunciation according to their conditions of use, but not as to
meaning. In English, the negative prefix in has several allomorphs,
such as INcapable, ILlogical, IMprobable, IRreverent.
Allophone — A phonetic variant of a phoneme in a particular
language. For example, [p] and [pH] are allophones of the phoneme
/p/; [t] and tH] are allophones of the phoneme /t/.
Alphabetic principle — Understanding that spoken words are
decomposed into phonemes, and that the letters in written words
represent the phonemes in spoken words when spoken words are
represented in text.
Assessment — Using data to determine abilities and knowledge
about a particular topic. A distinction should be drawn between a
test, which is just a tool used in assessment, and
assessment.
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.
Basal reader — A kind of book that is used to teach reading. It
is based on an approach in which words are used as a whole. The
words are used over and over in each succeeding lesson. New words
are added regularly.
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.
Ciphering — See deciphering
Clitic — A language element with wordlike status or form that
resembles a word. A clitic usually cannot be used on its own as a
word in a construction. Clitics are usually phonologically bound to
a preceding word or a following word.
Cloze — This is a method of assessment wherein a word is
eliminated from a passage, and the child's task is to use the
context of the passage to fill in the blank with an appropriate
word. Different cloze tasks focus on different skills; a cloze
assessment can be used to test reading comprehension, language
comprehension, vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. When the child is
given options (multiple choice) from which to select the
appropriate word for each blank, the assessment is typically
described as a "modified cloze task."
Content word — A word which has lexical meaning such as a noun
or a verb (as opposed to a function
word).
Contentive — See content
word
Criterion-referenced assessment — This is a type of assessment
in which a child's score is compared against a predetermined
criterion score to determine if the child is performing acceptably
or unacceptably. Rather than comparing the child's performance
against the performance of her peers (as would be the case with a
norm-referenced assessment), the criterion or "acceptable
score" is set by the author of the assessment. Each child's score,
then, is either above or below the criterion score.
Deciphering — Using knowledge about graphophonemic
relationships to sound-out regular words. Some argue this is
accomplished through a process known as "reading by analogy."
Decodable texts — Texts which do not contain irregular words.
Also, these texts are usually designed to reinforce certain "rules"
that have previously been taught in phonics lessons.
Decoding — Using knowledge of the conventions of spelling-sound
relationships and knowledge about pronunciation of irregular words
to derive a pronunciation of written words.
Deep orthography — A writing system that does not have
consistent or one-to-one correspondence between the phonemes in
speech and the written code. English is an example of a deep
orthography -- no phoneme is consistently represented by the same
letter in all words, and only one letter (the letter v)
consistently corresponds to a specific phoneme. Examples of shallow
orthographies would include Spanish and Finnish.
Derivational affixation — The process of adding affixes to
roots or bases in order to vary function or modify meaning.
Derivational affixation transforms a stem or word from one part of
speech to another (from one word class to another). For example,
the verb HIT can be modified with the affix -ER to become the noun
HITTER. BRIGHT, plus -LY changes from an adjective into an
adverb.
Digraph — A group of two successive letters whose phonetic
value is a single sound. For example, EA in BREAD, CH in CHAT, or
NG in SING
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.
Duet reading — An activity where a skilled reader sits next to
a learner and the two read a text simultaneously.
Elision — The omission of a part of a spoken word -- to be more
efficient, people sometimes say "IDANO" instead of "I do not know,"
or a person may say "N" instead of "AND" (as in "bread 'n'
butter").
Expository text — Text written to explain and convey
information about a specific topic. Contrast with narrative
text.
Extrinsic phonics — Phonics taught as a supplemental learning
aid rather than as an integral part of the program of reading
instruction, often in separate workbooks during special time
periods.
Fluent reading — Fast, smooth, effortless and automatic reading
of text (can be silent reading or not) with attention focused on
the meaning of the text.
Function word — A word which does not have lexical meaning,
which primarily serves to express a grammatical relationship (e.g.
AND, OF, OR, THE).
Functor — See function
word
Grade equivalent scores — In a
norm-referenced assessment, individual student's scores are
reported relative to those of the norming population. This can be
done in a variety of ways, but one way is to report the average
grade of students who received the same score as the individual
child. Thus, an individual child's score is described as being the
same as students that are in higher, the same, or lower grades than
that student (e.g. a student in 2nd grade my earn the same score
that an average forth grade student does, suggesting that this
student is quite advanced). See also
age equivalent scores.
Grapheme — A unit (a letter or letters) of a writing system
that represents one phoneme; a single symbol that has one phonemic
correspondent within any particular word.
Graphophonemic — Refers to the sound relationship between the
orthography (symbols) and phonology (sounds) of a language.
Graphophonic — See graphophonemic
Homograph — See homonym
Homonym — A word which is spelled and pronounced identically to
another word, but which has a different meaning. For example, a
swimming POOL versus a POOL table.
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.
Ideograph — A graphic symbol that represents an idea instead of
a spoken word, a single morpheme, or a lexical item. In a phonetic
system, the symbol represents the sounds that form its name.
Sometimes children's writing contains idiographs, but there is no
known writing system that is composed entirely of idiographs. See
logograph.
Idiom — A phrase, construction, or expression that is
understood in a given language. This expression has a meaning that
differs from typical syntactic patterns or that differs from the
literal meaning of its parts taken together. Some examples of
idiomatic expressions would include, "to kick the bucket" means "to
die," or "to throw in the towel" means "to give up" or "to
stop"
Inductive phonics — See synthetic
phonics
Intrinsic phonics — Phonics taught implicitly in the context of
authentic reading activities.
Language comprehension — This term should refer to
understanding language in any of its forms, but in the vernacular,
it has come to be synonymous with
listening comprehension. When people use the term "language
comprehension," they are typically not referring to sign language,
written language, semaphore or smoke signals. Typically, the term
is reserved for describing spoken language.
Latent — Something which is present but invisible, or inactive
but capable of becoming active or visible, so a child may have
latent knowledge of a concept, meaning the child understands the
concept, but has not had an opportunity to demonstrate that
understanding.
Lexical — Refers to the words or the vocabulary of a language
as distinguished from its grammar and construction.
Lexicon — Often called the "mental dictionary," the lexicon is
a representation of all knowledge a person has about individual
words.
Listening comprehension — Understanding speech. Listening
comprehension, as with reading comprehension, can be described in
"levels" -- lower levels of listening comprehension would include
understanding only the facts explicitly stated in a spoken passage
that has very simple syntax and uncomplicated vocabulary. Advanced
levels of listening comprehension would include implicit
understanding and drawing inferences from spoken passages that
feature more complicated syntax and more advanced vocabulary. See
also
Language Comprehension.
Logograph — A writing system wherein each spoken word in the
language is represented by a unique symbol. Chinese is an example
of a logographic writing system.
Look-say — An approach to reading instruction that emphasized
memorization of whole words. Graded word lists were used to teach
children to memorize words as wholes, and every year, children
added to their repertoire of "familiar" words.
Matthew Effect — Borrowed from a line in the Bible's Book of
Matthew -- the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In reading,
this describes the difference between good readers and poor readers
-- while good readers gain new skills very rapidly, and quickly
move from "learning to read" to "reading to learn," poor readers
become increasingly frustrated with the act of reading, and try to
avoid reading when possible. The gap is relatively narrow when the
children are young, but rapidly widens as children grow
older.
Metalinguistic — Language and terminology used to describe
language and the component parts of language.
Metaphor — A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is used
in place of a more literal description. For example, rather than
saying somebody is happy, one might say that person is "on cloud
nine" or "walking on air."
Morpheme — The smallest meaningful unit of speech. A morpheme
can be a free form (as in PIN) or a bound form ( -S in PINS), that
contains no smaller meaningful parts. The morpheme is a
sub-component of vocabulary; many words only have one morpheme, but
some, such as compound words or words with affixes, have more than
one.
Morphology — An examination of the morphemic structure of
words; an appreciation of the fact that words with common roots
share common meanings, and that affixes change words in predictable
and consistent ways.
Narrative text — Text which conveys a story or which relates
events or dialog. Contrast with expository
text.
Nonword — A string of letters which cannot be pronounced and
which has no meaning. For example, MCVRI or HEGZT. Contrast with
pseudoword.
Norm-referenced assessment — This is a type of assessment that
allows an individual child's score to be compared against the
scores of other children who have previously taken the same
assessment. With a norm-referenced assessment, the child's raw
score can be converted into a comparative score such as a
percentile rank or a stanine. Contrast with
criterion-referenced assessment.
Nuclear syllable — A syllable that carries maximum prominence,
usually due to being stressed. For example, in the word ADDICT
either AD is the nuclear syllable (if it is a noun) or DICT is the
nuclear syllable (if it is a verb).
Onomatopoeia — The formation of a word by imitating the natural
sound associated with the object or action. For example, the
"crack" of the bat, or the "twang" of the guitar strings.
Onset — The part of the syllable that precedes the vowel of a
syllable. In the case of multi-syllabic words, each syllable has an
onset. For example; the onset of the word PILL is /p/. Contrast
with rime.
Orthography — A complete writing system for a language or
languages. Orthographies include the representation of word
boundaries, stops and pauses in speech, and tonal inflections. See
deep
orthography.
Overdifferentiation — The practice of representing a single
phoneme, syllable, or morpheme with two or more symbols in a
writing system. For example, the sound /k/ can be represented by C,
CH or K. Also called underrepresentation;
contrast with underdifferentiation.
Particle — A short part of speech used to express a syntactic
or semantic relationship. A particle can also be a prefix or
derivational suffix.
Phone — Any single speech sound considered as a physical event
without regard to its place in the language structure. A smaller
unit of speech than the phoneme.
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).
Phoneme 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.
Phonemic ideal — An orthography which represents each phoneme
with a unique grapheme or letter. See deep
orthography.
Phonetic writing — A system that uses a unique symbol to
represent each phone (sound) of the language or dialect, such as
the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
Phonics — An approach to reading instruction that emphasizes
letter-sound relationships and generalized principles that describe
spelling-sound relationships in a language (e.g. vowels in CVCs are
short). See also extrinsic
phonics, intrinsic
phonics, and synthetic
phonics.
Phonograms — A succession of letters that represent the same
phonological unit in different words, such as IGHT in FLIGHT, MIGHT
and TIGHT.
Phonological awareness — The understanding that speech is
composed of sub-parts -- sentences are comprised of words, words
are comprised of syllables, syllables are comprised of onsets and
rimes, and can be further broken down to phonemes (phonological
awareness at this level is usually described as phoneme
awareness).
Polyphone — A word which is spelled the same as another word,
but which sounds different when pronounced. For example, you can
WIND a watch, and the WIND blows hard.
Pseudohomophone — A pseudoword, which when pronounced, sounds
like a real, familiar word. For example, the pseudohomophone BRANE
sounds like the real word BRAIN.
Pseudoword — A pronounceable string of letters which has no
meaning; also called invented words, nonsense words, or made-up
words. For example, MIVIT, HEASE, and MIVE are all pronounceable,
but don't mean anything.
Rhyme — Sharing identical or at least similar medial and final
phonemes in the final syllable. Because English has a writing
system with a deep
orthography, words can rhyme without sharing similar orthography
(e.g. SUITE and MEET).
Rime — The part of a syllable (not a word) which consists of
its vowel and any consonant sounds that come after it. Contrast
with onset.
Segmentation — Breaking down a spoken word into word parts by
inserting a pause between each part. Words can be segmented at the
word level (in the case of compound words), at the syllable level,
at the onset-rime level, and at the phoneme level.
Semantics — The study of the development and changes of the
meanings of speech forms. Semantics is also a study of the process
by which meaning is derived from symbols, signs, text, and other
meaning-bearing forms.
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.
Social promotion — Promoting a child to the next grade in order
to keep the child with his or her peers and social group.
Struggling reader — any student of any age who has not mastered
the skills required to fluently read and comprehend text which is
written at a level that one could reasonably expect a student of
that age to read.
Suprasegmental — A vocal effect that extends over more than one
sound segment in an utterance, such as pitch, stress, or juncture
pattern.
Syllable family — The group of syllables formed by a consonant
plus all of the vowels in a language.
Syllable shape — An abstract combination of consonants and
vowels (V, CV, VC, CCV, or CVC).
Syntax — The conventions and rules for assembling words into
meaningful sentences; syntax varies across languages.
Synthetic phonics — A part-to-whole phonics approach to reading
instruction in which the student learns the sounds represented by
letters and letter combinations, blends these sounds to pronounce
words, and finally identifies which phonic generalizations apply
(a.k.a. inductive phonics).
Trigraph — A three-letter sequence representing a single
consonant, vowel, or diphthong, such as EAU in BEAU.
Underdifferentiation — The representation of two or more
phonemes, syllables, or morphemes with a single symbol. For
example, the symbol S is used to represent /s/ /z/ and /sh/.
Underrepresentation — See overdifferentiation.
Untaught residue — Material which has not previously been
taught but is used in a primer lesson anyway to make the lesson
more effective.
Verbal Efficiency Theory — The Verbal Efficiency Theory is
attributed to Perfetti & Lesgold (1979). It states that mere
word recognition accuracy is not, in itself, sufficient to enable
fluent reading comprehension. Instead, word-coding skills must be
increased to a high level of efficiency and automaticity in order
for the reader to be able to devote attention to meaning and
comprehension.
Whole Language — An approach to reading instruction that
de-emphasizes letter-sound relationships and emphasizes recognition
of words as wholes.
Word bank — A storage place for learners to keep written words
that they have learned so that they can refer to them as needed.
They can go to the word bank as they are writing or editing to find
out how to spell a word.
Word calling — Decoding words without comprehending their
meaning. Occurs for one of two reasons -- either the words are
outside the listening (spoken) vocabulary of the child, or the
decoding process is so slow, laborious, and capacity-demanding that
the child is unable to pay attention to word meaning.
Word families — A collection of words that share common
orthographic rimes, such
as HIKE, BIKE, LIKE, etc.
Word parts — The letters, syllables, diacritics, and parts of
syllables such as consonant clusters and vowel
clusters.
Copyright ©
2000 by Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL). All
rights reserved.
|
No comments yet.