Common Phonics Terms

Question 0

analytic phonics

Answer 0

a whole to part phonics approach that emphasizes starting with whole words and identifying individual sounds as part of those words. Efforts are generally made to avoid pronouncing the sounds in isolation. Also known as “implicit phonics”

Question 1

accent (primary)

Answer 1

The syllable in a word that receives the strongest and loudest emphasis

Question 2

auditory discrimination

Answer 2

the ability to hear similarities and differences between sounds as they appear in spoken words.

Question 3

base word

Answer 3

a word to which prefixes and or suffixes are added to create new but related words. The simplest member of a word family.

Question 4

breve

Answer 4

an orthographic symbol placed above vowel graphemes to indicate pronunciation (small upper u or half circle facing up)

Question 5

circumflex

Answer 5

an orthographic symbol (^) placed above vowel graphemes to indicate pronunciation

Question 6

close syllable

Answer 6

any syllable ending with a constant phoneme: Ex: come /m/; love /v/; ran /n/.

Question 7

compound word

Answer 7

a word made up of two or more base words Ex: football

Question 8

constant blend

Answer 8

sounds in a syllable represented by two or more letters that are blended together without losing their own identities. Ex: green /g/ /r/; swing /s/ /w/; clap /c/ /l/.

Question 9

consonant cluster

Answer 9

two or more consonant letters appearing together, which when sounded, represent a blend. Ex: gr, cr, str,

Question 10

consonants

Answer 10

sounds represented by any letter of the English alphabet except a e i o u. Consonants are sounds that are made by restring the breath channel.

Question 11

decoding

Answer 11

the process of determining the pronunciation of an unknown word.

Question 12

deductive instruction

Answer 12

instructional procedure that centers on telling children about generalizations and having them apply those generalizations to specific words. A general to specific analysis.

Question 13

digraph

Answer 13

two letters that stand for a single phoneme or sound. Ex: shout /sh/ what /wh/ rang /ng/ meat /ea/ A digraph is a grapheme containing two letters and one sound

Question 14

dipthong

Answer 14

a single sound made up of two vowel sounds in immediate sequence and pronounced in one syllable. Ex: oil /oi/ toy /oy/

Question 15

grapheme

Answer 15

A letter or combo of letters that represents a phoneme ex: the phoneme /b/ in bat is represented by the grapheme (letter) b; the phoneme /f/ in phone is represented by the graphemes p and h.

Question 16

macron

Answer 16

An orthographic symbol, (-) placed over a vowel to show that it is pronounced as a long sound.

Question 17

onset

Answer 17

the consonant sounds of a syllable that come before the vowel sound.

Question 18

open syllable

Answer 18

any syllable ending with a vowel phoneme. Examples see /e/ may /a/ auto /o/

Question 19

phoneme

Answer 19

the smallest sound unit of a language that distinguishes one word from another. Ex: the phoneme /h/ distinguishes hat from at; the words man and fan are distinguished by their initial phonemes /m/ and /f/ respectively.

Question 20

phoneme blending

Answer 20

The process of recognizing isolated speech sounds and the ability to pronounce the word for which they stand.

Question 21

phoneme segmentation

Answer 21

the ability to isolate all the sounds within a word.

Question 22

phonemic awareness

Answer 22

the ability to recognize spoken words as a sequence to individual sounds

Question 23

phonetics

Answer 23

the scientific study of human speech sounds.

Question 24

phonics

Answer 24

a method in which basic phonetics, the study of human speech sounds, is used to teach reading.

Question 25

phonogram

Answer 25

a letter sequence composed of a vowel grapheme and an ending consonant grapheme(s). Ex: -it in bit, lit, sit or -ain in pain, gain, and rain.

Question 26

r-controlled vowel

Answer 26

when a vowel is followed by the letter r, it makes the vowel sound neither long nor short. Ex: in the word car, the vowel sound becomes /a/; in the word more, it becomes /o^/.

Question 27

rime

Answer 27

the part of a syllable that includes the vowel sound as well as any consonant sounds that come after it. The graphic representation of a rime is reffered to as a phonnogram. Ex: in the word cat, the onset is /c/ and the rime is /at/.

Question 28

root

Answer 28

often used as a synonym for base word.

Question 29

schwa sound

Answer 29

an unstressed sound commonly occuring in unstressed sullables. It is represented by the symbol, e (upsidedown and backwards) and closely resembles the short sound for u. Ex: i in April, io in station; u in circus.

Question 30

silent letter

Answer 30

a name given to a letter that appears in a written word but is not heard in the spoken word. Ex: knight has six written letters but only three are heard; k, g, and h are “silent.”

Question 31

slash marks

Answer 31

Slanting lines (/ /) enclosing a grapheme(s) indicate that the reference is to the sound and not to the letters.

Question 32

syllable

Answer 32

a unit of pronunciation consisting of a vowel alone or a vowel with one or more consonants. There can be only one vowel phoneme (sound) in each syllable.

Question 33

synthetic phonics

Answer 33

a part-to-whole phonics approach that emphasizes the learning of individual sounds, often in isolation, and combining them to form words. Also known as explicit phonics.

Question 34

umlaunt

Answer 34

An orthographic symbol (..)-(except they are higher) placed above vowel graphemes to indicate pronunciation.

Question 35

visual discrimination

Answer 35

the ability to visually perceive similarities and differences. In reading, this means to perceive similarities and differences in written letters and words.

Question 36

vowels

Answer 36

Sounds represented by the graphemes (letters) a, e, i, o , u , and sometimes y and w, in the English alphabet. Vowels are sounds that are made without closing or restricting the breath channel.