Competency 5: Word Analysis and Identification Skills

Question 1

Developmental Order of Decoding Skills

Answer 1

1. Letter Recognition Skills
2. Letter-Sound Recognition Skills
3. Consonant & Vowel Recognition

Question 2

Letter Recognition Skills

Answer 2

1st stage in developmental order of decoding skills
Recognizes upper/lower case letters.
Recognizes letters at the beginning, middle & end of words.
Recognizes easily confused letters: b,d;p,q;m.n;E.F

Question 3

Letter-Sound Recognition Skills

Answer 3

2nd stage in developmental order of decoding skills
Identifies & uses onsets & rimes
Identifies/creates rhyming words
uses rimes to create word families (Cat, Pat, Fat, Hat, Sat; Pot, Hot, Cot, Dot; Bit,Hit,Fit,Sit)
Name sounds that match consonants & vowels

Question 4

Consonant & Vowel Recognition

Answer 4

3rd stage in developmental order of decoding skills.
Recognizes initial & ending consonants
Recognizes short & long vowel sounds
Reads & writes consonant-vowel-consonant words (CVC), such as man, hat, cot, pin
Recognizes the silent e marker, & understands that it controls the vowel, converting it to the long vowel sound (CVCe), such as mile, kite, lake, bike
Recognizes the 2 sounds of “c” (cold,cite) & “g” (girafe,girl)
Recognizes “y” as a vowel (fly) & consonant (yarn)
Reads & writes consonant-vowel words (CV) (be,my,hi,by)
Recognizes initial position two-letter blends, such as ‘bl’ in blip & final position blends such as help, cold, ramp, gulp.
Recognizes consonant digraphs in the initial position (CCVC) such as this, ship, chap, chat
Recognizes consonant digraphs in the final position (CVCC) such as fish, bath, much, with
Reads & writes blend words (CCVC,CVCC) such as flip, clap, slat, belt
Recognizes vowel digraphs (CVVC) such as read, mail, coat, roam
Recognizes vowel diphthongs (CVVC,CVV) such as toy, bout, foil.

Question 5

Consonant Blend or Cluster

Answer 5

Two or three letters in the same syllable that are blended or heard when pronounced. EX) sn in snow & str in street

Question 6

Consonant Digraph

Answer 6

A combo of 2 more letters that represent a sound that is different from the speech sound that the letters represent individually. EX) sh in ship, ch in chicken.

Question 7

Vowel Digraph

Answer 7

Two adjacent vowels that represent one speech sound. EX) ea in read, ai in train, ee in seed.

Question 8

Diphthong

Answer 8

Two adjacent vowels in which each vowel is heard in the pronunciation. EX) ou in out, oy in toy.

Question 9

Schwa

Answer 9

In many words that have more than one syllable, one of the syllables receives less or diminished stress. The sound of the vowel that receives diminished stress has a softening of the vowel sound & often pronounced as the “uh” sound. Since this syllable is unstressed, children in transitional spelling frequently misspell these words. EX) 2nd syllable in woman, buses, chocolate, pencil, memory, coronation.

Question 10

Decoding

Answer 10

Figuring out words using letter-sound recognition

Question 11

Blending

Answer 11

Putting sounds together to identify the word.

Question 12

Structural Analysis

Answer 12

Using word parts to identify the meaning of a word.

Question 13

Sight Words

Answer 13

Using memory to identify high-frequency words.

Question 14

Vocabulary

Answer 14

Using explicit study of words to identify new words.

Question 15

Contextual Clues

Answer 15

Using the words that surround the new word to determine the new word’s meaning.

Question 16

Structural Cues

Answer 16

Parts of the word itself that provide information about the word’s identity & meaning, specifically root words & affixes.

Question 17

Affix

Answer 17

A structural element added to the beginning or ending of a word in order to alter the meaning, pronunciation, or function.

Question 18

Independent Reading Level

Answer 18

The reading level that students should be at when they are reading to themselves; they must know 95% of the words.

Question 19

Instructional Reading Level

Answer 19

The reading level of instruction; children know most of the words, and the teacher provides support; students must know 90-94% of the words.

Question 20

Frustration Reading Level

Answer 20

The reading level at which students become frustrated with reading, and they must decode too many words to comprehend what they read; students should never work in this reading level; students know 89% or less of the words.

Question 21

Semantic Maps

Answer 21

Spider web of bubbles that demonstrate understanding of a concept and relationships between elements of the concept.

Question 22

Word Sorts

Answer 22

Activity in which students sort word cards by specific characteristics. Builds a variety of skills with words & word recognition skills.