Literacy Terms 2

Question 1

the task of combining sounds rapidly to accurately represent the word

Answer 1

blending

Question 2

a decoding strategy for breaking words into manageable parts ( /yes /ter/ day); the process of dividing a sentence into smaller phrases where pauses might occur naturally

Answer 2

chunking

Question 3

two or more consecutive consonants that retain their individual sounds (/bl/ in block; /str/ in string)

Answer 3

consonant blend

Question 4

two consecutive consonants that represent one phoneme or sound (/ch/ or /sh/)

Answer 4

consonant digraph

Question 5

a sound that can be held for several seconds without distortion (/m/, /s/)

Answer 5

continuous sounds

Question 6

the ability to translate a word form print to speech, usually by employing knowledge of sound symbol correspondences; also the act of deciphering a new word by sounding it out

Answer 6

decoding

Question 7

a group of two consecutive letters whose phonetic value is a single sound (/ea/ in bread; /ch/ in chat)

Answer 7

digraph

Question 8

a vowel produced by the tongue shifting position during articulation; a vowel that feels as if it has two parts, especially the vowels spelled ow, oy, ou, and oi

Answer 8

diphthong

Question 9

words of one syllable that have one vowel and end in “f”, “l”, or “s” usually double the final consonant (gruff, hill, floss)

Answer 9

floss rule

Question 10

a letter or letter combination that spells a phoneme; can be one, two, three, or four letters in English (sent, cent, scent)

Answer 10

grapheme

Question 11

A small group of words (300-500) that account for a large percentage of the words in print and can be regular or irregular words. Often, they are referred to as sight words since automatic recognition of these words is requires for fluent reading.

Answer 11

high frequency words

Question 12

words in print contain letters that stray from the most common sound pronunciation because they do not follow common phonic patterns (were, was, laugh, been)

Answer 12

high frequency irregular words

Question 13

an attempt to spell a word based on a student’s knowledge of the spelling system and how it works (kt for cat)

Answer 13

invented spelling

Question 14

the smallest meaningful unit of language or grammar

Answer 14

morpheme

Question 15

the initial consonant or consonants in a syllable (“s” in sat)

Answer 15

onset

Question 16

Spoken language. There are five components or oral language: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

Answer 16

oral language

Question 17

a writing system for representing language

Answer 17

orthography

Question 18

the smallest unit of osund within our language system (eat has 3 letters but 2 phonemes)

Answer 18

phoneme

Question 19

a succession of letters that represent the same phonological unit in different words, such as “igh” in flight, might, tight sigh, and high

Answer 19

phonogram

Question 20

One’s sensitivity to, or explicit awareness of, the phonological structure of words in one’s language. This is an “umbrella” term that is used to refer to a student’s sensitivity to any aspect of phonological structure in language. It encompassess awareness of individual words in sentences, syllables, and onset-rime segments, as well as awareness of individual phonemes.

Answer 20

phonological awareness

Question 21

words that have the same ending sound

Answer 21

Rhyming

Question 22

a vowel plus the consonants that follow (in the word sat, the “at”)

Answer 22

rime

Question 23

separating the individual phonemes, or sounds, or a word into discrete units

Answer 23

segmenting

Question 24

Words that are recognized immediately. Sometimes sight words are thought to be irregular, or high frequency words. However, any word that is recognized automatically is a sight word. These words may ne phonetically regular or irregular.

Answer 24

sight words

Question 25

phonics instruction that matches phoneme to grapheme

Answer 25

sound to symbol

Question 26

A segment of a word that contains one vowel sound. The vowel may or may not be preceded and/or followed by a consonant.

Answer 26

syllable

Question 27

a group of words that share a rime – a vowel plus the consonants that follow (fame, lame, name, shame)

Answer 27

word family