Phonics Terms

Question 1

root word

Answer 1

a word to which prefixes and suffixes are added

Question 2

consonant blend

Answer 2

2 or 3 consonants that blend together; all sounds are heard. Example: bl, dr.

Question 3

inflectional ending

Answer 3

-s, -ed, -ing. They change how a word is used in a sentence, not the meaning.

Question 4

long vowel

Answer 4

vowel that “says its name”; they can be spelled in more than one way.

Question 5

phonemes

Answer 5

sounds

Question 6

prefix

Answer 6

letters added to the beginning of a word that change its meaning

Question 7

suffix

Answer 7

letters added to the end of a word that change its meaning

Question 8

consonant digraph

Answer 8

2 consecutive consonants that represent one phoneme or sound (e.g. ch, sh, th, wh, ph)

Question 9

morpheme

Answer 9

smallest unit of meaning

Question 10

short vowel

Answer 10

vowel that does not say its name; usually represented by one letter

Question 11

variant vowel

Answer 11

2 vowels that come together and make a sound that is neither long nor short

Question 12

affixes

Answer 12

prefixes and suffixes

Question 13

blending

Answer 13

putting phonemes together to form a word

Question 14

segmenting

Answer 14

separating sounds in words

Question 15

phonics

Answer 15

the study of sound/letter correspondences

Question 16

phonemic awareness

Answer 16

the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate phonemes (sounds) in oral language

Question 17

stop

Answer 17

sound that is made when air is constricted by an articulator and then explodes out in a burst of air (e.g. sounds made by p, b, d, t, k, g)

Question 18

nasal

Answer 18

sound that is made when air comes out of the nose (e.g. sounds made by m, n)

Question 19

fricative

Answer 19

sound made when air is partially obstructed by an articulator creating friction while air passes through a small opening (e.g. sounds made by f, v, th, s, z, sh, h)

Question 20

affricative

Answer 20

sound made by a stop followed by a fricative (e.g sounds made by ch, j)

Question 21

glide

Answer 21

sound made by no obstruction of air initially, immediately followed by a vowel (e.g sounds made by l, r)

Question 22

liquid

Answer 22

sound made when the tongue creates a partial closure of the mouth (e.g. sounds made by y, w, wh)

Question 23

orthographic mapping

Answer 23

a process that we use to permanently store words in long-term memory