Glossary
Structured literacy, in plain words
The vocabulary that shows up in manuals, meetings and homeschool groups, defined the way a teacher would say it across a table. Each term is defined in a sentence or two, with an example where it helps.
Blend
A consonant blend is two or three consonants next to each other whose sounds are all heard, such as bl, st, str.
Blending
Blending is saying the individual sounds of a word and pushing them together to read the whole word.
Closed syllable
A closed syllable ends in a consonant and has a short vowel, as in cat, rabbit (rab) or picnic (pic).
Consonant-le syllable
A consonant-le syllable is a final syllable made of a consonant, an l and a silent e, as in table, little and puzzle.
CVC word
A CVC word is a consonant, a short vowel and a consonant, such as cat, sit or hop.
Decodable text
Decodable text is reading material written so that nearly every word uses only the phonics patterns the student has already been taught.
Decoding and encoding
Decoding is reading a word by turning letters into sounds; encoding is spelling a word by turning sounds into letters.
Dictation
Dictation is the teacher saying sounds, words or sentences for the student to write, as the spelling half of a phonics lesson.
Digraph
A digraph is two letters that together spell one sound, such as sh, ch, th, wh, ck and ee.
Explicit instruction
Explicit instruction means the teacher states the skill directly, models it, practices it with the student, and then has the student do it alone.
Fluency
Fluency is reading accurately, at a reasonable pace, with expression, so that attention is free for meaning.
Grapheme
A grapheme is a letter or group of letters that spells one phoneme.
High-frequency words
High-frequency words are the words that appear most often in text, such as the, of, said and was; many are regular and some have an irregular part.
Mastery
Mastery means a student can use a skill accurately and quickly without help, in words they have not practiced.
Morphology
Morphology is the study of the meaningful parts of words: prefixes, suffixes and base words, such as un-, -ing and help in unhelpful.
Open syllable
An open syllable ends in a vowel, which is usually long, as in go, me or the first syllable of robot.
Orthographic mapping
Orthographic mapping is the mental process of connecting each sound in a word to the letters that spell it, so the spelling is stored and the word is then recognized instantly.
Phoneme
A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a spoken language that changes the meaning of a word.
Phonemic awareness
Phonemic awareness is the ability to hear, identify and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words, without any letters involved.
Phonics
Phonics is the relationship between the sounds of spoken language and the letters or letter groups that spell them, and the teaching of that relationship.
Phonological awareness
Phonological awareness is the broad ability to notice and work with the sound structure of spoken language: words, syllables, rhymes and individual sounds.
Progress monitoring
Progress monitoring is the regular, brief checking of a student's skills to see whether instruction is working and to adjust it if not.
R-controlled vowel
An r-controlled vowel is a vowel followed by r, where the r changes the vowel sound, as in car, bird, corn, fern and hurt.
Reading intervention (RTI and MTSS)
Reading intervention is extra, targeted instruction for students who are behind, usually in small groups, on top of classroom teaching.
Scope and sequence
A scope and sequence is the list of skills a program teaches (the scope) in the order it teaches them (the sequence).
Segmenting
Segmenting is breaking a spoken word into its individual sounds, the skill behind spelling.
Silent e (VCe)
A silent e, or vowel-consonant-e pattern, is a final e that makes the vowel before the consonant say its long sound, as in cake, bike and hope.
Small-group instruction
Small-group instruction is teaching three to six students together who are at a similar point, so each gets more turns than in a whole class.
Spiral review
Spiral review is the deliberate return to previously taught skills inside later lessons, so they are practiced long after they were introduced.
Structured literacy
Structured literacy is an approach to teaching reading that is explicit, systematic and cumulative: skills are taught directly, in a planned order, with each one building on the last.
Trigraph
A trigraph is three letters that together spell one sound, such as tch in match or dge in bridge.
Vowel team
A vowel team is two or more letters that together spell one vowel sound, such as ai, ee, oa, igh and ow.
Track the skills, not just the words
Each pattern gets its own rating and its own review date. Set up a student in a minute.