Phonics And Early Reading: Reading And Language Arts Terms Explained
Plain-language definitions of every phonics and early reading term your child meets in school, each with kid-friendly explanations, worked examples, and common mistakes to watch for.
Alphabet
The alphabet is the complete set of letters used in a language, such as the 26 letters from A to Z in English, that we use to write words and show their sounds.
Beginning sound
A beginning sound is the first sound you hear at the start of a spoken word, such as /m/ at the start of "map" or /s/ at the start of "sun." Hearing and saying beginning sounds helps children learn how spoken words connect to letters and reading.
Blend
A blend is two or three consonant sounds that are spoken next to each other in a word, where you can still hear each sound, like /b/ and /l/ in "blue."
Consonant
A consonant is a speech sound made by stopping or blocking the air in your mouth, and in English it is usually represented by any letter that is not a, e, i, o, or u.
Consonant blend
A consonant blend is two or three consonant letters together in a word where each consonant keeps its own sound, and the sounds are spoken smoothly one after another, like "bl" in "blue" or "str" in "street".
Decoding
Decoding is using knowledge of letter-sound relationships to turn written words into spoken words so they can be understood.
Digraph
A digraph is two letters written together that work as a team to stand for one single sound in a word, such as "sh" in "ship" or "ch" in "chip."
Diphthong
A diphthong is a vowel sound that starts as one vowel sound and glides into another within the same syllable, like the sound in "coin" or "loud."
Ending sound
An ending sound is the last sound you hear in a spoken word, which can be a single sound like /t/ or a pair of letters that work together like /sh/.
Fluency
Fluency is the ability to read text accurately, smoothly, and with expression, at a pace that sounds like natural speaking, while still understanding what it means.
Grapheme
A grapheme is a letter or group of letters that represents a single sound in a word, such as "b" in "bat" or "sh" in "ship." Graphemes are the written spellings that match the spoken sounds of a language.
High-frequency words
High-frequency words are the short, common words that appear again and again in reading and writing, such as "the," "and," and "is." With practice connecting each word's sounds and spellings, children come to recognize these words automatically, which builds reading fluency.
Initial sound
An initial sound is the very first sound you hear at the beginning of a spoken word, such as /m/ at the start of "map" or /s/ at the start of "sun."
Letter sound
A letter sound is the sound a letter or letter group usually makes in spoken words, which readers use to match print to speech when reading and spelling.
Long vowel
A long vowel is a vowel sound that says the same name as the letter itself, like the a in "cake," the e in "tree," or the i in "bike." Long vowels often appear in patterns such as a silent e at the end of a word or two vowels together.
Middle sound
A middle sound is the sound you hear in the center of a spoken word, usually the vowel sound that comes between the beginning and ending sounds.
Onset and rime
Onset and rime is a way to break a spoken syllable into two parts: the onset is the beginning sound or sounds before the vowel, and the rime is the vowel and any sounds that come after it in that syllable.
Open and closed syllables
Open and closed syllables are types of syllables that tell you how to pronounce the vowel sound in a word.
Phoneme
A phoneme is the smallest sound in a spoken word that can change its meaning, like /m/ in "map" or /t/ in "tap".
Segmenting
Segmenting is the skill of breaking a spoken word into its separate sounds, or phonemes, in order, like hearing /c/ /a/ /t/ in the word "cat." It is a key part of early reading and spelling because it helps children connect sounds to letters.
Short vowel
A short vowel is a vowel sound that is quick and relaxed, like the sounds in "a" as in "cat" or "e" as in "bed," and it usually appears in a one-syllable word with a single vowel followed by a consonant.
Sight words
Sight words are common words that children learn to recognize instantly, without sounding them out, so they can read more smoothly and understand what they are reading.
Silent e
Silent e is a letter e at the end of a word that is not pronounced but often changes the vowel before it from a short sound to a long sound, like cap becoming cape.
Uppercase and lowercase
Uppercase and lowercase are the two different forms of each letter in the alphabet: uppercase letters are the "capital" versions used at the start of sentences and names, and lowercase letters are the smaller forms used in most of the other letters in writing.
Vowel
A vowel is a speech sound made with an open mouth and throat, and in English it is usually spelled with the letters a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes y.
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