Reading Terms

1. What are the 5 components of reading?

Phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension

2. What is phonemic awareness?

This is the ability to notice, think about, and/or manipulate the individual sounds in words. (This can be difficult for some students especially if they are visual, and not auditory, learners.

3. What is phonics?

This is the study of the relationships between letters and sounds.

4. What is vocabulary?

Vocabulary is the words of our spoken and written language. It is extremely important to reading comprehension - if a student does not understand the vocabulary within a story, it makes it difficult for them to comprehend the story. There are four types of vocabulary: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

5. What is comprehension?

Comprehension is the ability to understand what one is reading and the ultimate goal for any reading activity.

6. What is a vowel digraph?

Two vowels together that represent one sound (i.e. ea, ai).

7. What is blending?

The task of combining sounds rapidly to accurately represent the word.

8. What is a consonant blend?

Two or more consecutive consonants which retain their individual sounds (bl as in block).

9. What is a consonant digraph?

Two consecutive consonants that represent one phoneme or sound (ch, sh, th, wh).

10. What are high frequency words?

A small group of words (300-500) that account for a large percentage of the words in print. These words can be regular or irregular words such as Dolch or Fry. These words are sometimes called 'sight' words because automatic recognition is necessary for fluent reading.

11. What is a word family?

A group of words that share a rime (a vowel plus the consonants that follow such as -at, -ick, -ame).

12. What is a readability level?

This is the level at which a student is reading - independent, instructional, or frustrational.

13. What is considered an independent reading level?

The level at which a reader can read text with 95% accuracy (no more than one error per 20 words read). This level is relatively easy text for the reader.

14. What is considered an instructional reading level?

The level at which a reader can read text with 90% accuracy (no more than one error per 10 words read). This level engages the student in challenging yet manageable text.

15. What is considered a frustrational reading level?

The level at which a reader reads at less than 90% accuracy. This level of text is difficult for the reader.