Literacy   Terms and Definitions

Here are a few Literacy terms that you should be familiar with:

Alliteration -The same consonant sounds at the beginning of words in a sentence or a line of poetry. For example, the sound of P in Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

Alphabetic principle - The understanding that written letters systematically represent sounds. For example, the word big has three letters and three sounds.

Big books - Oversized books that allow children to see the print and pictures as we read them.

Cognitive development - Children's developing knowledge, skills, and dispositions, which help them to think about and understand the world around them.

Decoding - The translation of the letters in written words into recognizable sounds and combining these sounds into meaningful words.

Emergent literacy - The view that literacy learning begins at birth and is encouraged through participation with adults in meaningful literacy-related activities.

Environmental print - Printed materials that are a part of everyday life. They include signs, billboards, labels, and business logos.

Explicit instruction - Teaching children in a systematic and sequential manner.

Experimental writing - Young children experiment with writing by creating pretend and real letters and by organizing scribbles and marks on paper.

Invented spelling - Phonemic-based spelling where children create their own non-conventional spelling.

Letter knowledge - The ability to identify the names and shapes of the letters of the alphabet.

Journals - Writing books in which young learners scribble, draw, and use their own spellings to write about their experiences.

Literacy - Includes all the activities involved in speaking, listening, reading, writing, and appreciating both spoken and written language.

Metacognition - thinking about one's thinking

Phonemes - The smallest parts of spoken language that combine to form words. For example, the word hit is made up of three phonemes (h-i-t) and differs by one phoneme from the words pit, hip and hot.

Phonemic Awareness - The ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds--phonemes--in spoken words.

Phonics - The understanding that there is a predictable relationship between phonemes (the sounds of spoken language) and graphemes (the letters and spellings that represent those sounds in written language).

Phonological awareness - A broad term that includes phonemic awareness. In addition to phonemes, phonological awareness activities can involve work with rhymes, words, syllables, and onsets and rimes.

Print awareness - The knowledge that printed words carry meaning and that reading and writing are ways to obtain ideas and information. A young child's sensitivity to print is one of the first steps toward reading.

Sight vocabulary - Words that a reader recognizes without having to sound them out.

Vocabulary - The words we must know in order to communicate effectively. Oral vocabulary refers to words that we use in speaking or recognize in listening. Reading vocabulary refers to words we recognize or use in print.

Word recognition - Using any one of a number of strategies such as recognition by sight or decoding so as to figure out their meaning.

Word Wall-A word wall is a systematically organized collection of words displayed in large letters on a wall or other large display place in the classroom. It is a tool to use, not just display. Word walls are designed to promote active  learning.