February 2008
Tutoring Tip:
Literacy Definitions
Does the teacher in your classroom ever refer to reading skills vocabulary that mystify you? Here is a list of common words that teachers use when talking about teaching children to read:
Phoneme – single unit of sound, ex. /b/ as in boy
Segmenting – Taking apart sounds, ex, cat = /c/-/a/-/t/
Blending – Putting together sounds, ex /c/-/a/-/t/ = cat
Phonemic Awareness – involves the awareness of individual phonemes (sounds) of the language and manipulation of these sounds. It involves tasks such as rhyming, segmenting, blending, deleting and substituting sounds. Good ability to process and manipulate sound structures in our language, facilitates the acquisition of reading and spelling.
Decode – read words
Encode – spell words
Syllable – single unit of speech that contains one vowel sound, ex, nap kin = 2 syllables = 2 vowel sounds
