Glossary A - I

Affective:
Things that relate to or influence the feelings, emotions, attitudes and values of a student.

Affix:
A general term that refers to prefixes and suffixes.

Alliteration:
The repetition of the initial phoneme of each word in connected text (e.g., Harry the happy hippo hula-hoops with Henrietta).

Alphabetic Principle:
The principle that letters and letter combinations represent individual phonemes in words in written language.

Assessment:
A process used to gather information about students. It may be a screening, progress monitoring, diagnostic, or outcome measure and should be used to help inform instruction.

Benchmark:
A critical target that occurs for each reading skill at a single assessment period.

Blending:
Quickly combining sounds to accurately represent a word.

Box & Whiskers Graph:
A way to visually represent a range of scores. For example, how a classroom is performing in relation to a target score.

Code Focused:
Any planned or unplanned instructional activity that is intended to provoke language learners to pay attention to linguistic form. Code focused activities stress letter-sound correspondence and emphasize decoding to the point of automatic recognition.

Cognitive:
Relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity (as thinking, reasoning, or remembering).

Coherence:
In terms of linguistics, it is what makes a text semantically meaningful.

Comprehension:
Understanding what one is reading, the ultimate goal of all reading activity.

Conceptual Categories:
As related to words, vocabulary that is grouped based on common attributes.

Conjunction:
An uninflected linguistic form that joins together sentences, clauses, phrases, or words.

Connected Text:
Words that are linked as opposed to words in a list, as in sentences, phrases, and paragraphs.

Contextual Analysis:
A word-learning strategy used to infer meaning from the surrounding text and definitions.

Core Reading Program:
The primary instructional tool that teachers use to teach children to learn to read; typically referred to as a basal because it serves as the base of reading instruction.

Criterion Referenced:
Results are according to a standard already in place. It reflects the extent to which goals are met and more effectively describes content mastery.

Decoding:
The ability to translate a word from print to speech, usually by using knowledge of sound-symbol correspondences; also, it is the act of deciphering a new word by sounding it out.

Derivational Suffix:
A suffix that is added to the end of a word to change the word’s grammatical role or its part of speech. Derivational endings may change the root word’s spelling or pronunciation considerably (-ous, -tion, -ful).

Diagnostic:
Used to measure a variety of reading, language, or cognitive skills. Although they can be given as soon as a screening test indicates a student is behind in reading growth, they will usually be given only if a student fails to make adequate progress after receiving extra help in learning to read. Diagnostic tests are designed to provide a more precise and detailed picture of the full range of a student’s knowledge and skills so that instruction can be more precisely planned.

Direct Instruction:
The teacher defines and teaches a concept, guides students through its application, and arranges for extended guided practice until mastery is achieved.

Effectiveness of Core Reading Instruction (ECI):
Index that shows the percentage of students who begin the year reading “on grade level”, continue to meet grade level expectations at the mid-year assessment, and make grade level expectations at the end-of-year assessment.

Effectiveness of Instruction (EI):
This index shows the percentage of students who begin the year at some level of risk for reading difficulties (reading below grade level) but progress to a lower level of risk or to grade level at the mid year or end of year assessment (e.g. they move from “Intensive” to “Strategic” or ”Initial”, or from “Strategic” to “Initial”).

Emergent Literacy Skills:
The skills, knowledge, and attitudes that are developmental forerunners to conventional forms of reading and writing.

Explicit Instruction:
Teacher-led, interactive instruction that directly presents both the material and the relationships which need to be learned. The teacher models expectations, provides teacher-student practice (which supports students by giving immediate corrective feedback), provides student practice, and provides opportunities for independent practice.

Expository Text:
Genre of reading that reports factual information and highlights relationships among ideas. Expository text tends to be more difficult for students than narrative text due to its density of long, difficult, and unknown words or word parts.

Expression:
Lively indication or depiction of mood or sentiment while reading text; this includes facial movement or vocal intonation to indicate feeling and is indicative of a student’s fluency and comprehension.

Fluency:
Ability to read text quickly, accurately, and with proper expression. Fluency provides a bridge between word recognition and comprehension.

Formal Assessment:
Follows a prescribed format for administration and scoring. Scores obtained from formal tests are standardized, meaning that interpretation is based on norms from a comparative sample of children.

Full Year Student:
A student who has been in the class for the entire school year.

Guided Practice:
Students practice newly learned skills with the teacher providing prompts and feedback.

High-Frequency Words:
A small group of words (300-500) that account for a large percentage of the words in print and can be regular or irregular words. Often, they are referred to as “sight words” since automatic recognition of these words is required for fluent reading.

Immediate Intensive Intervention:
Specifically designed and customized instruction for homogeneous small group or one-on-one reading instruction. It is considered “immediate” because it should begin as soon as the teacher is aware that a student is lagging seriously behind in one or more critical reading skills. It involves systematic and explicit instruction that specifically address the student’s deficiency in a component skill. It also involves more progress monitoring on target skills to ensure adequate progress.

Independent Reading Level:
The level at which a reader can read text with 95% accuracy (i.e., no more than one error per 20 words read). Independent reading level is relatively easy text for the reader.

Indices:
A number or formula expressing a property or ratio (e.g., index of growth; index of intelligence).

Inference:
A conclusion drawn by a reader from a phrase, sentence, and/or passage.

Inflectional Suffix:
In English, a suffix that expresses plurality or possession when added to a noun, tense when added to a verb, and comparison when added to an adjective and some adverbs. A major difference between inflectional and derivational morphemes is that inflections added to verbs, nouns, or adjectives do not change the grammatical role or part of speech of the base words (-s,-es, -ing, -ed).

Informal Assessment:
Does not follow prescribed rules for administration and scoring and has not undergone technical scrutiny for reliability and validity. Teacher-made tests, end-of-unit tests, and running records are all examples of informal assessment.

Informational Text:
Genre of reading that includes expository, persuasive, and procedural writings.

Instructional Reading Level:
The level at which a reader can read text with 90% accuracy (i.e., no more than one error per 10 words read). Instructional reading level engages the student in challenging, but manageable text.

Intonation:
The rise and fall of pitch in the voice while reading a text aloud.

S - Z