Download A Primer on Reading Terminology

A Primer on
Reading
Terminology
AUTOMATICITY
• Readers construct meaning through
recognition of words and passages
(strings of words).
• Proficient readers read words and
strings of words rapidly and effortlessly
– this is called automaticity.
DECODING
• Decoding is a series of strategies used
selectively by readers to recognize and read
written words.
• The process of converting the printed word
into its spoken form is called decoding.
• Decoding involves looking at a word and
connecting the letters with sounds, and then
blending those sounds together to form a
spoken word.
WORD RECOGNITION
• Decoding leads to word recognition when the
reader connects the spoken form of a word
to its meaning.
• When the reader recognizes and understands
the meaning of strings of words in text, we
say the reader comprehends the text.
PHONEMIC AWARENESS
• A phoneme is the smallest and most basic unit
of speech.
• Phonemic awareness is the understanding that
every spoken word is made up of one or more
phonemes, or speech sounds.
• Phonemic awareness involves the ability to hear,
blend and segment phonemes in spoken words.
• It is an auditory skill that does not involve the
use of prints.
PHONICS
• The difference between phonemic awareness
and phonics is that phonemic awareness
involves sounds in spoken words and phonics
involves teaching the relationship between
spoken sounds and written symbols.
• Phonics is the study and use of
sound/spelling correspondences and syllable
patterns to help identify written words.
READING COMPREHENSION
• Comprehension is an active, engaged
cognitive process of weaving individual
words into phrases, clauses, sentences, and
paragraphs, thinking about what the author
is saying, connecting it to prior knowledge,
and arriving at an understanding.
• A reader’s prior, or background, knowledge
consists not only of prior personal
experiences, conceptual learning, topic and
text-type knowledge, and reading
experiences, but also prior stored knowledge
about how print works, and about letters and
letter patterns and their spelling pairings.
• Reading comprehension is at the heart of
academic learning in all subject areas.
• Reading comprehension is essential to obtaining
an education and to lifelong learning as well.
• RC is a complex, cognitive process that requires
explicit vocabulary development, an active
interaction between the reader and the text,
and the direct involvement of well trained
teachers.
• The basic elements of reading comprehension
can help teachers begin to focus on instructional
strategies with the greatest chance of success of
teaching all students to be active, competent
readers.
• Research also tells us that reading
comprehension can be taught, and that in
fact all students benefit from instruction in
comprehension strategies such as using
context clues, breaking words apart to
understand their meanings, summarizing,
and predicting what will come next.
READING FLUENCY
• Reading fluency is the accuracy and rate with
which students read.
• RF significantly affects the reader’s ability to
comprehend and it is the mark of a proficient
reader.
• Fluency involves recognizing words
automatically, understanding the phrasing of
text, and applying rapid phonic, structural, and
contextual analysis to identify unknown words.
• For fluent readers, the decoding processes are
so automatic they do not require any conscious
attention.
• An additional dimension to fluency is known as
prosody, or the natural rhythms and tones of
spoken language.
• Two approaches to teaching reading fluency
have been commonly used.
– One, guided oral reading, encourages students to
read (and re-read) passages orally with systematic
and explicit guidance and feedback.
– The other, independent silent reading, encourages
students to read often, and silently, on their own
with minimal guidance.