ABE    Adult Basic Education

Alphabetics    Alphabetics is the use of letters in an alphabet to represent spoken words. Because spoken words are made up of smaller, more basic sounds (phonemes), alphabetics includes phonemic awareness, or knowing how phonemes are combined to make words. It also includes phonics or letter-sound knowledge-knowing the relationship between letters or letter combinations and the sounds they represent, and how these are put together to form words. The word cat, for example, is made up of three sounds represented by the letters c, a, and t.

Assessment     Gathering data to understand students' strengths and weaknesses in reading (Harris & Hodges, 1995, p. 12).

Assessment Profile     A reading profile is obtained by measuring a student's ability in several aspects of the reading process: alphabetics, fluency, vocabulary, and/or comprehension. Profiles are used during reading instruction to highlight students' relative strengths and needs in reading.

Automaticity     Automaticity in reading is the ability to read fluently without having to spend a lot of effort on or attention to recognizing words. This saved effort or attention can be devoted to comprehension, for example.

Blending    In phonemic awareness instruction, putting individual sounds together to form a word or a part of a word. In phonics instruction, putting together individual sounds represented by letters of letter combinations. For example, the sounds represented by the letters c, a, and t, when blended make the word cat.

Blends    In phonics instruction, describes common sounds consisting of more than one phoneme or basic sound. Examples of blends are str (three basic sounds blended together), br (two sounds), gl, and spl.

Cloze test     A test of reading comprehension. Students read a passage in which words are missing at regular intervals (every fifth word is deleted for example). The student must figure out what the missing words are as they read.

Comprehension    See Reading Comprehension.

Comprehension monitoring     A reading comprehension strategy used to help understand a text that is being read. Readers are aware or conscious of how well they are understanding a text as they read, and know what to do (what procedures to use) when they have a problem in understanding (NRP, p. 4-6, 4-69).

Cooperative learning approach to teaching reading comprehension    Students work together in pairs or small groups on clearly defined tasks designed to teach reading comprehension strategies (NRP, p. 4-6, 4-69).

ESL     English as a Second Language

ESOL     English for Speaker of Other Languages

Experimental research    In this report, experimental reading instruction research includes studies that (1) objectively compare groups of learners receiving different forms of reading instruction and (2) use statistical procedures to help determine how likely it is that one approach is significantly different from another. These studies are designed to increase our confidence in drawing conclusions about the effectiveness of a particular approach to instruction.

Family literacy     A literacy program that provides adults with instruction "on how to foster literacy in their children or other young relatives." The program may also provide direct literacy instruction for children and/or adults, and may involve classes where adults and children are working together (Harris & Hodges, 1995).

Fluency     Fluency in reading is the ability to read with speed and ease. When readers are fluent, they read accurately, without making mistakes in pronunciation, with appropriate rate, intonation, and rhythm.

GE    see Grade Equivalent Score

GED    General Educational Development

GED Test    Test of General Educational Development

General functional literacy     A specific goal in some literacy programs. A functionally literate adult is able to perform all of the reading, writing, and computing (math) necessary to carry out everyday tasks. Some examples of everyday tasks include reading product labels while shopping, reading transportation timetables, reading letters from federal, state, and local agencies, writing a check, and using an ATM machine.

Grade Equivalent Score or GE     A test score that is used to convert raw scores on a test (the number of correct answers, for example) into something more meaningful. It represents the grade placement for which the raw score is average. A GE of 6, for example, means that the score received is an average score for someone in the 6th grade. Grade Equivalent Scores need to be interpreted carefully because they are, in most cases, estimates. Different test publishers may use different procedures to estimate GE scores.

A GE may also be based on the readability score of a passage of text. Readability scores are derived from formulas that are used to estimate how difficult a passage is. For example, a readability score may be based on the difficulty of individual words and how complex the sentences in the passage are. These scores are often expressed in terms of grade equivalents. A passage with a readability score of GE 6, for example, would be a passage that students in a sixth grade classroom could read and understand. On some tests, such as Informal Reading Inventories, if a student is able to read a passage with a readability score of GE 6, they are given a score of 6 for the passage.

Grapheme     Letters or groups of letters in an alphabet used to represent the phonemes (basic sounds) in a language.

Graphic and semantic organizers     A reading comprehension strategy used to help understand a text that is being read. Readers represent graphically (write or draw) the ideas and the relationships between ideas they find in a text (NRP, p. 4-6, 4-69).

Guided oral reading    An instructional technique where students read text aloud and an instructor or helper (such as a peer tutor) provides feedback on the students reading. Feedback might include, for example, help in pronouncing difficult words, help with the meanings of difficult words, information about long it took to read a passage and how fluency might be increased, or help in applying reading comprehension strategies.

Inferential Reading Comprehension    Inferential comprehension is the ability to draw valid inferences from the ideas or information presented in a text. It is constructive in the sense that ideas from a text are combined with ideas in our memory in order to create ideas that are not in the text. We cannot answer an inferential reading comprehension question simply by looking back in the text.

LD    Learning Disability

Learner profile     see Assessment Profile

Learning disability    A severe difficulty in learning to read, write, or compute. Those with learning disability have a significant discrepancy between what is expected of them given their general level of cognitive ability and their actual reading, writing, or mathematical ability or achievement. They may also have significant listening or speaking difficulties. Their difficulty is not due to mental retardation, social or emotional problems, sensory impairment (such as severe vision problems), or environmental factors (such as poor schooling).

Literal Reading Comprehension    Literal comprehension is the ability to recall specific ideas or pieces of information from a text that has been read, or to make very simple inferences from this information.

Listening vocabulary    Words we understand or know the meanings of and use as we listen to others.

Morphology    The study of the use of prefixes, suffixes, and compounding to form words.

NALS    National Adult Literacy Survey

NCSALL    National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy

NIFL    National Institute For Literacy

Nonsense word    A nonsense word, like a psuedoword, conforms to the rules of English spelling but is not a real word. CLAT, for example, can be pronounced because it conforms to the rules of English, but is nevertheless not a word. TQBL, on the other hand is just a random sequence of letters that both cannot be pronounced and is not a word.

NRC    National Research Council of the National Academy of Science

NREI    National Reading Excellence Initiative

NRP    National Reading Panel

Oral reading    Reading passages or other text out load, usually as a teacher listens. See guided oral reading.

Oral vocabulary    Words we know the meanings of and use as we listen and speak.

PA    Phonemic Awareness

Percentile rank     A test score that is used to convert raw scores (number of correct answers) into something more meaningful. Percentile rank is the percentage of test takers who had a raw score that was the same as or higher than a given score. If a student received a raw score of 15 on a test and this put the student in the 75th percentile, it would mean that the student had a higher score than 75% of those who take the test.

Phoneme     The smallest unit of sound in a language. The spoken word CAT, for example, has three phonemes (the sounds represented by the letters C, A, and T). A phoneme may be represented by single letters, or groups of letters. The word BACK has four phonemes, the sounds represented by the individual letters B, A, C, and the two-letter combination CK)

Phoneme awareness    An awareness that spoken language is made up of discrete units, the smallest of which is a phoneme. Refers to the ability to focus on and manipulate phonemes in spoken words.

Phoneme deletion    Deleting a sound from a word or nonsense word. For example, deleting the first consonant sound from the word BAT leaves the word AT.

Phoneme classification     Usually the ability, as in an assessment of phoneme awareness, to classify two sounds (phonemes) as the same or different. For example, the beginning sounds for the words BAT and BIP are the same, the middle vowels are different, and the ending consonants are different.

Phoneme reversal     The ability, in an assessment of phoneme awareness, to reverse phonemes. A 3-phoneme word or nonword is heard, for example, and the student repeats it backwards. Examples: Hears PAT, says TAP; hears PIT says TIP; hears PIN says NIP.

Phoneme segmentation    The ability, in an assessment of phoneme awareness, to indicate the number of individual phonemes or sounds in a word. One method, for example, asks readers to put down a chip for each sound that they hear in a word or nonword. If HAT were pronounced, three chips would be put down. BUNT would have four sounds (and four chips).

Phonics     Teaching students how to use grapheme-phoneme (letter-sound) correspondences to decode or spell words. Knowing how the letters t, b, and oa can be pronounced, a student can blend them together to decode the word b-oa-t.

Phonogram    A letter-sound combination that includes more than one grapheme or phoneme. Examples of common phonograms are ole (in hole, mole, role) and ake (as in make, bake, lake). Another term sometimes used for phonograms is word family.

Pseudoword     A word that conforms to the rules of English spelling but is not a real word. CLAT, for example, can be pronounced because it conforms to the rules of English, but is nevertheless not a word. TQBL, on the other hand is just a random sequence of letters that both cannot be pronounced and is not a word. Also called a nonsense word.

Question asking     See question generation

Question answering    A reading comprehension teaching strategy used to help students understand a text that is being read. "The reader answers questions posed by the teacher and is given feedback on the correctness." Focuses on the content of a passage (looking back to find answers) or on inferences that can be drawn from the passage (NRP, p. 4-6, 4-69).

Question generation    A reading comprehension strategy used to help understand a text that is being read. Readers ask themselves "what, when, where, why, what will happen, how, and who questions" (NRP, p. 4-6, 4-69).

Rate     Reading rate. The speed at which someone reads text. Reading rate is usually measure as the number of words read per minute (words per minute).

REA    Reading Excellence Act

Reading accuracy     How well a reader can pronounce words while reading text. Accuracy is usually measured as the number or percentage of words read correctly. Accuracy is one aspect of fluency.

Reading Assessment Profile     A list of a student's assessment or test results for several aspects of the reading process: alphabetics, fluency, vocabulary, and/or comprehension. Profiles highlight students' relative strengths and needs in reading.

Reading comprehension     Reading comprehension is understanding a text that is read, or the process of "constructing meaning" from a text. Comprehension is a "construction process" because it involves all of the elements of the reading process working together as a text is read to create a representation of the text in the reader's mind.

Reading disability     Traditionally, those whose reading achievement is significantly below what is expected for their age or grade level. One form of a learning disability, in which individuals of at least average cognitive ability nevertheless have a significant reading, computing, writing, speaking, or listening difficulty.

Reading rate    The speed at which someone reads text. Reading rate is usually measure as the number of words read per minute (words per minute).

Repeated guided oral reading     A teaching technique used to increase reading fluency. Students "read and reread a text over and over. This repeated reading usually is done some number of times or until a prespecified level of proficiency has been reached." Repeated reading procedures also "increase the amount of oral reading practice that is available through the use of one-to-one instruction, tutors, audiotapes, peer guidance, or other means." Teachers provide guidance during repeated readings by helping a student pronounce difficult words, alerting a student to punctuation that shows readers where to pause, giving a student information about their reading rate or speed (how fast they read the passage), giving a student information about their reading accuracy (how many words they read correctly), modeling fluent reading for a student, or reading the passage along with a student (NRP, p. 3-20).

Repeated reading     See Repeated guided oral reading.

RRWG    Reading Research Working Group

Sight word     Words that are recognized "on sight" without having to be sounded out, or words that are taught as whole words because they are irregular or unusual, as opposed to being learned through phonics.

Speaking vocabulary     Words we understand or know the meanings of and use as we speak.

Story structure comprehension strategy     A reading comprehension strategy used to help understand a story that is being read. Readers use the common or universal structure of a story to ask who, where, what, when, and why questions about the story characters and plot. Readers also might map out the time line, characters, and events in stories (NRP, p. 4-6, 4-69).

Structural analysis    Structural analysis "involves the identification of roots, affixes, compounds, hyphenated forms, inflected and derived endings, contractions, and, in some cases syllabication." It is "sometimes used as an aid to pronunciation or in combination with phonic analysis in word-analysis programs" (Harris & Hodges, 1995).

Summarization     A reading comprehension strategy used to help understand a text that is being read. "The reader attempts to identify and write the main or most important ideas that integrate or unite the other ideas or meanings of a text into a coherent whole." Working with paragraphs, readers identify what is trivial, what is important, and what the topic of a paragraph is. Passages with multiple paragraphs can be summarized by creating summaries for individual paragraphs and then summarizing these summaries (NRP, p. 4-6, 4-69,).

Vocabulary     Vocabulary is a term used to refer to all of the words in a language. One person's vocabulary consists of all the words the person understands or knows the meaning of. "Vocabulary words" in reading instruction are usually those words that a person is studying in order to learn their meanings.

WA    Word Analysis

Word analysis     Includes phonics as well as other methods for decoding or spelling words such as sight word recognition, use of context cues, dictionary skills, and morphology (the use of prefixes, suffixes, and compounding to form words).

Workplace literacy     An adult literacy program that provides instruction on work-related reading, writing, or math abilities. Literacy instruction may take place at the workplace, or it may take place in a non-work setting while using work-oriented instructional material or focusing on work-oriented reading tasks (reading manuals, completing employment forms, reading and writing memos, and so on).