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This Glossary contains explanations of acronyms and abbreviations used throughout the site as well as the definitions of words and terms.
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ABE = Adult Basic Education.
ABLE = Adult Basic Learning
Examination
Academic Word List
The Academic Word List is a compilation of words that appear
in college texts and college level reading materials. Words are arranged
according to how common a word is to all the texts scanned and to how
frequently it appears.
Affix
Affixes are word parts that are either attached to the beginnings of
words (prefixes) or to the ending of words (suffixes). The word unhelpfulful
has two affixes, a prefix (un-) and a suffix (-ful).
AMES = Adult Measure
of Essential Skills
Alphabetic Language
A language that that uses letters and letter combinations to represent
sounds of speech.
Alphabetics
"Alphabetics is the use of letters 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" (Kruidenier, 2002).
ARCS = The Adult Reading Components Study
The ARCS is a project of the National Center for the Study of
Adult Learning and Literacy. The ARCS assessed the reading of
676 ABE learners and grouped them according to similarities in their
performance on several reading components. To create the profiles featured on this website, researchers analyzed the reading performance of a subset of 569 learners from the ARCS.
ARCS Comparison Profile
Scores entered in the interactive section of this site are analyzed
and matched to an ARCS Comparison Profile, one of the eleven profiles
created from a dataset of 569 adult learners who participated in the
Adult Reading Components Study.
ASE = Adult Secondary Education
Assessment
The gathering of information from several measurements to show strengths
and weaknesses on a particular ability, or of a particular attribute.
The terms, assessment and test are often used interchangeably.
Assisted Oral Reading
Assisted oral reading refers to a mature reader's support of a learner's
oral reading by helping with word recognition, or by reading orally
along with him/her. Paired reading (partner) and choral reading (whole
class) are forms of assisted oral reading.
Automaticity
Automaticity of a skill is achieved when it can be performed with
little or no conscious attention to its execution. Automaticity of word
recognition frees conscious attention for comprehension. (See also Mastery and Automaticity.)
Average
An average is a way to describe the most typical of a full range of
scores from the lowest to the highest. An arithmetic average is the
total of all values (scores) divided by the number of values (scores).
Mean is another term for average.
Blend
To blend sounds is to join one to another seamlessly. Sounds of individual
letters, digraphs, and dipthongs are blended to form syllables. The
individual sounds of c, a, and t flow from one to the
next as they are blended to form cat.
CASAS = Comprehensive Adult
Student Assessment System
Cluster Analysis
A statistical procedure whereby people or items are grouped according
to their similarity on measures of interest to the researcher.
Collaborative Oral Reading
In collaborative reading, teacher and pupil alternate or read a passage
in unison. See also "Assisted Oral Reading."
Consonant Blend
Two or three consecutive consonants, each altering its own sound just
enough to join seamlessly to its neighbor. Examples are: bl,
str, and sn.
Components of Reading
The several sub-skills of fluent reading ability. They are often caegorized
as Print (Alphabetic) skills and Meaning Skills.
CREVT-2 = Comprehensive
Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test
Criterion-referenced Tests
Criterion-referenced tests are assessments of a specified level of
an ability or a specified body of information. Classroom tests that
assess learners' mastery of a specific lesson are one type of criterion-referenced
test as are published tests that use graded materials to find a learner's
level of mastery. The DAR is a criterion-referenced test.
DAR = Diagnostic Assessments
of Reading
Decode
To decode is to attach sounds to letters and groups of letters that
make up a word and then to blend them to say the word.
Digraph
A digraph is two letters together that make one sound. Examples of consonant
digraphs are: ch, sh, and ck, and of vowel digraphs,
ea, aw.
Dipthong
A dipthong is a vowel sound produced when the tongue moves or glides
from one vowel sound toward another vowel or semivowel sound in the
same syllable, as in buy and the vowel sounds in bee, bay,
boo, and bough.
Direct Teaching
Teacher-directed instruction of specific skills.
Encode
To encode is to "write the code" for a spoken word, to spell. It is
the opposite of decode.
ESOL = English for Speakers of
Other Languages
EVT = Expressive Vocabulary
Test
Expressive Vocabulary
Expressive vocabulary refers to the body of words whose meanings are known
well enough to use them in speaking or writing. It is also referred to
as the speaking, oral or productive vocabulary.
It is comprised of a smaller number of words than the
listening vocabulary or receptive vocabulary
whose meanings may be less well understood.
Fluency
Reading fluency is the ability to read accurately and smoothly at a
rate close to that of speech with appropriate intonation and rhythm.
GE = Grade Equivalent
"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" (Kruidenier,
2002).
GED = The General Education Development Test
The GED refers to developing
skills taught in secondary schools.
GORT-4 = Gray Oral Reading
Test
Independent Reading Level
The reading level at which at least 95% of words can be read accurately.
Leisure Reading Level
Level at which a reader is able to accurately read 95% of a selection's
words and understand its content. More commonly this level is called the
Independent Reading Level.
Lexicon
Generally, a dictionary; In reading it can refer to a reader's receptive/listening bank of word meanings.
Listening Comprehension Tests
Listening comprehension tests are graded passages that are read aloud
by the teacher to which students answer comprehension questions. They
are helpful in assessing English language comprehension of ESOL learners
and for assessing text comprehension ability of beginning and low intermediate
native English readers.
Listening vocabulary
See receptive vocabulary.
Mastery and Automaticity
When learners are reliably able to perform a skill, we say they have
mastery of that skill. For example, someone who is able to read
a Grade 5 word list may hesitate between words or give evidence of having
to use elementary word attack skills to figure them out, but unless
there is obviuos deliberate effort to decode the words, we say that
he or she has mastery of word recognition at Grade 5.
This same person, however, may be able to read a Grade 3 word list
accurately with no evidence of having to use word attack skills: the
words are recognized automatically. We can say this person has word
recognition mastery of Grade 5 words and automaticity
at Grade 3.
The difference between these concepts is the level of conscious application
of underlying skills that are called upon in order to accomplish a task.
Consideration of ease, accuracy, and rate of performance are the yardsticks
for automaticity.
Native Speakers of English (NSE)
NSE means that the first language a person learned to speak was English.
NCSALL = National Center for the
Study of Adult Learning and Literacy
NIFL = National Institute For Literacy
Non-native Speakers of English (NNSE)
NNSE means that the first language a person learned to speak was other
than English.
Norm-referenced Tests
A test that enables a score to be compared to levels of achievement
of a specified group of people (norming population).
NRP = National Reading Panel
Onset
The part of the syllable that comes before the vowel. Some syllables begin
with vowels and therefore do not have onsets. The part of the syllable
that comes after the vowel and the vowel is the rime.
Oral Reading Rate
Oral Reading Rate is the number of words per minute a person can
read in a passage that is at their leisure reading level.
Orthography
The writing system of a language - spelling.
PA= Phoneme Awareness
The ability to isolate separate sounds (phonemes) in a word and be able
to manipulate them. Tests of phoneme awareness may require the deletion
or substitution of phonemes in a given word. For example, a deletion
task: "Say plant", "Now, say it again, but don't say /t/ (say
the sound of t); or a sustitution task: "Say plant",
"Now change the /p/ to /s/ (say the sounds of the letters) and say the
word".
PPVT-III = Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test
Phonics
"The study of the relationships between letters and the sounds
they represent; also used to describe reading instruction that teaches
sound-symbol correspondences, such as 'the phonics approach' or 'phonic
reading'" (Moats,
2000).
Phonological Awareness
"Metalinguistic awareness of all levels of the speech sound system,
including word boundaries, stress patterns, syllables, onset-rime units,
and phonemes; a more encompassing term than phoneme
awareness" (Moats, 2000).
Productive Vocabulary
The body of words whose meanings are known well enough to become
part of a person's speech.
Prosody
As applied to reading, reading with appropriate intonation and rhythm.
READ Test = Reading
Evaluation - Adult Diagnosis Test
Receptive Vocabulary
The body of words we know well enough to understand when listening or
reading. Receptive vocabulary is the larger bank of known word
meanings because it includes productive vocabulary.
Receptive vocabulary is often called listening vocabulary.
Reliability of Tests
A test has high reliability if it consistently gives the same results
under different testing conditions, with different examiners, when administered
in different places, or between two forms of the test.
Rime
The part of a syllable that comes after the vowel and the vowel is the
rime . Syllables in which y is the vowel such as -bly
and other syllables that end in a vowels, such as po-lice,
do not have rimes, only
onsets.
Shared Reading
See "Assisted Oral Reading" or "Collaborative Oral Reading."
SORT-R = Slosson Oral
Reading Test-Revised
Standard Deviation (See Standard
Scores, below)
Standard Scores
A standard score interprets a raw score in terms of how far it is from
the average of a group score. The unit that tells the distance from
the average is the standard deviation (sd) for that reference group.
The standard deviation (sd) is always given for a standard score. Two
thirds of the people who are in a test's reference group score between
-1 and +1 standard deviations. If your learner scores within -1 sd and
+1 sd she/he is in the low to high average range; above +1 sd, he/she
is in the top 15% of the group; if your learner scores below -1 sd,
she/he is in the lowest 15% of the reference group on the ability being
measured.
Standardized Tests
Tests that are administered and scored according to set procedures and
under the same conditions so that learners' scores have the same meaning
and are not influenced by differing conditions.
Structural Analysis
"Structural analysis commonly 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).
TABE = Test of Adult
Basic Education
TOWRE = Test of Word
Reading Efficiency
Validity of Tests
A test is valid if it measures what it claims to measure. It is a statistical
construct derived from appropriate evidence.
Visual Memory
In the context of language, visual memory is the ability to remember
forms of letters, sight words, and spelling patterns of phonetically
irregular words.
Vowel
"A voiced speech sound
made without stoppage or friction of the air flow as it passes though the vocal tract" (Harris & Hodges, 1995).
WAIS-III = Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-III
WMT = Word Meaning Test
Word Attack Assessments
Word attack assessments are tests of phonics. They are most often lists
of pseudowords that are made up of the phonic elements being assessed.
For example, these words could test mastery of final e constructions:
fipe, sele, or tane. If real words are used there is the
possibility of their being sight words so that little information would be gained about the reader's mastery
of particular phonetic constructions.
Word Meaning Tests
Word meaning tests assess a person's knowledge of words by how well
she/he is able to define or describe a given word. The more completely
a word's meaning is expressed, the better it is known, and the more
likely it is to be in the person's productive
vocabulary.
WPM = Words per Minute
WRAT-3 = Wide Range Achievement
Test
WRMT-R = Woodcock Reading
Mastery Test-Revised
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