Add-on blending: A method for sounding out short, regular words that involves the student starting with the vowel and then blending it together with the initial consonant. The remaining letters are added on individually until the student blends the whole word together.

Auditory: Related to hearing.

Blending: Orally combining the separate sound units of a word into an integrated whole; orally combining the separate sound units of a word to produce the whole word. Example: |ssss| |aaaa| |t|, |ss| |aa| |t|, 'sat'.

CVC words: Words with the following sequence of letters: consonant, vowel, consonant. Example: lad, cow, pen, etc.

CVCe words: Words with the following sequence of letters: consonant, vowel, consonant, and then followed by a silent E at the end. Examples: take, dive, life, etc.

CVVC words: Words with the following sequence of letters: consonant, vowel, vowel, consonant. Examples: look, beam, bait, meet, etc.

Covert: Not readily apparent.

Decoding: The ability relating a sequence of letters in print to their corresponding sounds, allowing the reader to translate the sequence into a word.

Digraph: Digraph: Two consecutive letters that make only one sound. Examples, beat, train, and bread

Explicit: Completely and clearly expressed without ambiguity or vagueness.

Fluency: In the area of reading, the skill of reading with accuracy, speed and ease.

Grapheme: The alphabetic letter or letters that correspond to one particular phoneme, or sound. Examples: The grapheme, or letter, 't' corresponds to the phoneme, or sound, '|t|.

Minimal pair: Two very similar words often used for discrimination practice. One word of the pair is the example word and contains the new phonetic element; the other word is the contrast word and contains familiar letter(s) which substitute for the new phonetic element. Examples: beat/seat, feet/meet/, stop/mop.

Overt: Open; apparent.

Perceptual enhancers: Tools that help students make multiple and stronger associations among new things they are learning. Examples of perceptual enhancers include alphabet posters, pictures to represent sounds, stories, songs, and hand movements.

Phoneme: The smallest speech sounds that make a difference in the meaning of a word. (There are 39-45 phonemes in the English language.)

Phoneme awareness: "An explicit understanding that words are composed of segments of sound smaller than a syllable, as well as knowledge, or awareness, of the distinctive features of individual phonemes themselves." (Torgesen, 1999, p. 129)

Phonics: The systematic way that specific letters or graphemes are used to represent the different phonemes in spoken words.

Phonological awareness: The broadest term used to refer to one's acute sensitivity to the sound structures of words. The ability to recognize and manipulate different sizes of sound units, including syllables, rhyming units, onset rime units and phonemes.

Proficient readers: Individuals who effectively and independently use skills and strategies to construct meaning from print.

Prosody: The pitch, loudness, tempo, and rhythm patterns of spoken language that result in phrasing and expression.

Rime: The ending portion of the onset-rime unit of a syllable. Whereas the onset of a syllable is the initial consonant, consonant blend or consonant cluster, the rime portion of the syllable consists of the vowel and consonants at the end of the syllable. Example: the onset of the syllable 'feet' is 'f' and the rime portion is 'eet'. When comparing spoken words, the same rime units sound the same (e.g., 'feet' and 'seat' would have the same phonemic rime |E| |t|). In written language, although the rime portion of two different words may sound the same, they are not the same unless they have the exact same spelling pattern. Example: the written spellings for the words 'seat' and 'heat' would have the same rime because they are both spelled 'eat'; however, the words 'feet' and 'seat' would not have the same rime because they are spelled differently, 'eet' and 'eat'. Not to be confused with the word 'rhyme' in which two words that sound the same at the end of the word are considered to 'rhyme' regardless of the spelling patterns.

Sight word: A word that is instantly recognized as a whole when seen and requires no analysis for identification.

Strategy: A method or plan that uses personal resources to complete a task efficiently and effectively; an individual's approach to a task; how a person thinks and acts when planning, executing, and evaluating the performance of a task and its outcomes.

Word recognition: The ability to identify and read a word and understand its meaning.