FTCE Middle Grades English 5-9 (014) flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Phonemic awareness

The ability to identify and manipulate individual phonemes, the smallest units of spoken sound, in words. It is a subset of phonological awareness and a strong predictor of early reading success.

Phonics

Instruction that teaches the relationship between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes) so that students can decode unfamiliar words and encode words when spelling. It requires print.

Morpheme

The smallest unit of language that carries meaning. Free morphemes can stand alone as words; bound morphemes, such as prefixes and suffixes, must attach to a base or root.

Derivational affix

A prefix or suffix that changes a word's meaning or part of speech, such as un- in unhappy or -ness in kindness. It contrasts with inflectional affixes, which only change grammatical form.

Closed syllable

A syllable ending in one or more consonants, which makes the vowel short, as in cat, jump, and rabbit. Recognizing syllable types helps students decode and spell multisyllabic words accurately.

Fluency

Reading with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression (prosody). Fluent reading frees cognitive resources for comprehension; rate alone without understanding does not constitute fluency.

Tier 2 vocabulary

High-frequency academic words that appear across content areas, such as analyze, contrast, and evidence. These words are the most productive target for direct vocabulary instruction in middle grades.

Text complexity

The difficulty of a text measured across three dimensions: quantitative readability, qualitative features such as structure and knowledge demands, and reader-and-task considerations. It guides text selection.

Academic language function

The purpose a text or utterance serves, such as comparing, sequencing, or arguing. Signal words like however and therefore cue the function and help students track text structure.

Recursive writing process

A non-linear cycle of prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing in which writers return to earlier stages as ideas develop. Instruction should model each stage explicitly.

Six traits of writing

A shared framework for writing instruction and assessment: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions. Traits give teachers and students common language for feedback.

Argumentative writing

Writing that states a claim and supports it with relevant evidence and logical reasoning, while acknowledging and addressing a counterclaim. It relies primarily on logos rather than emotional appeal.

Ethos, pathos, logos

The three classical rhetorical appeals: ethos establishes the writer's credibility, pathos engages the audience's emotions and values, and logos appeals to logic and evidence. Effective arguments balance all three.

Revision versus editing

Revision reshapes content, organization, clarity, and evidence; editing corrects spelling, grammar, punctuation, and capitalization. Treating them as the same step weakens both instruction and student writing.

Topic sentence

The sentence that states the main idea of a paragraph and controls its content. It usually appears first and is supported by details, evidence, and commentary in the sentences that follow.

Run-on sentence

Two or more independent clauses joined without proper punctuation or a conjunction. It is corrected with a period, semicolon, or coordinating conjunction plus comma.

Mentor text

A published piece of writing used as a model for a specific craft or convention. Students analyze its features and imitate them in their own writing during workshop instruction.

Climax

The point of highest tension in a narrative where the central conflict reaches its peak and the outcome begins to turn. It follows rising action and precedes falling action and resolution.

Round character

A character developed with complexity, multiple traits, and internal contradictions, resembling a real person. Flat characters, by contrast, display a single dominant trait.

Dynamic character

A character who undergoes significant internal change over the course of a story, often because of conflict. Static characters remain essentially unchanged from beginning to end.

Third-person omniscient

A narrative point of view in which the narrator knows the thoughts, feelings, and actions of all characters. It provides broad perspective but may reduce suspense.

Dramatic irony

A situation in which the audience knows something important that a character does not, creating tension or humor. It differs from verbal irony, which involves saying the opposite of what is meant.

Soliloquy

A speech in which a character, alone on stage, reveals inner thoughts aloud to the audience. It differs from a monologue, which may be delivered in the presence of other characters.

Theme

The underlying insight about life or human nature conveyed by a literary work. It must be expressed as a complete sentence, not a single word such as friendship or courage.

Fable

A brief fictional tale, often featuring animals with human traits, that teaches a moral lesson. It differs from a myth, which explains natural phenomena, and a legend, rooted in history.

Iambic pentameter

A poetic meter consisting of five iambs per line, each iamb being an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. Shakespeare's sonnets and plays frequently use this meter.

Formative assessment

Ongoing assessment during instruction, such as exit tickets, quick writes, and conferring, used to adjust teaching in real time. It is low-stakes and feedback-oriented rather than grade-oriented.

Validity

The degree to which an assessment measures what it is intended to measure. A valid assessment must also be reliable, but reliability alone does not guarantee validity.

Reliability

The consistency of an assessment's results across administrations, raters, or items. A test can be reliable yet invalid if it consistently measures the wrong skill.

Criterion-referenced assessment

An assessment that compares a student's performance to a defined standard or learning objective rather than to other students. It reports mastery of specific skills.

Differentiation

Adjusting content, process, or product in response to students' readiness, interests, and learning profiles. Common scaffolds include leveled texts, graphic organizers, and sentence frames.

Close reading

A structured cycle of repeated readings of a complex text with text-dependent questions: first for key ideas, then craft and structure, then integration of knowledge and ideas.