MTEL Foundations of Reading (190) 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 hear, identify, and manipulate individual phonemes in spoken words, such as blending /k/ /a/ /t/ into cat or deleting the first sound from blend to make lend.

Phonological awareness

The broad auditory awareness of the sound structure of language, including words in sentences, syllables, onsets and rimes, and individual phonemes, developed without reference to print.

Alphabetic principle

The understanding that spoken words are composed of phonemes and that letters or letter combinations systematically represent those phonemes, enabling the reader to decode unfamiliar printed words.

Consonant digraph

Two consonant letters that together represent a single phoneme, as in sh in ship, ch in chin, th in thin, and ph in phone, where neither letter's sound is heard separately.

Consonant blend

Two or three consonant letters clustered together in which each letter's sound is still pronounced, as in bl in black, str in street, and spl in splash.

Vowel digraph

Two vowel letters that together make one vowel sound, often the long sound of the first vowel, as in ai in rain, ee in feet, and oa in boat.

Diphthong

A vowel sound that glides from one position to another within a single syllable, as in oi in coin, ou in house, and ow in cow.

Closed syllable

A syllable ending in one or more consonants, which makes the vowel short, as in cat, jump, and rabbit; it is the first syllable type typically taught.

Open syllable

A syllable ending in a single vowel letter, which usually makes the long vowel sound, as in he, go, and the first syllable of table and tiger.

Vowel-consonant-e syllable

A syllable pattern in which a final silent e makes the preceding vowel long, as in make, bike, hope, and cube; often called the magic-e or silent-e pattern.

R-controlled syllable

A syllable containing a vowel followed by r, in which the r colors the vowel sound, as in car, her, bird, and fork.

Consonant-le syllable

A final stable syllable ending in a consonant plus le, as in table, little, and candle, which forms an unaccented final syllable in multisyllabic words.

Orthographic mapping

The process by which readers bond the sounds of a spoken word to its letter sequence in memory, enabling instant recognition of that word as a sight word.

Morpheme

The smallest unit of meaning in a word; free morphemes stand alone (book), while bound morphemes must attach to another unit (un-, -ed, -ness).

Derivational morpheme

A bound morpheme that changes a word's meaning or grammatical class, as when the suffix -ness turns kind into kindness or the prefix un- reverses meaning.

Inflectional morpheme

A bound morpheme that changes tense, number, or comparison without changing word class, such as -s, -ed, -ing, -er, and -est in English.

Fluency

Reading with accuracy, appropriate automatic rate, and prosody; fluent reading sounds phrased and expressive and frees attention for comprehension rather than decoding.

Prosody

The expressive dimension of oral reading, including appropriate phrasing, intonation, stress, and attention to punctuation, which signals that the reader is constructing meaning.

Simple view of reading

A model stating that reading comprehension is the product of decoding and linguistic comprehension, so a deficit in either component limits overall reading comprehension.

Scarborough's Rope

A model of skilled reading as interwoven strands of word recognition and language comprehension; all strands must develop together for proficient reading comprehension.

Tier 2 vocabulary

High-frequency academic words that appear across content areas, such as analyze, contrast, and significant; they are the most productive target for direct vocabulary instruction.

Tier 3 vocabulary

Low-frequency, domain-specific terms such as photosynthesis or denominator, best taught within the content area where the concept is used and applied.

Explicit phonics instruction

A planned, sequential approach in which letter-sound correspondences are directly taught, practiced in isolation and in words, then applied in decodable connected text.

Decodable text

Connected reading material controlled to include primarily the letter-sound correspondences and high-frequency words a student has already been taught, supporting application of phonics.

Miscue analysis

Examination of oral reading errors to determine whether the reader drew on meaning, syntax, or letter-sound information, revealing the cue systems the reader uses.

Running record

An informal assessment in which a teacher records a student's oral reading behaviors and errors on a passage, then calculates an accuracy rate and analyzes error patterns.

Progress monitoring

Repeated, brief assessment on a consistent measure to track a student's response to intervention and adjust instruction based on the rate of improvement.

Narrative text structure

The organizational pattern of stories, including setting, characters, initiating event, internal response, attempts, consequence, and resolution, often mapped with a story grammar.

Expository text structure

Informational organization patterns such as description, sequence, compare-contrast, cause-effect, and problem-solution; recognizing them supports comprehension and recall of content.

Semantic map

A graphic organizer that displays a central concept with connected related words and categories, used to build and deepen vocabulary and background knowledge before reading.

Text-dependent question

A question answerable only by referring to evidence in the text rather than to personal opinion or prior experience, supporting close reading and comprehension of the passage.

Automaticity

Fast, effortless, accurate word recognition that requires minimal attention, freeing cognitive resources for comprehension; it is a component of reading fluency.