TExES STR 293 key terms

A teacher-led approach in which a skill or strategy is explained clearly, modeled, and practiced with corrective feedback, so that students are not left to infer the steps on their own.

Reading content organized in a planned, logical order in which easier skills are taught before harder ones, each lesson builds on earlier learning, and previously taught items are reviewed cumulatively.

Temporary support a teacher supplies, such as prompts, models, hints, or guided practice, that is gradually withdrawn as the student becomes able to complete the task alone.

An instructional sequence that moves from teacher modeling (I do), to guided practice (we do), to collaborative work, to independent application (you do), as students take on increasing control of the task.

Planning and adjusting content, materials, pacing, or grouping so that instruction matches students' differing readiness levels, interests, and learning needs within the same classroom.

A planned oral reading in which the teacher pauses to ask questions, invite predictions, explain vocabulary, and discuss ideas, building students' listening comprehension and engagement with books.

A short passage written mainly with letter-sound patterns and high-frequency words the student has already been taught, providing practice in applying phonics rather than encouraging guessing from pictures.

A school-wide framework that combines strong core instruction with increasingly intensive, data-based interventions across tiers to address academic and behavioral needs, including reading difficulties.

Teaching students in temporary groups formed from current assessment data and changed as skills develop, so that lessons target the specific needs of each group's members.

The understanding that spoken language is made up of units such as words, syllables, onsets and rimes, and individual sounds; it develops without print and includes phonemic awareness.

The ability to notice, think about, and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words, as when blending, segmenting, or deleting sounds; it is done orally and does not involve letters.

Orally breaking a spoken word into its separate sounds, for example producing /k/ /a/ /t/ for the word cat; a phonemic awareness task that supports later spelling and decoding.

The understanding that the sounds of speech are represented by letters and letter combinations in a consistent, learnable way, which allows readers to decode printed words.

Instruction in the relationships between letters and the speech sounds they represent, and in how to use those relationships to read and spell unfamiliar words.

A written symbol or group of letters that spells one speech sound, such as the single letter b, the consonant pair sh, or the vowel team ea.

Two consonants that together spell a single new sound, as in sh, ch, th, ph, and ck, so that the letters no longer stand for their separate sounds.

A vowel followed by the letter r, as in car, her, bird, and turn, where the r alters the vowel so the sound is neither short nor long.

A common classification of English syllables (closed, open, vowel-consonant-e, vowel team, r-controlled, and consonant-le) that teachers use to explain decoding and syllable division.

The process of bonding a word's spelling, pronunciation, and meaning together in memory so the word is recognized instantly; it depends on secure phoneme-grapheme knowledge.

The smallest unit of meaning in a word, such as a base word, prefix, or suffix; for example, the word unhelpful contains three morphemes.

Commonly used words such as said, was, or of whose spellings do not follow the phonics patterns being taught, so students learn them largely by sight after some letter-sound analysis.

Reading text accurately, at an appropriate rate, and with suitable expression, which frees the reader's attention to move from recognizing words to constructing meaning.

The expressive dimension of oral reading, including appropriate phrasing, intonation, stress, and pausing, which signals that the reader is understanding the text's meaning and structure.

Young children's attempts to write words using the letter-sound knowledge they currently have, as when writing knd for kind; the errors reveal a developmental stage of spelling.

The body of words a student understands and can use, including words learned through everyday conversation and words taught directly; breadth and depth of word knowledge strongly support comprehension.

The information and experiences a reader already has about a topic, which the reader brings to a text to interpret it and to fill in details the author leaves unstated.

Drawing a conclusion the text does not state directly by combining clues in the text with the reader's own knowledge and experience.

The most important point a text or section conveys about its topic, sometimes stated in a topic sentence and sometimes implied by the supporting details.

The way a text organizes its ideas, such as description, sequence, comparison-contrast, cause-effect, or problem-solution; recognizing the pattern helps readers follow and remember information.

The typical parts of a narrative, including characters, setting, initiating event, problem, attempts, resolution, and theme, which readers use to understand and retell stories.

A reader's ongoing awareness of whether the text is making sense, which triggers repair actions such as rereading, slowing down, or seeking help with an unfamiliar word.

A technique in which the teacher or a student voices the thoughts used while reading, such as predicting, questioning, connecting, or noting confusion, making hidden comprehension processes visible.

Information in the words or sentences around an unknown word, such as a definition, example, synonym, or contrast, that a reader can use to work out the word's meaning.

A brief assessment administered to every student, usually early in the year and again at intervals, to flag those who may be at risk for reading difficulty and need closer attention.

A detailed measure given to students who show reading difficulty, used to pinpoint specific strengths and gaps, such as which phonics elements or phonemic awareness tasks are not yet secure.

Brief, frequent measurement of a targeted skill over time, used to judge whether an intervention is working and to decide when instruction should be adjusted.

A one-on-one oral reading assessment in which the teacher marks each word read correctly, substituted, omitted, or inserted, then analyzes the reader's strategies and comprehension.

Close examination of a reader's departures from the printed text, such as substitutions and omissions, to infer whether the reader is drawing on meaning, sentence structure, or visual information.

An assessment that compares a student's score with the scores of a large, representative sample of same-age peers, with results usually reported as percentiles or standard scores.

An assessment that judges a student's performance against a fixed standard or list of skills rather than against other students, showing precisely what the student can and cannot yet do.

A timed reading of a passage, usually one minute, scored as words correct per minute; it serves as a quick screen and progress-monitoring tool for accuracy and rate in the elementary grades.