What is phonics?
The relationship between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes) used to decode written words.
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| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
What is phonics? | The relationship between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes) used to decode written words. |
What is decoding?
| Using phonics rules to sound out written words. |
What is a grapheme?
| A written letter or letter combination
|
What is a phoneme?
| Smallest unit of sound |
Example of grapheme–phoneme correspondence (LETTER SOUND CORRESPONDENCE)
| “c” = /k/ in cat, but /s/ in city |
What is a CVC word?
| Consonant–Vowel–Consonant (e.g., bat, sun, cot) |
What is a CVC "e" word? | Word with silent e making vowel long (e.g., make) |
What is a consonant blend?
| Two consonants where both sounds are heard (e.g., sl in slide) |
Digraph
| 2 letters = 1 sound (e.g., sh, th, ch) |
Trigraph
| 3 letters = 1 sound (e.g., tch in watch) |
Vowel team
| 2+ vowels making 1 sound (e.g., boat, head) |
Diphthong | Vowel sound that glides between two sounds (e.g., coin, loud) |
Controlled vowel
| Vowel influenced by r (e.g., car, bird, turn) |
Schwa sound | Weak, unstressed vowel sound (e.g., about, problem) |
Systematic instruction
| Skills taught from simple → complex |
Explicit instruction
| Teacher directly models skills |
Recursive instruction
| Skills are reviewed and revisited repeatedly |
Order of literacy skills
| Decoding → Encoding → Fluency → Comprehension |
What is the alphabetic principle?
| Understanding that letters represent sounds |
What is Morphology ? | Study of word parts and meaning |
Prefix
| Beginning of word (e.g., un-, dis- = not) |
Suffix
| Ending of word (e.g., -ed past tense, -ing present tense) |
Root Word | Core meaning of a word |
Etymology
| Study of word origins/history |
What are high-frequency words?
| Common words that often must be memorized (e.g., said, was, the) |
Why are some sight words not decodable? | They often don’t follow phonics rules |
Semantic cues
| Meaning clues (context/pictures) |
Syntactic cues
| Grammar clues (sentence structure) |
Graphophonic cues
| Letter–sound decoding (phonics rules) |