In this series, we are discussing the A-Z of literacy terms, concepts & strategies. In part 2, we tackled letters E-O, and in part 3, we will discuss letters P-R.

Click here to read all of the articles in this 4-part series.

Phoneme (a.k.a. phonogram) The tiniest sounds in a word.

Phoneme Blending The capacity to take little sounds (phonemes) in a word and blend them together to form a word.

Phoneme Isolation The capacity to isolate a specific sound in a word.

Phoneme Manipulation The capacity to “play” with sounds in a word by blending, isolating, and segmenting them.

Phoneme Segmentation The capacity to take a word and break it into separate phonemes (or little sounds).

Phonemic Awareness The capacity to hear the small sounds (or phonemes) in a word.

Phonics Knowing the relationship between letters and the sound(s) that they produce.

Phonological Awareness The capacity to perceive sounds within a word.

Picture Walk (preview) An activity that is completed before reading takes place. The reader views the pictures of the story and predicts what they think is occurring. This activates prior knowledge and gives reading a sense of direction.

Plot The rise and fall in action in a literary work.

Prefix A collection of letters before a (base) word that can alter the word’s meaning. Examples include: un-, de-, in-, non-, or ex-. Prefixes themselves have meanings. For instance, the prefix un- means not.

Pre-Reader A student that does realize or comprehend that text has meaning.

Prosody Expressing the meaning of words by using your voice. It includes things such as using punctuation to combine words, collecting words into phrases that have meaning, and using intonation.

Questions (higher order thinking questions) Inquiries that force the reader to figure out what is going in a story, when the answer is not obvious, but insinuated.

R-Controlled Vowels Vowels that are trailed by an r that “control” them. The five most common r-controlled vowel combinations are ar, er, ir, or, and ur.

Reading Level The level at which a student can read, decipher, and understand the text.

Reading Rate The speed at which a child read a section of text. You can calculate this by taking the number of words in the passage and multiplying them times 60. Then divide that number by the time in seconds it took for them to read that passage. For instance, if the section of text was 200 words, and Matthew read it in 2 minutes flat, his words per minute would be 100 words per minute.

Re-Reading Reading what you have already read.

Rhyming Words A part of phonological awareness. Two words that start differently, but have a similar sound at the end.

Rime The section of the word that comes after the onset.

Well, that’s it for this article. In the next installment of this series, we will tackle letters S-W.