Glossary of
Literacy Terms
and Jargon for
Parents
Do you ever hear a word (term) or phrase used
about your child’s education that you don’t
recognize? Find definitions for many of the
commonly used educational terms here!
Literacy Terminology
(Literacy- The ability to read and write.)
Affix – A prefix or suffix of a word.
Alliteration – Repetition of an initial phoneme (See Phoneme).
Alphabetic Principle – The idea that all letters have a sound, and
letters/sounds can be put together to make a word.
Blending or Phonemic Blending – Putting parts/sounds of a spoken
word together to make a whole word.
Comprehension – Being able to understand the meaning of written
or spoken words.
Concepts of Print – The ideas about how books, print, and words are
used (i.e. reading from left to right, differences between letters and
words, and the parts of the book, etc.).
Decode – The ability to sound out letters and words.
Developmental or Invented Spelling – The spelling that occurs when
children use their knowledge of letters and sounds to write (i.e. “I kn
rd” for “I can read.”).
Early Reader – A child that can read and sound out words and
extracts meaning from the things that they read.
Emergent Reader – A child that is beginning to learn to read (Knows
letters and can match them with the sounds that they make.).
Environmental Print – Words/Print found in everyday life (i.e. stop
signs, fast food signs, labels on food containers, etc.).
Fluent Reader – A child who reads most words and phrases and is
able to figure out unfamiliar words.
Functional Print – Writing/Print for a specific purpose (i.e. signs, lists,
etc.).
Letter Knowledge – The ability to identify letters of the alphabet.
Letter Recognition – The ability to name a specific letter.
Letter-Sound Correspondence – The ability to say or write a letter
that matches to a sound.
Literacy – The ability to read and write.
Onset – The sounds in a word that come before the first vowel (i.e.
/br/ in “bring”).
Phoneme – The smallest units of sound used to form words (i.e. lea-k (leak) is made up of 3 phonemes).
Phonemic Awareness – The recognition that spoken words are
made of sounds / The ability to identify the individual sounds in
words.
Phonemic Segmentation – Separating word into sounds (i.e. “dog” to
“d-o-g”).
Phonics – The relationship between letters and sounds.
Phonological Awareness – Understanding the relationships of
sounds in spoken words.
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Picture Cues – Pictures that are a close match to the words in the
story. These pictures help children to read when they are having a
difficult time.
Primary Language – The first language a child learns to speak.
Print Awareness – Understanding the rules of written language (i.e.
Letters/Numbers have meanings, words have spaces between them,
etc.).
Proficiency/Proficient/Proficiently – A child’s or student’s
performance as it is compared to certain standards or expectations
during testing, assessment, or teacher observation.
Retelling – Summarizing the events in a story by a child to help a
parent/teacher to determine a child’s understanding of a story or
ability to use language.
Sight Word – A word that is recognized and read without having to
be sounded out.
Syllable – The smallest part that a spoken word can be broken into
(i.e. “watermelon” has 4 syllables “wa-ter-mel-on”).
Vocabulary – A collection or list of words and phrases / The words
that a child knows.
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References
National Center for Learning Disabilities, (ND). Glossary
of early learning and literacy terms. Retrieved from
http://www.ncld.org/learning-disabilityresources/faqs/glossary-early-learning-literacy-terms
Reading Rockets, (2000). Reading glossary. Retrieved
from http://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/glossary#p
Document created by Elia
Spencer for the Ibraham
Aeronautics Elementary
School Parent Resource
Room
March 2014
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