One of the most important gifts we can give our children is to help them learn to read and write. After all, we have all heard the phrase that readers are leaders. Children who struggle with reading have a hard time in all other aspects of academic and social life.
Learning to read is complex and sometimes when trying to help your child master the skill of reading all the terms can be a bit confusing. In this blog post, we will be providing a glossary of common terms you
will encounter while teaching your child to read.
1. Decoding: the process of figuring out a new word in a text. It’s really just deciphering text into understandable words.
2. Fluency: the ability to read orally with speed, accuracy, and expression while understanding the given text.
3. High Frequency Words: are the words that appear most often in texts. Thanks to Drs. Dolch and Frye, we have age-leveled lists of these words beginning from the simplest in Kindergarten to the more difficult in upper grades.
4. Phonological Awareness: the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate sound units in words.
5. Phonemic Awareness: The ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds in spoken words.
6. Phonics: an approach to teaching word identification that emphasizes letter-sound correspondences and their application to reading and spelling. The goal of phonics is to help children learn and apply the alphabetic principle–the understanding that there are systematic and predictable relationships between written letters and spoken words.
7. Sight Words: are words that do not often follow phonics rules, so emerging readers should learn them ‘by sight’ in order to read them quickly and accurately
Vocabulary : a term used to describe the words that one must know in order to communicate with others, both orally and through print.
We hope that this help has been helpful. Does your child need help with reading? We offer one-on-one remedial sessions as well as small group reading classes for struggling readers. Give us a call or send us a WhatsApp message at 324-5496 to learn more or to book a FREE Consultation.