Ability Grouping - ANSWER-Grouping of children with similar needs for instructional purposes. They do not remain constant throughout the year but change
... [Show More] as the children's needs within them change.
Phoneme - ANSWER-The smallest unit of speech that can be used to make one word different from another word.
Independent Reading Level - ANSWER-The level at which a student can read a text on his/her own as indicated by a 95% accuracy rate.
Grapheme - ANSWER-Unit of writing that represents a single phoneme-can be a letter or group of letters.
Morpheme - ANSWER-Smallest meaningful unit in the grammar of language (e.g., in, come, -ing, forming incoming ).
Instructional Level - ANSWER-The level at which students can read with the assistace of a teacher as indicated by an 85-95% accuracy rate.
Action Research - ANSWER-Teacher research that is carried out by a teacher practitioner in the classroom to help a teacher evaluate his/her performance in the classroom
Frustration Level - ANSWER-The level at which students shouldn't read and indicates an accuracy rate below 85%.
Adams, Marilyn Jager - ANSWER-A theorist in early reading (emergent reading) who has identified five tasks for phonemic awareness: Task 1- Ability to hear rhymes and alliteration. Task 2- Ability to do oddity tasks (recognize the member of a set that is different.) Task 3 -The ability to orally blend words and split syllables. Task 4 -The ability to orally segment word. Task 5- The ability to do phonics manipulation tasks.
Allington, Richard - ANSWER-Matching Text to Readers. Research has included reading and learning disabilities, and effective instruction in classroom settings.
Alliteration - ANSWER-Occurs when words begin with the same consonant sound, as in Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Alphabetic Principle - ANSWER-The idea that written spellings represent spoken words. Also known as graphophenemic awareness.
Anchor Book - ANSWER-A balanced literacy term for a book that is purposely read repeatedly and used as part of both the reading and writing workshop. It is a good idea to use certain books that become the children's familiar and cherished favorites for both reading and inspiring children's writing.
Assonance - ANSWER-Repetition of stressed vowel sounds within words with different end consonants. "Fleet feet sweep by sleeping geese".
Atwell, Nancy - ANSWER-Author of "In The Middle: Writing, Reading and Learning With Adolescents". She believes that students become better writers if they are given ownership of what they are writing and long uninterrupted blocks of time to write. Rejects lectures, assignments, tests and worksheets. Mini-lessons are good to address topics as needed.
Authentic Assessment - ANSWER-Assessment activities that reflect the actual workplace, family, community, and school curriculum.
Balanced Literacy Lesson Format - ANSWER-A format for the delivery of a literacy lesson, whether it is a reading or writing-workshop lesson. The format begins with a 10-15 minute mini-lesson delivered by the teacher to the whole class. This mini-lesson is then followed by a thirty-minute small-group lesson (the children break into small groups to work). It concludes with a 10-minute share session during which the whole class reconvenes to share what they have done in the small groups. This format is often referred to as the whole-small-whole group approach.
Behaviorism - ANSWER-Learning is the acquisition of new behavior through conditioning. Three basic assumptions are held to be true. First, learning is manifested by a change in behavior. Second, the environment shapes behavior. And third, the principles of contiguity (how close in time two events must be for a bond to be formed) and reinforcement (any means of increasing the likelihood that an event will be repeated) are central to explaining the learning process.
Benchmarks - ANSWER-School, state, or nationally-mandated statements of expectations for student learning and achievement in various content areas.
BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (An ELL/Bilingual Education term) - ANSWER-Learning second-language skills and becoming proficient in a second language through face to face interaction-translation through speaking, listening, and viewing.
Big Books - ANSWER-Best way to model directionality and one to one word matching in primary grades.
Blending - ANSWER-The process of hearing separate phonemes and being able to merge them together to read the word.
Book Features - ANSWER-Children need to be familiar with the following: front and back cover; title and half-title page; dedication page; table of contents; prologue and epilogue; and foreword and after notes. For factual books, children need to be familiar with labels, captions, glossary, index, headings and subheadings of chapters, charts and diagrams, and sidebars. [Show Less]