LETRS Module 1-3
affix a morpheme or a meaningful part of a word that is attached before or after a root to
modify its meaning; a category that includes
... [Show More] prefixes, suffixes and infixes.
*affricate *a speech sound with features of both a fricative and a stop; in English /ch/ and /j/
are afficates.
*affrication *the pronunciation of /t/ as /ch/ in words such as "nature", and /d/ as /j/ in words
such as "educate".
alphabetic principle the principle that letters are used to represent individual phonemes in the
spoken word; a critical insight for beginning reading and spelling.
alphabetic writing system a system of symbols that represent each consonant and vowel
sound in a language.
Anglo-Saxon Old English, a Germanic language spoken in Britain before the invasion of the
Norman French in 1066.
base word a free morpheme, usually of Anglo-Saxon origin, to which affixes can be added.
*bound morpheme *a meaningful part of a word that makes words only in combination with
other morphemes; includes inflections, roots, prefixes, and derivational suffixes.
chunk a group of letters, processed as a unit, that corresponds to a piece of a word, usually a
consonant cluster, rime pattern, syllable or morpheme.
closed sound a consonant sound made by using the tongue, teeth, or lips to obstruct the air as it
is pushed through the vocal cavity.
cognate a word in one language that shares a common ancestor and common meanings
with a word in another language.
closed syllablea written syllable containing a single vowel letter that ends in one or more
consonant; the vowel sound is short.
cluster adjacent consonants that appear before or after a vowel; a consonant blend.
*coarticulation*speaking phonemes together so that the feature of each spreads to neighboring
phonemes and all the segments are joined into one linguistic unit (syllable).
concept an idea that links other facts, words, and ideas together into a coherent whole.
consensus agreement in the scientific community on specific truths that have emanated from
a series of studies about a specific problem or issue.
consonant a phoneme (speech sound) that is not a vowel and that is formed by obstructing
the flow of air with the teeth, lips or tongue; also called a "closed sound" in some instructional
programs; English has 25 consonant phonemes.
consonant cluster adjacent consonants that appear before or after a vowel; a consonant
blend.
consonant digraph a two-letter combination that represents one speech sound that is not
represented by either letter alone.
consonant-le syllable a written syllable found at the ends of words such as "dawdle", "single"
and "rubble".
contextthe language that surrounds a given word or phrase (linguistic context), or field of
meaningful associations that surrounds a given word or phrase (experiential context).
context processor the neural networks that bring background knowledge and discourse to
bear word meanings are processed [Show Less]