Phonics Glossary

Glossary for Learning Phonics 

General: 

• • • The recurrence of the first letter sound in a phrase is known as Alliteration. 
    • Ordered group of letters in a language and the 26 letters from the English Language is called Alphabet. 
    • Compound word is a word formed by combining two or more words (jigsaw) 
    • A brief technique to write two words as one by joining the two words together, leaving out one or more letters, and changing the missing letters with an apostrophe (can not = can’t) is called Contraction. 
    • The visual instructional aids are called Flashcards. 
    • The capacity to read words or larger language units in a short period of time is called Fluency.
    • Homonyms are words that sound similar but have different meanings and spellings (hear, here) 
    • A lesson plan is a prepared lesson that specifies the manner of delivery as well as specific goals and timetables for delivering the course content. 
    • A device for remembering and recalling information is called a Mnemonic. Example: snake fashioned like the letter ‘S.’ 
    • Phonemic awareness is the recognition that words are made up of individual sounds (phonemes); it is a subcategory of phonological awareness. It entails the ability to recognize rhyme, mix sounds, isolate sounds (such as initial and ending sounds), segment sounds, and modify sounds in words. 
    • The study of speech sounds is known as phonetics. 
    • phonics: the relationships between a language’s sounds and the letters used to represent those sounds – a method of teaching reading and spelling that emphasizes symbol-sound relationships 
    • Printable phonics materials for teachers 
    • Phonics rules: how to sound out new words and how they apply to spelling 
    • Phonological awareness is the knowledge of speech units such as words, syllables, and phonemes. 
    • Phonograms are letter-sound combinations that contain more than one grapheme or phoneme. 
    • Any word recognized solely by memory is referred to be a sight word. 
    • Structural analysis: the process of decoding words by applying knowledge of root words, ends, and affixes. 
    • The division of words into syllables is known as syllabication. 
    • A syllable is a minimal unit of sequential speech sounds composed of a vowel sound or a vowel consonant combination that always includes a vowel sound. 
    • syllable patterns: phonics definition – English syllables can be divided into fundamental patterns based on how consonant and vowel sounds are used: (CVC, CVVC, CVCe, CV, man, mean, mane, me). Remember that a “C,” or consonant, in these patterns can be a single consonant, a digraph, a blend, or a cluster. Syllable patterns can be used to break down polysyllabic words (hoping = cvc-cvc, hopping = cv-cvc). 
    • Vowels are phonemes in which air flows freely through the lips (in reading instruction, the letters a, e, I o, and u are considered vowels, while vowel sounds can also be expressed by consonants, as in myth or fly, or by a combination of consonants and vowels, as in night). 
    • Whole language phonics is a method of teaching children to read that focuses on the use and recognition of sight words. 

Phonics Units: 

• • • A group of letters or a letter representing one sound, e.g. sh, ch, igh, ough (as in ‘though’) is called Grapheme. It is also the smallest part of a word that has meaning or influences the meaning of a word. The word wonderful has two morphemes (wonder) and (-ful). Adding (-ful) to the word (wonder) changes the meaning of the word, yet the words are still related.
    • The basic sound unit of speech is Phonemes.

Word Anatomy: 

• • • A word to which a prefix or suffix can be appended to develop a new word (fry + ing = frying) is called Prefix.
    • A syllable or set of syllables added to the beginning of a word or root (retake, unwell, disinform) to modify its definition is known as Phonics Definition.
    • A root word is a term that hasn’t had any prefixes or suffixes added to it is known as the Base Word.
    • A syllable or set of syllables added to the end of a word or root (es, s, ed, ing) to modify its definition is known as Suffix. 

Types of Phonics:  

• • • Analytic phonics is a reading instruction method in which the phonemes connected with specific graphemes are not spoken individually.
    • The consonant sounds in a word written before another vowel sound in a syllable is Onset.
    • The first and any subsequent vowel sounds in a phrase (cat, treat, chair) is known as Rime. Since they have same rime like mat, rat, and hat rhyme. The onset/rime of each syllable of a word could be examined: fantastic, playground, and airplane.
    • Synthetic phonics is a reading instruction method in which phonemes associated with certain graphemes are spoken independently.

Learning Phonics  

• • • blend: to draw individual sounds together to pronounce a word, e.g., s-n-a-p, blended together, reads snap 
    • breve:  a symbol that goes with a letter and indicates a specific sound value. 
    • closed syllable: a syllable that ends in a consonant sound 
    • cluster: two (or three) letters making two (or three) sounds, e.g., the first three letters of ‘straight’ are consonant cluster 
    • consonants: phonemes marked by constriction or closure in the breath channel – letter other than a, e, i, o and u. 
    • consonant blend: a sequence of two or three consonants, each of which is heard with minimal change. 
    • consonant digraph: consisting of two consonants that represent one sound (Sh, Ch, Th, Gh) – which is unrelated to the constituent letters (ship, chip, phone, laugh). The “Kn” in know, for example, is not a digraph.’ Depending on how it is uttered, Wh’ may or may not be a digraph (for some speakers, weather and weather have different initial sounds), 

• • • diacritical mark: mark accompanying a letter and indicating a specific sound value 
    • diphthong: phoneme where the mouth glides from one vowel sound directly into another in the same syllable – both vowels may be heard, but not quite making their usual sounds because of the blending. These include oi, oy, ow, and ou. 
    • final blends: blends of two or three-letter consonants that make only one sound. These include -ng, -nk, -sh, -ch, and -tch. 
    • fricatives: phonics definition – consonant sounds that are made by the sound of air friction in the mouth: 
    • homographs: words which are spelled alike but have different sounds and meanings (bow and arrow vs. bow of a ship) 
    • initial consonant blends: two or three-letter consonant combinations in which both letters are pronounced. 
    • long vowel sounds: – say the name of the letter – for example the letter “a” would be pronounced as “aiy” as in “hay” or “day” 
    • medial: phonics definition – coming in the middle of a word 
    • open syllable: phonics definition – a syllable that ends in a vowel sound, typically a long vowel sound (tiger, hotel) 
    • r-controlled vowels: An ‘r’ sound following a vowel sound almost always distorts the vowel, making such words harder to spell – cat/car. Common r-controlled vowels are: ar, er, ir, or, ur. 
    • schwa: the vowel sound of any unaccented syllable in English 
    • segment: phonics definition – to spell a word, divide it into its separate phonemes; for example, the word ‘cat’ includes three phonemes: /c/, /a/, and /t/ 
    • short vowel sounds:  The short vowel sounds are the first to be introduced; for example, the letter “a” with the short vowel sounds like “a” as in “cat” or “sat.” 
    • soft c and g rule: It is frequently soft when c or g is followed by e, I or y. 
    • silent e:  an e that does not create a sound and is frequently found at the end of an English root word. 
    • split digraph: divide two characters that produce one sound, such as a-e in make or i-e in site. 
    • synonyms: words with the same meaning 
    • transitional spelling: phonics definition – the outcome of an attempt to spell a word whose spelling is unknown, depending on a writer’s understanding of the spelling system and how it works. 
    • unvoiced consonant: In order to produce sound, the vocal cords do not vibrate. 
    • voiced consonant: The sound is produced by the vibration of the vocal cords. 
    • vowel digraph: two vowels together to form a single phoneme or sound (bread, need, book, field). 
    • word families:  A rime is a group of words that all have the same ending (mat, bat, flat, sat, that). 
    • y as a vowel rule: If y is the only vowel sound at the end of a one-syllable word, it sounds like long I if y is the only vowel sound at the end of a multi-syllable word, it sounds almost like long e.