ADJACENT CONSONANTS- Two or more consonants that come together in a word without any intervening vowel or vowels (for example, ‘d-r’ in ‘drop’, ‘s-t-r’ in ‘strap’). Each of these consonants has one distinct phoneme, but these phonemes need to be smoothly blended together with the other phonemes to say the whole word. Some dyslexic learners find it tricky to blend the adjacent consonants and then the other letters, so below is a strategy to help read a word with adjacent consonants.
ALIEN WORD – This a child friendly way to describe a word that is not real (i.e. pseudo words,), which children are often asked to read in games such as ‘Treasure or Bin’ to ensure the child is decoding the word rather than guessing.
ALPHABETIC CODE – The relationship between the sounds that can be identified in speech (phonemes) and the letters used to represent them in writing (graphemes).
ALTERNATIVE PRONUNCIATION – This is a different way of pronouncing a grapheme. For example, the letters ‘ow’ can represent the sounds /ow/ as in ‘cow’ and /ō/ as in ‘follow’.
Alternative spelling – This is a different way of spelling a phoneme. For example, the sound /w/ can be represented in writing by ‘w’ as in ‘wish’ and ‘wh’ as in ‘when’.
BLEND – To combine individual phonemes that make up a word by merging them together in one continuous stream of sound to say the whole word e.g. blend the phonemes /c/ /l/ /o/ /ck/ together to say the word ‘clock’.
BREVE – This is a symbol placed above a vowel phoneme to indicate that is is making a short, weak sound e.g. /ŏ/ as in pot.
COMPOUND WORD – A word made by joining two individual words together, for example the compound word ‘football’ is made up of ‘foot’ and ‘ball’.
CONSONANT – 21 letters of the alphabet excluding a, e, i, o and u. Consonant sounds are usually blocked or partially blocked by the tongue, teeth or lips.
CVC word – This is an abbreviation meaning that the word is made up of a consonant – vowel -consonant. Similarly the abbreviations are used for other words e.g. CVCC, CCVC.
DIGRAPH – This describes two letters which make one sound. There are different types of digraphs e.g. a consonant digraph (beginning with a consonant) such as th, sh or a vowel digraph (beginning with a vowel) such as ow, ai and a split digraph such as a-e, o-e.
Fluency – The ability to read accurately with speed and expression. Fluent readers read words automatically without needing to decode. It is at this point that we see them able to focus on comprehension and make sense of what is being read.
Formation phrase – A memorable phrase used to support the children in handwriting to help them form the letter correctly using directional vocabulary, such as ‘down’, ‘up’, ‘across’ and ‘over’.
GRAPHEME – This is a letter or group of leters written down to represent a particular phoneme. The way graphemes are used to represent phonemes is known as the ‘alphabetic code’.
GPC – This stands for Grapheme Phoneme Correspondence, which is the letter/sound relationship between each element of the alphabetic code i.e. matching up the phonemes and graphemes correctly and being able to represent them accurately.
Homograph – Homographs are words that have the same spelling but different meanings, for example, ‘tie’ (a garment worn around the neck) and ‘tie’ (to attach or fasten).
Homophone – These are words that have the same pronunciation but different spelling and meaning e.g. pain and pane.
MACRON – This is a symbol written above a vowel phoneme to indicate that is making a long, strong sound e.g. /ū/ as in super.
ORAL BLENDING – This involves hearing phonemes and being able to merge them together to make a word. Children need to develop this skill before they will be able to blend written words
Phonetically plausible – Meaning that a word does comprise of grapheme-phoneme correspondence and if read aloud it would sound correct. However an incorrect grapheme has been chosen so it is not the expected spelling e.g. wrote ‘traid’ instead of ‘trade’.
PHONEME – This is an individual sound in words, which is the smallest unit of sound in speech e.g. the word shop has 3 phonemes /sh/ /o/ /p/.
Phonics – The method by which children are taught to read by recognising the connections between the sounds of spoken words (phonemes) and the letters that are used to write them down (graphemes). We use a structured, systematic, synethetic approach to phonics.
Phonics screening check – A statutory national assessment in England, conducted internally by schools towards the end of Year 1. Its sole purpose is to determine whether a child can phonically decode single words to an annually predetermined national standard.
PREFIX – A group of letters (forming a syllable) can be added to the beginning of a root word and change the meaning of the word e.g. dis added to allow to make the new word disallow.
Pseudo-words – The proper term for ‘Alien Words’, these are phonetically plausible words which do not occur in the English Language but are used in games such as ‘Treasure or Bin’ to enable children to decode words accurately without guessing them.
ROOT WORD – A word which makes sense on its own but can have a prefix or suffix added to it e.g. in the word unhappy the root word is ‘happy’ and the prefix is ‘un’.
SEGMENT – To separate a word into individual units e.g. segmenting the individual sounds (phonemes) in a word to be able to spell it e.g. segment the word clock /c/ /l/ /o/ /ck/. When teaching segmenting, it is beneficial to use the multisensory learning of using the fingers to isolate and count the phonemes as shown in video below.
Sound button – A graphic method to help children identify the separate phonemes in a printed word. Sound buttons can be used as a support in the early stages of learning. For each word, a dot is placed under any single-letter grapheme and a short horizontal line under the group of letters that form a digraph or trigraph, as shown in the video below:
SUFFIX – A group of letters (forming a syllable) which are added to the end of a base word to change its meaning e.g. ing added to fly to make flying.
SYLLABLE – Part of a word which has one beat and always has at least one vowel e.g. the word computer has 3 syllables com/pu/ter. When we clap the syllable we are actually clapping on the vowel phoneme.
Tricky words -High-frequency words that, although decodable in themselves, cannot be decoded by children using the GPCs they have been taught up to that point. Not all high-frequency words are ‘tricky words’.
TRIGRAPH – This describes three letters which make one sound e.g. ear, air.
UNVOICED CONSONANT – A consonant produced without using the vocal cords e.g. /f/ in fat, /p/ in pan, /t/ in top, /s/ in sun.
VOICED CONSONANT – A consonant produced with the vocal cords vibrating to hear the sound e.g. /v/ in van, /m/ in mop.
VOWEL – The vowels in the alphabet are a, e, i, o and u. The letter ‘y’ is also classed as a semi vowel as it sometimes takes the place of a vowel, making the same sound as /ĭ/ as in gym, /ē/ as in funny or /ī/ as in sty. Vowel sounds are open, with nothing blocking the air and are voiced sounds. There is a vowel in every syllable.
VOWEL DIGRAPH – Two letters which make one sound and starts with a vowel e.g. ie, ir. These vowel digraphs are spoken with the mouth open, nothing blocking the air and are voiced phonemes.
VOWEL SUFFIX – A suffix beginning with a vowel e.g. -ing, -er and -est.
Help your child learn to read, write and spell 