Vocabulary

__**Vocabulary **__ __**Phoneme**__ The smallest unit of speech that serves to distinguish one utterance from another (e.g. PAT and FAT are distinguished by the initial phoneme).

__**Phonics**__ An approach to reading instruction that emphasizes letter-sound relationships and generalized principles that describe spelling-sound relationships in a language.

__**Decode**__ Using knowledge of the conventions of spelling-sound relationships and knowledge about pronunciation of irregular words to derive a pronunciation of written words.

__**Fluency**__ Fast, smooth, effortless and automatic reading of text (can be silent reading or not) with attention focused on the meaning of the text.

__**Segmenting**__ Breaking down a spoken word into word parts by inserting a pause between each part. Words can be segmented at the word level (in the case of compound words), at the syllable level, at the onset-rime level, and at the phoneme level.

__**Blending**__ Combining parts of a spoken word into a whole representation of the word. For example, /p/ /oo/ /l/ can be blended together to form the word POOL.

__**Chunking**__ Reading by grouping portions of text into short, meaningful phrases.