The Donnish Diary

Invented Spelling - a process which allows students to write even before they can read during the emergent stage. By using invented spelling, children learn, improve, and practice their reading and writing skills. As children are still learning and practicing which letters make which sound, this stage of development helps them. Word Walls - a collection of words which are displayed in large visible letters on a wall, bulletin board, or other display surface in a classroom. Word walls are important/useful because students can use the words as a reference during reading and writing, which makes them function more independently in the classroom while also serving as a reference tool. Additionally, word walls can help studetns see patterns and differences in words. Word Sorts - a basic word study routine in which students group words into categories. Involves comparing and contrasting within and across categories. Word sorts help students find order, compare, and contrast...

Interactive Writing ( n .) - a cooperative event in which text is jointly composed and written; often used in a classroom setting, teachers may utilize interactive writing sessions to model reading and writing strategies. The purpose of the process is to teach children to write well by allowing them to imitate the modeled instruction of the teacher. It is important because it provides student with a model of reading/writing strategies to use while also engaging with their teacher. Letter Recognition ( n .) - the ability to visually recognize letters of the alphabet through hands-on learning. Learning letter recognition is important because it enables beginning readers to figure out how printed text is associated with the spoken language. Having a mastery of ltter names can make learning letter sounds easier for young readers. Phonics ( n .) - a method of teaching people to read by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters in an alphabetic writing system ...

Etymology - the study of the origin and historical development of words. Recognizing the etymology of a word helps students more accurately figure out the most effective use of words. It is also a stepping stone in the use of prefixes, suffixes, and affixes. As students apply the roots of words, they are able to link their meanings, thus finding out what words originally meant. Stem - this usually refers to a base or word root together with any derivational affixes that have been added, and to which inflectional endings may be added. Free morpheme - meaning units of language (morphemes) that stand alone as words (workshop has two free morphemes: work and shop). Bound Morpheme - meaning units of language (morphemes) that cannot stand alone as a word. Respected has three bound morphemes: re+spect+ed. Understanding morphemes (both free and bound) is important in the process of learning etymology. Students need to be able to recognize the meaningful parts of words (mo...

Affixes - most commonly suffixes or prefixes attached to a base word, stem, or root. Teaching affixation in the classroom is important because it helps students guess the meaning of new words they may come across, as well as construct new word forms successfully for words they already know. Academic Vocabulary - domain-specific vocabulary found in content area, specialized, disciplinary texts as well as general academic vocabulary used across content areas and disciplines. Having students learn academic vocabulary in a classroom setting provides students with a general knowledge (background knowledge) of new information related to different subjects. As they gain that background knowledge, it is eassier for them to understand information that they may hear or read about in academic topics. Inflectional Endings - suffixes that change the verb tense (walks, walked, wlking) or number (dogs, boxes) of a word. Teaching students about inflectional endings is a critical p...

Word Consciousness - an attitude of curiosity and attention to words critical for vocabulary development The practice of helping students develop word consciousness is highly important in literacy education. Students who are not exposed to a wide range of vocabulary at home or in their domestic environments often struggle to progress academically in literate settings. Educators have a responsibility to help their students develop word consciousness in order to expand their reading comprehension abilities, as well as their students' literacy level. Helping students develop a greater level of word consciousness especially helps students whose vocabulary exposure may be limited. Diphthongs - complex speech sounds beginning with one vowel sound and moving to another within the same syllable. Ambiguous Vowels - a vowel sound represented by a variety of different spelling patterns, or vowel patterns that represent a wide range of sounds Homophones - words that sound al...

Sight words ( n .) - printed words stored in memory by the reader that can be read immediately, "at first sight" without having to use decoding strategies. Sight words are critical to reading because they are used so often, but also because many cannot be sounded out or illustrated very easily. Pictures accompanying a text cannot help decipher sight words well. Because they are used to frequently, it is important that readers are able to recognize them on sight. Schwa ( n .) - a vowel sound in English that often occurs in an unstressed syllable, such as the /uh/ sound in the first syllable of the word above . Schwa is important because it serves as a means of conveying proper stress and rhythm in the English language. Digraph ( n .) - two letters that represent one sound. There are consonant digraphs and vowel digraphs, though the term most commonly refers to consonant digraphs. Common consonant digraphs include sh , ch , th , and wh . Consonant digraphs at ...

Pretend reading ( n .) - a paraphrase or spontaneous retelling told by students as they turn the pages of a familiar story book. This is important because it is a valuable practice for movement in literacy. Children pace their retelling to match the sequence of pictures and create dialogue or the voice and cadence of written language through pretend reading. Memory reading ( n. ) - an accurate recitation of text accompanied by finger-point reading. Memory reading is distinct from pretend reading, although it may seem as though the child is reading when they are reading from memory. Memory reading helps children coordinate spoken language with print at the level of words, sounds, and letters.  Language experience approach ( n .) -an approach to teaching reading in which students dictate to a teacher, who records their language; dictated accounts can then be used as familiar reading materials. What we say can be written, and what we write can be read. The LEA is e...

Spelling Inventory ( n .) - a means of student assessment used to help group students by spelling developmental stage; contain lists of words chosen to represent a variety of spelling features at increasing levels of difficulty. These features might include consonants, digraphs, blends, short vowels, and so forth. This is an excellent tool in monitoring student growth. In order for students to be challenged and pushed to grow and improve, they must be assessed periodically to ensure they are not completing work too far below or above their skill and knowledge level. Static Reversal ( n .) - a difficulty in differentiating letters which are horizontally or vertically symmetrical to each other or rotated (i.e. p and q; b and d; p and d). Kinetic Reversal ( n .) - a tendency to confuse palindromes (i.e. was and saw; not and ton) and to occasionally read from right to left resulting in a reverse of paired letters, or even syllables within a word. Understanding reversal...

Phonemic Awareness ( n .) - the ability to notice, think about, and work with the individual sounds in words; the ability to heard, identify, and manipulate individual sounds (phonemes) in spoken words. Phonemic awareness is important because it is usually a strong predictor of later success or difficulty in reading. Before children even learn to read print, they must become more aware of how the sounds in words work. Concepts of Print ( n .) - the ability of a child to know and recognize the ways in which print "works" for the purposes of reading, particularly with regard to books. Having knowledge of the concepts of print is critical in English reading and writing.  They are predictive of how well a student will be able to read in their early grades. Students can struggle and fall behind if they do not have knowledge that the teacher assumes them to have, especially if those discrepancies go unnoticed. Morphology ( n .) - the study of word structure and how w...