LETRS Module 1-3

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 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 syllable a 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". context the 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. correlational studies studies that show the strength of relationship between two or more variables, but that ordinarily are not sufficient to prove a causal relationship between or among those variables. cross-sectional a type of study that draws samples of students from different age groups or grade-level groups. cumulative instruction teaching that proceeds in additive steps, building on what was previously taught. decodable text text in which a high proportion (i.e. 70-90%) of words comprise sound-symbol relationships that have already been taught; used to provide practice with specific decoding skills; a bridge between learning phonics and the application of phonics in independent reading of text. decoding the ability to translate a word from print to speech, usually by employing knowledge of sound-symbol correspondences; also the act of deciphering a new word by sounding it out. *deep alphabetic orthography *a writing system that represents both phonemes and morphemes. *derivational suffix *a type of bound morpheme; a suffix- such as "-ity", "-ive", and "-ly" - that can change the part of speech of the root or base word to which it is added. dialects mutually intelligible versions of the same language with systematic differences in phonology; word use, and/or grammatical rules. digraph a two-letter combination (e.g., th, ph) that stands for a single phoneme in which neither letter represents its usual sound.