A Primer on Reading Terminology

AUTOMATICITY Readers construct meaning through recognition of words and passages (strings of words). Proficient readers read words and strings of words rapidly and effortlessly – this is called automaticity.

DECODING Decoding is a series of strategies used selectively by readers to recognize and read written words. The process of converting the printed word into its spoken form is called decoding. Decoding involves looking at a word and connecting the letters with sounds, and then blending those sounds together to form a spoken word.

WORD RECOGNITION Decoding leads to word recognition when the reader connects the spoken form of a word to its meaning. When the reader recognizes and understands the meaning of strings of words in text, we say the reader comprehends the text.

PHONEMIC AWARENESS A phoneme is the smallest and most basic unit of speech. Phonemic awareness is the understanding that every spoken word is made up of one or more phonemes, or speech sounds. Phonemic awareness involves the ability to hear, blend and segment phonemes in spoken words. It is an auditory skill that does not involve the use of prints.

PHONICS The difference between phonemic awareness and phonics is that phonemic awareness involves sounds in spoken words and phonics involves teaching the relationship between spoken sounds and written symbols. Phonics is the study and use of sound/spelling correspondences and syllable patterns to help identify written words.

READING COMPREHENSION Comprehension is an active, engaged cognitive process of weaving individual words into phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs, thinking about what the author is saying, connecting it to prior knowledge, and arriving at an understanding.

A reader’s prior, or background, knowledge consists not only of prior personal experiences, conceptual learning, topic and text-type knowledge, and reading experiences, but also prior stored knowledge about how print works, and about letters and letter patterns and their spelling pairings. Reading comprehension is at the heart of academic learning in all subject areas.

Reading comprehension is essential to obtaining an education and to lifelong learning as well. RC is a complex, cognitive process that requires explicit vocabulary development, an active interaction between the reader and the text, and the direct involvement of well trained teachers. The basic elements of reading comprehension can help teachers begin to focus on instructional strategies with the greatest chance of success of teaching all students to be active, competent readers.

Research also tells us that reading comprehension can be taught, and that in fact all students benefit from instruction in comprehension strategies such as using context clues, breaking words apart to understand their meanings, summarizing, and predicting what will come next.

READING FLUENCY Reading fluency is the accuracy and rate with which students read. RF significantly affects the reader’s ability to comprehend and it is the mark of a proficient reader. Fluency involves recognizing words automatically, understanding the phrasing of text, and applying rapid phonic, structural, and contextual analysis to identify unknown words.

For fluent readers, the decoding processes are so automatic they do not require any conscious attention. An additional dimension to fluency is known as prosody, or the natural rhythms and tones of spoken language. Two approaches to teaching reading fluency have been commonly used. – One, guided oral reading, encourages students to read (and re-read) passages orally with systematic and explicit guidance and feedback. – The other, independent silent reading, encourages students to read often, and silently, on their own with minimal guidance.