What Does It Mean?

Glossary

Automaticity—The ability to perform a skill with little or no conscious attention to its execution. Automaticity of word recognition frees conscious attention for comprehension. Source: www.nifl.gov/readingprofiles/MC_Glossary.htm

Balanced Literacy—Throughout a day, children participate in whole group, small group, and individual activities related to a wide range of reading and writing skills. This framework for instruction has eight instructional components: reading aloud, shared reading, guided reading, independent reading, shared writing, interactive writing, guided writing or writing workshop, and independent writing. The Michigan Curriculum Framework emphasizes oral language across the curriculum, working with letters and words, the unifying aspect of integrated themes, observation, assessment, and the role of a home-school partnership. These elements are linked together in two powerful ways: through the oral language that surrounds, supports, and extends all activities and by the content or topic of focus.**

Child Find—A service directed by each state’s Department of Education or lead agency for identifying and diagnosing children with disabilities. Child Find makes a special effort to identify children from birth to six years old who are not currently receiving services. In Michigan, this service is known as Project Find,
and each county has a Project Find coordinator. Source: www.nichcy.org

Comprehension—Acquiring strategies to understand, remember, and communicate what is read. Reading comprehension strategies are the steps good readers use to make sure they understand text. The teaching of comprehension strategies is one of the five essential components of reading instruction identified by the National Reading Panel. Source: www.ed.gov/parents/read/resources/readingtips/part_pg5.html

Decode—To attach sounds to letters and groups of letters that make up a word and then to blend them to say the word. Source: www.nifl.gov/readingprofiles/MC_Glossary.htm

Developmental Assessment—An ongoing process of observing a child's current competencies (including knowledge, skills, dispositions, and attitudes) and using the information to help the child develop further in the context of family and care giving and learning environments.*

Diversity—Differences among groups of people and individuals based on ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, gender, exceptionalities, language, religion, sexual orientation, and geographic area. Source: International Reading Association, www.reading.org

Early Learning Standards—Statements that describe expectations for the learning and development of young children across the domains of: health and physical well being, social and emotional well being, approaches to learning, language development and symbol systems, and general knowledge about the world around them.*

Early Literacy—The stage when readers are in full control of early reading strategies and can read appropriately selected texts independently once the teacher has introduced them. Teachers are concerned with helping readers more fully develop their ability to search, check, and use multiple sources of information.**

Emergent Literacy—The stage when readers are just beginning to control early reading behavior such as the direction to read letters and words from left to right and word-by-word matching. Readers use pictures to support meaning and rely on language as a strong cuing system. With emergent literacy readers, teachers move from shared to guided reading, focusing on helping children independently read texts that are easy for them and that they have read before.**

Emergent Reading—A child’s pretense of reading before s/he is able to read fluently and conventionally, which shows a child’s interest and motivation in learning to read.**

Ethnicity—Affiliation with any of the large groups of people commonly classified by language, race, national or geographic origin, culture, or religion. Source: International Reading Association, www.reading.org

Family Literacy—The different ways in which family members initiate and use literacy in their daily lives. Family literacy programs generally emphasize adult literacy skills, early reading activities, parent-child activity times, and parenting skills.**

Fluency—The ability to read a text accurately and quickly. Teaching children to read words rapidly and accurately in order to understand what is read is one of the five essential components of reading, as identified by the National Reading Panel. Source: www.ed.gov/parents/ read/resources/readingtips/part_pg5.html

Literacy—The ability to read, write, and comprehend. Source: www.crede.ucsc.edu/tools/glossary.html

Observational Assessment—A process during which the teacher systematically observes and records information about the child's level of development and/or knowledge, skills, and attitudes in order to make a determination about what has been learned, improve teaching, and support children's progress. A checklist or notes are often used to record what has been observed.*

Phonemic Awareness—The awareness of the sounds (phonemes) that make up spoken words. Source: International Reading Association, www.reading.org

Phonics—Generally used to refer to the system of sound-letter relationships used in reading and writing. Phonics begins with the understanding that letters (graphemes) of the English alphabet stand for one or more sounds (phonemes).
Source: International Reading Association, www.reading.org

Readiness Assessment—A testing instrument designed to measure skills believed to be related to school learning tasks and to be predictive of school success.*

Reading—In Michigan, reading is defined as the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction among the reader's existing knowledge, the information suggested by the written language, and the context of the reading situation. Source: Michigan Reading Association, www.mraread.org

Screening—The use of a brief procedure or instrument designed to identify, from within a large population of children, those who may need further assessment to verify developmental and/or health risks.*

Standards-Based Assessment—A process through which the criteria for assessment are derived directly from content and/or performance standards.*

* Source: Council of Chief State School Officers/Early Childhood Education Assessment. For these and additional early childhood education assessment terms, visit www.ccsso.org/projects/scass/projects/early_childhood_education_assessment_
consortium/publications_and_products/2840.cfm

**Source: Michigan Department of Education, glossary of terms used in the MLPP with references to: Theodore Harris and Richard Hodges, coeditors, a dictionary of reading and related terms, International Reading Association, Newark, Delaware, 1981.

Fountas and Pinnell, Guided Reading: Good first teaching for all children, Heinemann, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1996.

Theodore L. Harris and Richard E. Hodges, editors, the literacy dictionary: The vocabulary of reading and writing, international reading association, 1995.

Margaret Mooney, Richard C. Owen Publishers, text forms and features: A resource for intentional teaching, Katonah, New York, 2001.

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