© NET Section, CDI, EDB, HKSAR 161 Glossary
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Drafting The process or result of putting ideas into writing in a rough form, often edited later for publication.
Early reading Continuing stage of reading where students begin to demonstrate more reading behaviours, e.g. apply reading strategies.
Early fluent reading Continuing stage of reading where students begin to consistently demonstrate more reading behaviours, e.g. apply reading
strategies.
Editing The process of refining writing.
Emergent reading Initial stage of reading where students begin to demonstrate reading behaviours.
Encoding A strategy used to spell an unknown word using the knowledge of letter/sound relationships.
Expressive language
Language that a person uses to produce his/her own speech and writing.
Fiction texts Texts about imaginary people, things or events.
Final sound A sound at the end of a word, e.g. cat, wash.
Flexible grouping Forming and dissolving groups according to the goal of the lesson.
Fluency The ability to read at an appropriate rate smoothly.
Formative assessment
The practice of building a cumulative profile of student progress and achievement. This usually takes place during day-to-day classroom activities and involves informal interaction and observation of the student. It may include more formal assessment procedures. It provides a broader profile of the student than formal testing. Formative and summative
assessment complement each other to form a comprehensive profile of student achievement.
Formulaic expressions
Language which is learned in chunks (e.g. greetings). It often relates to specific contexts (e.g. ordering a meal in a restaurant).
Second language learners usually begin by learning these expressions.
Functional language Language needed for communicating with others in a social environment.
Genre Category of written texts, e.g. mystery, fantasy.
Graphophonic Letter/sound relationships.
Guided reading A procedure that enables teachers to guide small groups of students of similar ability, reading a common text with the aim of teaching and practising reading strategies.
Guided writing The provision of scaffolded support to a small group of students
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with similar needs.
High frequency words
Words occurring frequently in written or spoken texts, e.g. the, at, I, you.
Illustrations Pictures to go with written or spoken text that explains the content of the text or provides more information, e.g. drawing,
photograph, diagram.
Imitating Copying or mimicking the reading style or speech of others.
Independent reading
Students self select books to read without teacher support.
Indicator A description of literacy behaviours.
Integration The teaching of the language skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing in conjunction with each other.
Initial sound A sound at the beginning of a word, e.g. cat, ship.
Instructional language
Language used by teachers to facilitate classroom management.
Intonation The rise and fall in the pitch of the voice as well as the degree of loudness placed on different syllables, which adds more meaning to the words being expressed.
Language features The grammatical structures and word selection appropriate for different text types.
Letter clusters Letters that are grouped together, e.g. bl, str, tch, tion, ly.
Levelled texts The levelling of texts allows teachers to match books with an individual student’s reading ability.
Literacy The ability to inject one’s own thoughts and intentions into messages received and messages sent, and to transform and then act upon aspects of the world via spoken and written words.
Literacy is using the processes of language authentically.
Literary texts Spoken and written texts that explore and interpret human experience, usually in such a way as to evoke in the reader or listener a reflective, imaginative and/or emotional response.
Literacy practice Ways of communicating every day through listening, speaking, reading and writing that is influenced by culture, society and identity.
Medial sound A sound in the middle of a one-syllable word, e.g. cat, beach.
Metacognition Thinking about one’s thinking.
Modelling A teaching and learning practice involving explicit demonstration of the thinking behind how and why something is done.
Non-fiction texts Texts about real people, facts and events.
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Non-literary texts Texts that present information to inform, instruct, enlighten or persuade the reader or listener.
Onset and rime The separate sounds in a one-syllable word. The onset is the initial consonant or consonant cluster of a word, e.g. sun, chop, strike.
The rime is the part of a one-syllable word that starts with a vowel, and usually has a final consonant, e.g. tea, sun, strike, watch.
Phonemic awareness
The awareness of the individual sounds that make up spoken words.
Phonics The relationship between sounds and their letters. This assists in word recognition when reading, and with spelling when writing.
Phonological awareness
An ability to recognise, combine and manipulate the different sound units of spoken words.
Positive reinforcement
The rewarding of effort and achievement in order to encourage more of the same in the future.
Predicting The use of prior knowledge to anticipate what is going to occur in a text before or during reading.
Print-rich environment
An environment filled with meaningful print.
Pronunciation The way a certain sound or sounds are produced and perceived by the hearer, including how the spoken word relates to its written form, e.g. in the word knife the k is not pronounced.
Reading The act of constructing meaning from print using prior knowledge of the world, of language and of the written code.
Reading aloud A reading procedure that involves the teacher reading aloud to students.
Rebus A word game or puzzle in which words have to be guessed from pictures or letters that suggest the sound that make them, e.g. R U 18? is a rebus for Are you 18?
Receptive language Spoken and written language that a person understands.
Retell To read a text and then reconstruct it in a way that reveals the parts of the text that are significant to the reader and the links that the reader makes between aspects of the text.
Rhythm Rhythm is the more or less regular alternation of light beats and heavy beats (stresses) in speech or music. Some poetry uses very regular rhythm patterns.
Scaffolding Strategic leads, prompts and support given to students in the form of modelling, sharing, guiding and conferencing.
Schwa The sound ‘uh’.
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Segments i] To break a one syllable word into its individual sounds, e.g. c-a-t; ch-ar-c-a-t; g-r-ou-n-d. This assists with reading, and spelling when writing.
ii] To break a one syllable word into onset and rime, e.g. c-at; ch-art; gr-ound. This assists with reading, and spelling when writing.
Semantic The meaning of text.
Share the pen A process in which teacher and students compose and construct texts collaboratively.
Shared reading An interactive reading procedure in which students see the text, observe a good model (usually the teacher) reading and are invited to read along.
Shared writing An interactive procedure in which students see the construction of a text by a good model (usually the teacher) and are invited to contribute ideas and suggestions.
Sight words Words that readers recognise at sight. They do not need to decode them using phonics or other reading strategies.
Story frame A summary of a story with important information about the key elements missing. Using correct sentence structure and
connecting words, the students write extended text to provide the missing elements of the story.
Story map A visual representation of the main features of a story. It can be constructed at the end of a reading or be an ongoing process as the story is progressing. It usually has labels.
Summative assessment
The practice of making judgements about student achievement at certain relevant points in the learning and teaching programme, such as at the end of a unit of work, or at the end of a term or end of school year. Formal assessment activities such as tests, projects and assignments are generally used. Formative and summative assessment complement each other to form a comprehensive profile of student achievement.
Syllable A rhythmic unit of speech consisting minimally of one vowel sound and maximally of a vowel sound preceded by and/or followed by a consonant or a consonant cluster. Words with only one unit (cat, fright, jail) are called monosyllabic; words with more than one unit (su/per, cow/ard, pro/duc/tion) are polysyllabic.
Synopsis . A brief summary of the book.
Syntactic The structure and grammar of the language, e.g. the word order pattern in sentences.
Text Any meaningful stretch of language organised to communicate, including written, spoken, visual and electronic forms.
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and language features common to each one. Texts can be literary or non-literary and can be a combination of text types, e.g. a guidebook may contain a procedural text (the path or route) and a report (information about exhibits).