Phonological Awareness
This is the understanding that a spoken word is made up of different parts and that each of these parts makes a sound. Phonological Awareness is an important building block for Phonics.
Example: The word bat includes the sounds /b/, /a/, /t/ or the word batter can be broken into two syllables that make the sounds /bat/ /ter/.
Phonics
Phonics instruction teaches children how to connect the sounds they hear in spoken words to the letters they see in written words. Students have to learn many different connections between sounds and spelling patterns. This skill is mastered by taking one step at a time, learning one rule and then another. Once students can make the connections quickly and automatically, they can really start to read for meaning. At Forest Hills, we use Reading Horizons as our phonics program.
High-Frequency Words
High-Frequency Words are the words that appear most often in what children read. Because these words appear so often, readers must learn to recognize them automatically. Learning to recognize these words more quickly and easily gives them a better opportunity to understand what they are reading.
In Reading Horizons, these words are called Most Common Words.
Vocabulary
Good readers know the meanings of many words. The more words a student knows, the easier it is to understand what the student reads. Students grow their vocabularies by hearing and reading new words, talking about the words, and being taught specific words.
Literature
This describes a student's ability to understand types of writing that are usually made up, or fictional. This type of writing is usually found in stories, but can also be in the form of plays or poems. Students will be able to identify the sequence of a story, character traits, main idea, etc.
