Learning to Read, Write, and Spell Words in English as a New Language

Numeric Spelling

A number name is included in a word or sentence with the expectation that it will be pronounced by its number name. EX. gr8 for great

Logograms

A symbol that represents a word rather than a sound

Digraph

A union of two characters representing a single sound.

Consonantal Alphabet

A way of writing in which each symbol represents a consonant sound. Only some of the vowel sounds are written out.

Word Recognition

Accessing and Recognizing individual words

Decoding

Accessing and Recognizing words in connected text

Alphabetic/letter Name Spelling

An alphabet letter is written with the expectation it will be pronounced by its letter name.

Word Calling

Decoding words without comprehending their meaning. Occurs for one of two reasons -- either the words are outside the listening (spoken) vocabulary of the child, or the decoding process is so slow, laborious, and capacity-demanding that the child is unable to pay attention to word meaning.

Generative

A limited number of letters and sounds can be combined to generate an astronomical number of words.

Decodable Words

Words with easy-to-match phonemes and graphemes

Transparent/ Shallow Orthographies

Writing systems that have a close match between sounds and symbols.

Opacity

impenetrably dense; hard to understand

Graphemes

letters

Alphabetic Orthography

Represents each sound with a symbol or symbols

Recoding

Retrieve the word from our listening vocabulary and try to write the letters that represent the sounds of the word.

Deep/ Opaque Orthographies

Symbols that do not match consistently with their phonemes.

Reasoning by Analogy

The development of the ability to predict the meaning of unknown words through familiarity with the frames that surround the unknown element.

Pinyin

The internationally accepted language for China using English alphabet for Chinese sounds

Morphemes

The smallest units of meaning in a language.

Orthographic Depth Hypothesis

This addressed how different writing systems influence the ways children learn to read.

Syllabic Writing System

Uses a consonant-vowel combination as the smallest unit to represent sounds.

Orthographic Transparency or Depth

a consistent relationship between the sounds of a language and the spelling so that a particular sound always has the same spelling

Emoji

a graphical emoticon used to express emotions, attitudes, or situations

Alphabet

a set of letters that can be combined to form words

Invented Spelling

a strategy young children with good phonological awareness skills use when they write

Logographic Writing System

a system in which pictures represent the words of a language (Chinese). If English were treated as a logographic writing system, it would contain over 600,000 pictures.

Syllabary

complete set of syllables in the language

Phonemes

in language, the smallest distinctive sound unit

Phonics

the sounds that letters make and the letters that are used to represent sounds

Numeracy

understanding of the meaning of numbers

Sight Words

words children identify quickly, accurately, and effortlessly. Words that have to be learned as whole words.