A Common Vocabulary for the Act of Reading In 1997, the US Congress asked the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD), along with the U.S. Department of Education, to form the National Reading Panel to review research on how children learn to read and determine which methods of reading instruction are the most effective. The panel included school administrators, teachers, and reading researchers. They concluded that the most effective method to teach reading is explicit instruction in these “Big Five” reading ideas: Phonemic Awareness Alphabetic Principle Text fluency Vocabulary Comprehension In addition to the Big Five Reading Ideas, other critical literacy vocabulary is defined below. alphabetic knowledge—Recognizing the names and phonics—The relationship between the sounds of shapes of the letters of the alphabet. spoken words and the individual letters or groups of alphabetic principle—Knowing that the letters of letters that represent those sounds in written the alphabet are symbols that correspond to sounds words. that create words. phonological awareness—The understanding that blending—Putting together individual sounds to spoken language is made up of individual and make spoken words. separate sounds. In addition to phonemes, comprehension—Active and intentional thinking of phonological awareness activities can involve work the reader as he or she constructs meaning from a with rhymes, words, sentences, and syllables. text. print awareness—Knowing about print and books developmental spelling (invented spelling)—The use and how they are used. of letter-sound relationship information to attempt segmentation—Taking spoken words apart sound to write words. by sound. environmental print—Print that is a part of sight words—The words that the reader recognizes everyday life, such as signs, billboards, labels, and automatically without sounding them out. Many of business logos. these words are irregular, containing uncommon experimental writing—Efforts by emergent readers letter-sound relationships. to experiment with writing by creating pretend and syllable—A word part that contains a vowel or, in real letters and by organizing scribbles and marks spoken language, a vowel sound (e-vent, news-pa- on paper. per, pret-ty) fluency—The ability to read text accurately, quickly vocabulary—The words readers must and with expression. know in order to communicate effectively. informational text—Text that conveys nonfictional Oral vocabulary refers to words used in subject matter. speaking or recognize in listening. Reading literacy—All of the activities involved in speaking, vocabulary refers to words recognized or listening, reading, writing, and appreciating spoken used in print. and written language. word recognition—The ability to phonemes—The smallest parts of spoken language identify and decode printed words quickly, that combine to form words. For example, the word translating them to their corresponding sounds so hit is made up of three phonemes (/h/ /i/ /t/) and as to infer their meanings. differs by one phoneme from the words pit, hip and hot. Sources: The University of Oregon—The Center for phonemic awareness—The ability to notice and Teaching and Learning; Partnership for Reading—The work with the individual sounds in spoken language. National Institute for Literacy .