JARGON DICTIONARY!

 

We teachers are among the world's worst (except maybe you computer geeks out there!) for talking technical. So if you aren't familiar with some of the "teacher-speak" on our site, this page should help you

 

Digraph

Two or more letters sounded together, where the separate letter sounds merge and become one sound, e.g. EAT, TAIL, COIN (Vowel Digraphs); THIS, WISH, PHONE (Consonant Digraphs).

Final Blends

Two or more letters sounded together as above, but at the end of a word: e.g. NT, LK, FT, as in HUNT, MILK, SOFT.

Initial Blends

Two or more letters sounded together at the beginning of a word, where each letter is sounded, e.g. ST, SP, CL, STR  as in STAY, SPILL, CLICK, STRONG.

ONSET AND RIME:   (See also SNIP article: click here)  

Onset

The STARTING SOUND of a word or syllalble. this may be a single consonant (CAT), a blend (FLOAT) or a digraph (SHELL)

Rime

The ending sound of a word or syllalble, made up of the vowel(s) and the final consonant(s), as in the black letters of the three examples above. Many children (and dyslexic adults) find it easiest to learn spellings by RIME ANALOGY, which means that sounds that both LOOK AND SOUND the same are mentally linked. We all know "the cat sat on the mat"- AT is the rime analogy. MIGHT and SIGHT are rimes; MITE (a tiny creature) and SIGHT are not. Young children tend to learn by rime analogy before starting to get an understanding of phonics.

 

Phonics

The understanding of how each separate letter sound combines to form the pronounciation of words.