LETRS Module 1-3

LETRS Module 1-3 affix a morpheme or a meaningful part of a word that is attached before or after a root to modify its meaning; a category that includes prefixes, suffixes and infixes. *affricate *a speech sound with features of both a fricative and a stop; in English /ch/ and /j/ are afficates. *affrication *the pronunciation of /t/ as /ch/ in words such as "nature", and /d/ as /j/ in words such as "educate". alphabetic principle the principle that letters are used to represent individual phonemes in the spoken word; a critical insight for beginning reading and spelling. alphabetic writing system a system of symbols that represent each consonant and vowel sound in a language. Anglo-Saxon Old English, a Germanic language spoken in Britain before the invasion of the Norman French in 1066. base word a free morpheme, usually of Anglo-Saxon origin, to which affixes can be added. *bound morpheme *a meaningful part of a word that makes words only in combination with other morphemes; includes inflections, roots, prefixes, and derivational suffixes. chunk a group of letters, processed as a unit, that corresponds to a piece of a word, usually a consonant cluster, rime pattern, syllable or morpheme. closed sound a consonant sound made by using the tongue, teeth, or lips to obstruct the air as it is pushed through the vocal cavity. cognate a word in one language that shares a common ancestor and common meanings with a word in another language. closed syllable a written syllable containing a single vowel letter that ends in one or more consonant; the vowel sound is short. cluster adjacent consonants that appear before or after a vowel; a consonant blend. *coarticulation *speaking phonemes together so that the feature of each spreads to neighboring phonemes and all the segments are joined into one linguistic unit (syllable). concept an idea that links other facts, words, and ideas together into a coherent whole. consensus agreement in the scientific community on specific truths that have emanated from a series of studies about a specific problem or issue.