ALTA COMPETENCY COMPREHENSIVE
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SET A+
✔✔tilde - ✔✔a diacritical mark (~) placed over a vowel in a combination or a dipthong:
or, ou
✔✔unequivocal sounds - ✔✔clear; an unequivocal letter represents only one sound (/b/,
/t/, /l/, /h/). An unequivocal sound is regularly spelled only one way.
✔✔VAKT - ✔✔visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile
✔✔voiced/voiceless sounds (cognates) - ✔✔phonemes produced in the same place of
the mouth and in the same manner but that vary in the voicing characteristic (/k/ and /g/)
✔✔vowel - ✔✔a class of open speech sounds produced with the passage of air through
an open vocal tract (open & voiced)
✔✔Wernicke's Aphasia - ✔✔person speaks with ease but does not understand
language
✔✔word blindness - ✔✔term used in the late 19th & 20th centuries for dyslexia. Word
blindness now refers to acquired alexia, "the loss or diminution of ability of reading
ability resulting from/or brain trauma, a tumor, or a stroke" (Shaywitz, 2003)
✔✔nasal phoneme - ✔✔a sound produced by forcing air through the nose (m, n, ng)
✔✔stop/plosive phoneme - ✔✔a sound in which the outgoing air flow is completely
stopped (p, b, t, d, c, g)
✔✔fricative phoneme - ✔✔a sound that is produced by forcing air through a narrow
opening between the teeth and lips to make a hissing sound (s, z, sh, zh, th, th, f, v, z,
h)
, ✔✔affricate phoneme - ✔✔a consonant sound that consists of a slowly released stop
followed by a fricative (ch, j)
✔✔glide phoneme - ✔✔flowing and vowel-like (y, w)
✔✔liquid phoneme - ✔✔a sound produced when the lips and/or tongue are passing
from the position for one sound to that of another (r, l)
✔✔accent - ✔✔stress or emphasis on one syllable in a word or one part of a word;
sound is louder, longer & higher. Mouth is open wider while saying an accented syllable.
✔✔Derivations suffixes - ✔✔can change the part of speech (please: pleasant,
pleasantly, pleasurable). The suffixes -able (-ible), -ness, and -ly make up 27% of all
suffixed words
✔✔ affix - ✔✔prefix or suffix added to a base word. ex. unhelpful
✔✔active learning - ✔✔learning in which the learner mentally searches for connections
between new and already known information
✔✔allophone - ✔✔a variation of a speech sound (/t/ in top, stop, spits, swift)
✔✔analytic - ✔✔pertaining to instruction or a process that separates WHOLE into its
PARTS. Analytic phonics separates a whole word into its parts so students can deduce
the phonics relationships of the separate orthographic patterns
✔✔angular gyrus - ✔✔an area of the brain for visual-verbal associations
✔✔anomaly - ✔✔irregularity; deviation from the common notion of fitness or order
✔✔ARD - ✔✔advanced reading deck; shows only the letter
✔✔auditory discrimination - ✔✔Necessary to "break the code" for reading. It involves
being able to perceive the differences between speech sounds and to sequence these
sounds into meaningful words.
✔✔base word - ✔✔the simplest form of an English word; a word without affixes, such as
spell
✔✔benchmark measures - ✔✔progress measurement administered at the end of each
schedule, when students have had enough practice
✔✔breve - ✔✔a diacritical marking that indicates a short vowel sound
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SET A+
✔✔tilde - ✔✔a diacritical mark (~) placed over a vowel in a combination or a dipthong:
or, ou
✔✔unequivocal sounds - ✔✔clear; an unequivocal letter represents only one sound (/b/,
/t/, /l/, /h/). An unequivocal sound is regularly spelled only one way.
✔✔VAKT - ✔✔visual, auditory, kinesthetic, tactile
✔✔voiced/voiceless sounds (cognates) - ✔✔phonemes produced in the same place of
the mouth and in the same manner but that vary in the voicing characteristic (/k/ and /g/)
✔✔vowel - ✔✔a class of open speech sounds produced with the passage of air through
an open vocal tract (open & voiced)
✔✔Wernicke's Aphasia - ✔✔person speaks with ease but does not understand
language
✔✔word blindness - ✔✔term used in the late 19th & 20th centuries for dyslexia. Word
blindness now refers to acquired alexia, "the loss or diminution of ability of reading
ability resulting from/or brain trauma, a tumor, or a stroke" (Shaywitz, 2003)
✔✔nasal phoneme - ✔✔a sound produced by forcing air through the nose (m, n, ng)
✔✔stop/plosive phoneme - ✔✔a sound in which the outgoing air flow is completely
stopped (p, b, t, d, c, g)
✔✔fricative phoneme - ✔✔a sound that is produced by forcing air through a narrow
opening between the teeth and lips to make a hissing sound (s, z, sh, zh, th, th, f, v, z,
h)
, ✔✔affricate phoneme - ✔✔a consonant sound that consists of a slowly released stop
followed by a fricative (ch, j)
✔✔glide phoneme - ✔✔flowing and vowel-like (y, w)
✔✔liquid phoneme - ✔✔a sound produced when the lips and/or tongue are passing
from the position for one sound to that of another (r, l)
✔✔accent - ✔✔stress or emphasis on one syllable in a word or one part of a word;
sound is louder, longer & higher. Mouth is open wider while saying an accented syllable.
✔✔Derivations suffixes - ✔✔can change the part of speech (please: pleasant,
pleasantly, pleasurable). The suffixes -able (-ible), -ness, and -ly make up 27% of all
suffixed words
✔✔ affix - ✔✔prefix or suffix added to a base word. ex. unhelpful
✔✔active learning - ✔✔learning in which the learner mentally searches for connections
between new and already known information
✔✔allophone - ✔✔a variation of a speech sound (/t/ in top, stop, spits, swift)
✔✔analytic - ✔✔pertaining to instruction or a process that separates WHOLE into its
PARTS. Analytic phonics separates a whole word into its parts so students can deduce
the phonics relationships of the separate orthographic patterns
✔✔angular gyrus - ✔✔an area of the brain for visual-verbal associations
✔✔anomaly - ✔✔irregularity; deviation from the common notion of fitness or order
✔✔ARD - ✔✔advanced reading deck; shows only the letter
✔✔auditory discrimination - ✔✔Necessary to "break the code" for reading. It involves
being able to perceive the differences between speech sounds and to sequence these
sounds into meaningful words.
✔✔base word - ✔✔the simplest form of an English word; a word without affixes, such as
spell
✔✔benchmark measures - ✔✔progress measurement administered at the end of each
schedule, when students have had enough practice
✔✔breve - ✔✔a diacritical marking that indicates a short vowel sound
