LETRS Glossary Volume 1 Units 1-4 Questions and Correct Answers

LETRS Glossary Volume 1 Units 1-4 Questions and Correct Answers academic language written or spoken language that is more stylistically formal than spoken conversational language; language that is most often used in academic discourse or text. adjective A part of speech that describes a noun or person (e.g., windy, blue). adverb A part of speech that describes a verd, adjective, or adverb (e.g., sadly, crookedly). affricate A speech sound with features of both a fricative and a stop; in English, /ch/ and /j/ are ________. allophones Slight alterations to pronunciation of phonemes resulting from phonemes overlapping with one another in a spoken word; these variations of pronunciation are predictable and unconscious, as most speakers make them. allophonic variation The slightly different pronunciation of a phoneme, depending on its place in a word; for example, automatic nasalizing of a vowel before a nasal consonant. alphabetic principle The concept that letters are used to represent individual phonemes in the spoken word; insight into this principle is critical for learning to read and spell. antonym A word that overlaps with another word, but which has the opposite meaning. automaticity The ability to read quickly and accurately without conscious effort. background knowledge Preexisting knowledge of facts and ideas necessary to make inferences. base words Words that can stand on their own, or can serve as part of another word, as a free morpheme. benchmark A standard or a set of standards used as a threshold for predicting future risk for reading difficulty. blend Two or three graphemes, each one representing a phoneme (e.g., the s-c-r in scrape); a ________ is not one sound, but two or three adjacent consonants before or after a vowel in a syllable. characters The protagonist or who the story is about, plus optional secondary people or animals whose roles within the story help the plot to unfold. clause A group of words that has a subject and a predicate and functions as a unit. closed syllable A syllable with a short vowel spelled with a single vowel letter and ending in one or more consonants (e.g., hat, kit-ten). coarticulation Occurs when phonemes are spoken together to produce syllables or words and the features of these phonemes are affected by the speech sounds that precede or follow them. code switching The conscious effort to write and/or speak in a certain way, depending on the social context and/or whether the language is spoken or writter.