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GLOSSARY

phonics terminology

Phoneme
The smallest unit of sound. There are approximately 44 to learn in the English language

Blending
Putting sounds together to read words.
Example: A child may read s-u-n but will then put the sounds together to blend them to read 'sun'

Decodable
Words that can be sounded out using sounds taught within Phonics. Examples: cat, chip

Tricky Words
These are words that like to break the rules! They don't follow the strategies taught in Phonics, so 'Tricky Words' need memorising by sight. Example: the, no, are, could

Segmenting
Breaking a word down to hear the individual sounds that a word is made up of. Example: saying d-o-g to spell the word dog.

Initial Sound
This is the first sound in a word. Example: sun - the initial sound is 's'

Digraph
Two letters that make one sound. Example: we say 'ch' as in 'chat' not c-h

Trigraph
Three letters that make one sound. Example: we say 'igh' as in 'night' not i-g-h

Split Digraph
When one sound splits the a, e, i, o, or u and the final e.
Example: 'stage' has a split digraph but not 'change'. This is because there are two consonants between the vowel (a) and the 'e' at the end of the word.

Sound Buttons
Small dots and dashes drawn under sounds in words. 
Children will then press these to support them to read words.
Dots are drawn under sounds such as 's', 'p' or 'r'. Dashes are drawn under digraphs and trigraphs such as 'sh' and 'igh'

Pure Sounds
A pure sound in phonics is the pronunciation of each letter sound clearly and distinctly without adding additional sounds to the end. For instance, the /f/ sound is pronounced as 'f' and not 'fuh

Letter Names
Letter names provide abstract labels for the letters, not how the letters actually sound within our language. That is why teaching a child to sing the alphabet song before learning the pure sounds, has limited value

Real Words
Any word that has meaning in the English language is a real word. The term 'real word' is often used alongside the teaching of nonsense words as a point of comparison

Nonsense Words
Nonsense words are made-up words that are used to help teach key phonetic sounds.

Phonetic Words
'Phonetic' describes the way that spoken words sound. To sound out an unfamiliar word, you break it into its phonetic parts, saying each sound in the order in which it appears
Kinesthetic Learning
Kinesthetic learning is a style where children or adults learn best through physical activity, hands-on experiences and movement.
Grapheme
A grapheme is the way we write a phoneme.

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