In our teaching of structured literacy we use a number of the following words with our students.

'Structured Literacy' underpins how we teach students to read and write in our school. With this in mind we like to remind our whānau about some of the terms we use in class with our ākonga | learners.

So here we go:

Decoding: The process of being able to read a word, and then translate what has been read into spoken language. 

Encoding: The process of being able to hear a sound and then write down the correct letter/s (grapheme) to represent that sound.

Scope and Sequence: The progression of skills and knowledge that children acquire when learning to read. The 'scope' refers to the  general phases of progression in learning. The 'sequence’ is based on the progression of how children learn to produce sounds.

Grapheme : A written symbol that represents a sound, i.e., phoneme. 

Phoneme: The smallest unit of sound in a language that can distinguish words and convey meaning. It is a basic building block of spoken language, representing distinctive sounds that can differentiate one word from another. In English, there are 44 phonemes.

Digraph: A single sound represented by two letters, e.g., ch, sh, th, oa, oe and ie etc. 

Blending: Combining individual phonemes to make a whole word, e.g., /t/a/p/ → /tap/.

Segmenting: Breaking a word down into their individual phonemes, e.g., /t/a/p/ or /sh/o/p/. 

Word chain: A list of words that only differ by one sound.

N:B: A workshop about the Better Start Literacy Approach, i.e., BSLA that we use with the students in Kiwakiwa, Poataniwha and Manakura will be held soon so look out for details about that.