LITERACY
the big 5
by Jacob Stratton

Phonemic Awareness

• Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize certain parts in words.
• For example, the observation that Jim, John, and Jake all sound the same at first shows awareness of the /J/ sound.
• Essentially, Phonemic Awareness means that the reader understands that a combination of sounds make up a word.

Phonics

• Phonics are the relationship between a letter or group of letters and the associated sound they make together.
• This means that Phonics allow students to connect letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes).
• This leads to "sounding out" a word.

Fluency

• The ability to read a text quickly and accurately.
• Reading requires little effort and meaning can be gained from the text.
• The bridge between word recognition and comprehension.

Vocabulary

• A reader's vocabulary is all of the the words the reader knows.
• Vocabulary is important for reading comprehension.
• Vocabulary can provide context for unknown words because the reader understands the other words in the sentence, or familiar parts of the word.

Comprehension

• Comprehension is the purpose for reading. It means understanding the text.
• This gives the reading an intentional goal.