Glossary of Reading Terms for Journalists and Other Interested Parties

June 8, 2023

It seems like every day there is another article, podcast, or think piece in popular media about the teaching of reading. What I notice each time I read or listen is that, often, multiple key terms are incorrectly defined, misused, or partially explained in a way that is both misleading and incorrect, and this sows division and confusion. What follows is a random (but alphabetized!) list of key terms I see most often. My definitions are based on years of study and practice in the field, from extensive reading of research, and from participating in and leading professional conversations, though I’ve included citations to other researchers or practitioners who define terms in similar ways.

Peace, Jen

Balanced Literacy: A term first introduced by the CADOE in an attempt at compromise between different sides of “The Reading Wars” of the 1990s (more on the history here), acknowledging a broad research based that found that both explicit instruction in phonics and authentic reading experiences are critical in developing readers. This approach aligns to the National Reading Panel’s (2000) call for taking a “balanced approach.” Since the 1990s, the definition has evolved to describe a balance of reading, writing, speaking, and listening; of whole group, small group, and one-on-one instruction; of incorporating opportunities for knowledge-building alongside the teaching of strategies to support skill development; of reading and writing a variety of genres and text types; of opportunities for “I do” (demonstration or modeling)/”we do” (guided practice and collaborative learning)/”you do” (independent practice). Teachers in balanced literacy classrooms tend to prioritize responsive instruction and recognize individual needs, while also balancing instruction aligned to grade level standards. (For comparison, see Whole Language and Structured Literacy) (Fisher, Frey, Akhavan, 2019)

Classroom Library: A classroom collection of books that students borrow from for choice independent reading. Ideally, classroom libraries are in every K-12 ELA classroom, and include a wide range of genres and text types which are culturally and linguistically responsive and grade-level appropriate, and that offer students opportunities to read widely and broadly as well as to deepen their knowledge of topics under study. Teachers should offer students guidance and support when selecting texts.(Note: there is no such thing as a “balanced literacy library” or a “science of reading library” – a classroom library is a well-curated collection of books, organized for easy searching, to support reading, no matter the approach to literacy instruction used in the classroom). 

Decodable Books: Texts that are written with spelling patterns that match what students learn in phonics, and align to the phonics program’s scope-and-sequence. Decodable books are not decodable in and of themselves, but are decodable because of the reader-text match: the reader needs to know the spelling pattern that is featured in the text. Though research into use of decodable books is still developing, some experts and educators advocate for using them, especially for beginning readers, during phonics lessons as they provide an opportunity for children to apply their word-level practice of spelling patterns to connected text reading.

Evidence-based: Practices or programs that are considered effective (positively impacting student growth and achievement) based on research of that specific practice or program. Researchers need to study the particular practice or program in a controlled setting to ensure that the positive effects are attributed to it. Proving a practice or program is evidence based often takes time and such studies can be costly (requiring grant funding or publisher support), therefore the ability to make this claim is rare, or might only be pursued once a program is in heavy use and profitable. It is more common for programs or practices to be labeled research-based (based on ideas from other research studies of other practices or programs) or evidence-informed for this reason. (See: research based).

Independent Reading: An opportunity to read without teacher support, to apply skills and strategies to connected texts. Research supports independent reading that is instructionalized through scaffolding and accountability—teachers might help with text selection, guide children toward conceptually coherent text sets, work with students individually or in groups (conferring and small group instruction) to teach them targeted strategies aligned to their individual goals, and/or may give students opportunities to discuss their texts with peers or with their teacher.

Leveled Books: Any book–from those teachers use with beginning readers to those we use with high schoolers–can be leveled. Leveling a book means using a qualitative or quantitative system to evaluate how complex it is. Qualitative systems look at factors humans can judge (levels of meaning, richness of vocabulary, themes) whereas quantitative leveling uses computer-evaluated measures of complexity (sentence length, word length, text cohesion). Both systems have pros and cons. Levels can be used to evaluate the relative complexity of a text to ensure reader-text matches and to make sure teachers offer students appropriately challenging texts for their grade level. (Read more here.)

NAEP Proficiency: One of four levels of performance on the National Assessment of Education Progress fourth grade test, also known as the “Nation’s Report Card.” Proficient is the third level, below “Advanced” and above “Basic” and “Below Basic.” The National Center for Education Statistics emphatically states that “proficiency does not equate to grade level,” but rather “solid academic performance [including] competency over challenging subject matter… application of such knowledge to real-world situations, and analytical skills appropriate to the subject matter.“ (See more here.)

Orthographic mapping: When a reader attends to a word and decodes it, connecting the letter sounds (phonemes), symbols/letters (graphemes), and meaning of the words, the word becomes cemented in the reader’s memory so they can read it on sight (see: sight words) in the future. It is a theory, written about extensively by researcher Linnea Ehri, which explains what happens in the brain. Orthographic mapping is not a classroom routine or lesson structure, although teaching students to decode and to link phonemes, graphemes, and meaning supports OM.

Pattern Books: Books written for very beginning readers to teach them concepts of print (i.e., one word spoken matches one word on the page, read a sentence left-to-right) and to give them repeated exposure to high frequency words that are often the words in the pattern that show up on each page (i.e. “This is a car…This is a truck…This is a boat”). Unfortunately, these books often contain words that cannot be decoded, which can confuse some readers and/or make it likely they rely on pictures, inferences, or adult support rather than decoding. For beginning readers, many educators are now using different texts which support attention to the words and decoding (See: decodable books). Early pattern books are often leveled with numbers or letters (A, B, C, D or 1, 2, 3, 4) but pattern books are not synonymous with leveled books (see: leveled books).

Phonics Instruction: Explicit teaching of the relationship between letters (graphemes) and sounds (phonemes) to support the reading of words. Phonics instruction should be explicit and systematic, and should follow a scope-and-sequence. The amount of instruction that students need in phonics varies and instruction should be flexible to provide students with the right amount of repetition necessary for them to learn. Phonics is a necessary foundational component, but insufficient for developing readers and reading skills.

Research-based: Sometimes referred to as research-informed or evidence-informed, this term refers to programs or practices that were developed by interpreting the best available research in the field. This means the program or policy has a strong scientific base, but has not been tested in a controlled setting (see: evidence-based). 

Science of Reading: A vast, interdisciplinary body of research explaining what happens when a reader is reading proficiently, how reading skill develops, and how to teach reading. Often drawing from fields such as neuroscience, cognitive psychology, education, linguistics, and more, the science of reading can help inform educators about how to support foundational skills such as phonics, comprehension development, executive functioning skills necessary for successful reading, and more. The body of research can also help educators know what research says about how to support readers with varying needs including those with disabilities, varying language proficiency, and orientations to reading. The science of reading, like all fields of science, is constantly evolving. The science of reading is not an approach to teaching reading (see instead: Balanced Literacy, Structured Literacy, or Whole Language)  (for more: see the special edition of the Reading Research Quarterly Vol. 55 Issue 1 from 2020)

Sight Words: Any word that a reader can read automatically, on sight, without needing to decode. Ideally, all or almost every word becomes a sight word through a process called orthographic mapping. Historically, there was a practice of teaching children to memorize high frequency words (words that show up a lot in English such as the, of, and, to) so that they were known on sight. This is an outdated practice as it is inefficient and research has shown readers benefit instead from using their knowledge of phonics to decode the regular parts of words and understand irregular spelling as a path to knowing the word rather than memorizing it as a whole. Note that sometimes the term “high frequency word” and “sight word” are confused, perhaps because those words that are most frequent are often among the first that teachers try to help children read on sight.

Skills: A proficiency, something a reader knows and is able to do. In reading, there are skills for various aspects of reading from decoding skills, to the skill of reading with expression, to being able to infer or summarize a text. (compare to: strategy) (Afflerbach, Pearson, and Paris, 2008)

Strategies: An explicit step-by-step “how to” to work toward a skill. If a skill is the “what,” the strategy is the “how.” For example, for the skill of visualizing, a strategy might be “think about a time when you’ve been to a place like the setting in the book. Imagine yourself there. Use your senses to fill in details the author doesn’t give you. What would you see, hear, and feel in that place?” Strategies can help children with all areas of reading—engagement, decoding, fluency, comprehension, talking about reading, and writing about reading. (compare to: skill) (Afflerbach, Pearson, and Paris, 2008)

Structured Literacy: An approach to literacy instruction that is highly structured, explicit, and systematic. Throughout a structured literacy block, students receive instruction based on a scope-and-sequence (and ideally tailored based on ongoing assessment) in the various parts of language: phonemes, letter-sound correspondences, syllable patterns, morphemes, vocabulary, sentence structure, text structure, and so on. It is a term created by the International Dyslexia Association as a recommended practice to support dyslexic students’ literacy development.

Whole Language: An approach to literacy instruction that includes immersing children in a language-rich environment, where teachers read aloud to students, give them lots of opportunities to read and write in authentic ways, and engage children in discovery and inquiry learning. It is generally agreed that this approach alone does not give children enough explicit instruction to become successful readers or writers. (for comparison, see Balanced Literacy).

Footnote: After drafting this glossary with my definitions of these terms, I asked a prominent scholar in the field to take a look before I published it. She pointed me to an already-existing, more-comprehensive list of terms at the International Literacy Association’s Website, created by a long list educators and scholars and reviewed by many well-respected researchers in the field. Check this one out, too!