Glossary of Selected Terms

Adapted from the English Language Arts/English Language Development (ELA/ELD) Framework’s Appendix Resources and Glossary

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | I | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | T | U | W

A

• Alphabetic Principle: In alphabetic writing systems, graphemes represent phonemes; in other words, printed letters and letter combinations represent individual sounds of spoken language.
• Approximation: Intentional, imperfect attempts at a new skill or practice that move learners closer to mastery through guided practice, feedback, and revision. Rather than expecting immediate accuracy, approximation recognizes that learning develops over time and that students improve by trying, receiving support, and trying again.
  
• Automaticity: The ability to recognize a word (or series of words) in text effortlessly and rapidly.

B

• Base Word: A free morpheme (one that can stand alone in word formation), usually of Anglo-Saxon origin, to which affixes can be added.
• Bilingual: To speak and understand, to varying degrees, two languages.
• Biliteracy: The ability to speak, read, and write in two languages.
  
• Blending: To combine individual units of sound (e.g., syllables, onsets and rimes, and phonemes) into a single word or utterance.
• Bridging: A planned instructional process in which teachers guide students to connect learning in one language to the other language by comparing vocabulary, grammar, text structures, and concepts to support crosslinguistic transfer and biliteracy development.

C

• Cognates: Words in two or more different languages that are the same or similar in sound and/or spelling and that have similar or identical meanings.
• Connecting word (or linking word): A word or phrase that links ideas in speech or writing (e.g., and, but, therefore). Some languages rely heavily on one linking word, like Arabic wa (وَ “and”), while English uses many.
  
• Context: The environment in which language is used, including disciplinary area, topic, audience, text type, and mode of communication.
• Cross-linguistic comparison/connection: Refers to comparing and connecting features across two or more languages. Example: Highlighting how English hospital and Spanish hospital are cognates, or how word order differs between Korean and English.
  
• Cross-linguistic transfer: The application of first language skills and knowledge to similar domains in the second language.
  
• Culturally responsive teaching: The use of cultural knowledge, prior experiences, frames of reference, and performance styles of ethnically diverse students to make learning encounters more relevant to and effective for them. Culturally and linguistically responsive instruction validates and affirms the home language and culture of students

D

• Decodable text: Reading materials designed to prompt beginning readers to apply their increasing knowledge of phonics and practice full alphabetic decoding to identify words. In decodable texts, 75-80 percent of the words consist solely of previously taught spelling-sound correspondences and the remaining 20-25 percent of the words are previously taught high-frequency irregularly spelled words and story or content words. (Note: In kindergarten and early grade one, some words are temporarily irregular because the spelling-sound correspondences have not yet been taught) What is considered decodable text expands in accordance with new learning.
• Dictado: A structured instructional routine in which the teacher orally dictates words, phrases, sentences, or short passages in the language of instruction, and students write what they hear. Dictado is an interactive literacy practice that integrates listening, speaking, reading, writing, and metalinguistic analysis. It helps students connect sounds to print, strengthen orthographic knowledge, develop grammar and punctuation, and deepen understanding of how language works.
  
• Decoding: A series of strategies used selectively by readers to recognize and read written words. The reader locates cues (e.g., letter-sound correspondences) in a word that reveals enough about it to help in pronouncing it and attaching meaning to it.
  
• Direct Instruction: The straightforward, systematic presentation of information by the teacher. Direct instruction generally involves the teacher stating the lesson objectives and its importance, providing input and connecting previously learned concepts, and checking for understanding. It also involves students practicing the new learning under the teacher’s guidance, while the teacher provides feedback, and, if necessary, reteaches the concept or skill. Additionally, it includes students demonstrating independent practice and mastery of the objective.
• Dual language education: An instructional approach in which students learn academic content through two languages with the intentional goals of developing proficiency in English and another language, biliteracy, high academic achievement, and cross-cultural understanding.
• Dual Language Immersion (also referred to as two-way immersion): A classroom setting that provides language learning and academic instruction for native speakers of English and native speakers of another language, with the goals of high academic achievement, first and second language proficiency, and cross-cultural understanding.
• Dual-language text set: A curated collection of texts in two program languages (e.g., English and Spanish) that are intentionally selected to support biliteracy development, content learning, and crosslinguistic transfer in multilingual programs. Text sets can be created for any grade span.
  
  An example of a dual-language text set for grades three through five might include:
  

  
  Topic: Immigration Stories
  
  Big Idea: People migrate for many reasons and bring rich cultural experiences.
  
  • Spanish anchor text: La mariposa (Francisco Jiménez)
  • English anchor text: My Diary from Here to There (Amada Irma Pérez)
  
  Supporting texts:
  
  • Spanish article on migration patterns
  • English interview with a young immigrant
  
  Cross‑linguistic focus: Narrative structure, past tense verbs

E

• Encoding: Transferring oral language into written language. Encoding is a process by which students segment sounds of a word (phonemes), translate each phoneme into its corresponding orthography symbol (letter or letters), and then spell the word. Accurate encoding requires knowledge of predictable sound-symbol correspondences and phonic generalizations (spelling rules).
  
• English learner: A child who does not speak English or whose native language is not English and who is not currently able to perform ordinary classroom work in English, also known as Limited English Proficient. (Education Code [EC] Section 306)
• Etymology: The study of the origin and history of words—how they formed, where they came from, and how their meanings and forms have changed over time.
  
• Explicit instruction: The intentional design and delivery of information by the teacher to the students. It begins with (1) the teacher’s modeling or demonstration of the skill or strategy; (2) a structured and substantial opportunity for students to practice and apply newly taught skills and knowledge under the teacher’s direction and guidance; and (3) an opportunity for feedback.
  
• Expository text: A traditional form of written composition that has as its primary purpose the communication of details, facts, and discipline- or content-specific information.

F

• False cognate: A word that looks similar across languages but has different meanings. Example: Spanish asistir = to attend (not “to assist”) in English.
• Fluency: The apparently effortless written or spoken expression of ideas; reading fluency consists of accuracy, appropriate rate, and prosody (that is expression, which includes rhythm, phrasing, and intonation); freedom from word-identification problems that might hinder comprehension in silent reading or the expression of ideas in oral reading.
  
• Formative assessment: A deliberate process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides actionable feedback that is used to adjust ongoing teaching and learning strategies to improve students’ attainment of curricular learning targets/goals. (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium)

G

• Gradual release of responsibility: The gradual release of responsibility model of instruction requires a progression from teacher modeling that shifts from the teacher assuming all the responsibility for performing a task to where the students assume responsibility. (Duke and Pearson, 2002)
  
• Grapheme: The smallest part of written language that represents a phoneme in the spelling of a word. A grapheme may be just one letter or a series of letters.
  
• Graphic organizer: A visual representation of facts and concepts from a text and their relationships within an organized frame.

I

• Informational text: Text that has as its primary purpose the communication of technical information about a specific topic, event, experience, or circumstance. Informational text is typically found in the content areas.
  
• Integrated English language development: English language development instruction provided throughout the day and across the disciplines. Teachers with English learners use the English language development standards in tandem with the focal English language arts/literacy and other content standards to support the linguistic and academic progress of English learners.
  

L

• Language allocation plan: A program-wide blueprint that specifies which language is used for instruction, when, and for what purposes across grade levels. It ensures that both languages are developed intentionally and coherently so students progress toward bilingualism, biliteracy, and high academic achievement.
• Learning center or station: A location within a classroom in which students are presented with instructional materials, specific directions, clearly defined objectives, and opportunities for self-evaluation.
• Linguistic approximations: Bilingual students’ developing attempts to use the partner language that reflect emerging understanding that reflect vocabulary, grammar, and language structures. They are natural, expected steps in language acquisition and provide insight into students’ linguistic growth.

M

• Metalinguistic awareness: The explicit ability to notice, reflect on, and talk about the sounds, structures, meanings, and uses of language, and to use that knowledge to understand and produce language more effectively. It includes recognizing that languages are systems with rules that can be examined, compared, and intentionally manipulated.
• Morpheme: A linguistic unit of relatively stable meaning that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts; the smallest meaningful part of a word.
• Morphology: The study of how words are formed using roots, prefixes, and suffixes.
• Multilingual: To speak and understand, to varying degrees, more than one language.
• Multilingual learner: Student who is learning more than one language (English and another language). See Study Guide 2: Context and Policy Backdrop for more information. This group includes transitional kindergarten students with a language other than or in addition to English listed on their Home Language Survey.
• Multilingual program: An instructional program that uses two or more languages for instruction, with the goals of developing proficiency in English and another language, high academic achievement, and cross-cultural understanding.
• Multiliteracy: The ability to speak, read, and write in more than one language.
  
• Multimodal learning: Multimodal learning is teaching a concept through visual, auditory, reading, writing, and kinaesthetic methods. It is meant to improve the quality of teaching by matching content delivery with the best mode of learning from the student.
  
• Multi-Tiered System of Support (MTSS): A framework to provide all students with the best opportunities to succeed academically and behaviorally in school.

N

• Nouns and noun phrases: They represent people, places, things, or ideas. A noun phrase includes a noun plus its modifiers, including articles and adjectives.
• Noticing: When students actively pay attention to language features, patterns, or differences across languages. Example: A teacher prompts students to notice how Spanish uses gendered nouns (el libro, la mesa) while English does not.

O

• One-way immersion: A classroom setting that provides instruction in English and in another language for non-speakers of the other language, with the goals of language proficiency and academic achievement in English and the other language, and cross-cultural understanding.
• Onset and rime: Intersyllabic units. The onset is the portion of the syllable that precedes the vowel. The rime is the portion of the syllable that contains the vowel sound and consonants that follow. Although not all syllables or words have an onset, all do have a rime.
  
• Orthography: The written system of a language, including correct spelling, according to established usage.

P

• Partner language: The additional language of instruction in a bilingual or dual language program—such as Spanish, Mandarin, Vietnamese, or Arabic—that is taught and used alongside English to develop students’ bilingualism and biliteracy.
• Particle: A small word or marker in languages like Japanese, Korean, or Mandarin that shows grammar or stance rather than meaning on its own. Examples: Japanese ね (ne) = “right?/you know”; Mandarin 吧 (ba) = softens a suggestion.
• Pedagogy: The science and art of teaching.
  
• Phonemes: The smallest units of speech that distinguish one utterance or word from another in a given language.
  
• Phonemic awareness: The ability to detect and manipulate the smallest units of sound (i.e., phoneme) in a spoken word.
  
• Phonics: A system of teaching reading and spelling that stresses the systematic relationship between symbols and sounds and the application of this knowledge to decoding words.
  
• Phonological awareness: A broad skill that includes identifying and manipulating units of oral language, including syllables, onsets and rimes, and phonemes.
  
• Primary language: The first language a child learns to speak (EC Section 52163 [4] [g]). Primary language is a language other than the English that is the language the student first learned or the language that is spoken in the student’s home.
  
• Print concepts: Insights about the ways in which print works. Basic concepts about print include identification of a book’s front and back covers and title page; directionality; spacing; recognition of letters and words; connection between spoken and written language; understanding of the function of capitalization and punctuation; sequencing, and locating skills.
  
• Print-rich environment: An environment in which students are provided many opportunities to interact with print and an abundance and variety of printed materials are available and accessible. Students have many opportunities to read and be read to.
  
• Project based learning: An extended process of inquiry in response to a complex question, problem, or challenge. Projects are carefully planned, managed, and assessed to help students learn key academic content, practice 21st century skills (such as collaboration, communication, and critical thinking), and create high-quality, authentic products and presentations.
  
• Prosody: The defining feature of expressive reading and combines all the variables of timing, phrasing, emphasis, and intonation that speakers use to help convey aspects of meaning and to make their speech lively.

R

• Reading comprehension: The ability to apprehend meaning from print and understand text. At a literacy level, comprehension is the understanding of what an author has explicitly stated or the specific details provided in a text. At a higher-order level, comprehension involves reflective and purposeful understanding and inference making that is thought-intensive, analytic, and interpretive.
• Register: The level of formality used in speech or writing (informal, conversational, academic). Some languages (e.g., Korean, Japanese) use specific honorifics and endings to mark register shifts.
  
• Response to Intervention (RtI) (aka RtI²): Response to intervention, or response to intervention and instruction, integrates assessment and intervention within a multi-tiered prevention system to maximize student achievement and reduce behavior problems.
  
• Root word: A morpheme, usually of Latin origin in English, that cannot stand alone but that is used to form a family of words with related meanings. (Moats, 2000)

S

• Scaffolding: Temporary guidance or assistance provided to a student by a teacher, another adult, or a more capable peer, enabling the student to perform a task they would otherwise not be able to do alone, with the goal of fostering the student’s capacity to perform the task on his or her own later on.
  
• Self-monitoring: A metacognitive behavior by which students actively attend to their understanding of text. Self-monitoring includes the conscious effort to use decoding and comprehension strategies when students are aware they are experiencing difficulty.
  
• Sight vocabulary/sight words: Words that are read automatically on sight because they are familiar to the reader. They may be words that are taught as wholes because they are irregularly spelled or because the spelling-sound correspondences have not yet been taught. The term also may refer to regularly-spelled words that have been decoded enough times that they are now recognized with little conscious effort.
  
• Standard English: The most widely accepted and understood form of expression in English in the United States; used in the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to refer to formal English writing and speaking; the particular focus of Language Standards 1 (L1) and 2 (L2).
• Strategic translanguaging: Purposeful and planned use of students’ full linguistic repertoires to support learning, language development, and identity affirmation. Unlike spontaneous translanguaging, which occurs naturally when multilinguals fluidly shift between languages in conversation, strategic translanguaging is teacher-designed and intentional. It integrates students’ languages into instruction in ways that maximize comprehension, deepen understanding, and build crosslinguistic connections.
  
• Structured/guided practice: A phrase of instruction that occurs after the teacher explicitly models, demonstrates, or introduces a skill or strategy. In this phase, students practice newly learned skills or strategies under teacher supervision and receive feedback on performance.
  
• Summative assessment: Measures of students’ progress toward and attainment of the knowledge and skills required to be college- and career-ready. Accurately describes both student achievement and growth of student learning as part of program evaluation and school, district, and state accountability systems. Assessments should be valid, reliable, and fair. (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium)
  
• Syllabication: The division of words into syllables, the minimal units of sequential speech sounds composed of a vowel sound or a vowel-consonant combination.
  
• Syllable: A unit of speech consisting of one uninterrupted vowel sound which may or may not be flanked by one or more consonants; uttered with a single impulse of the voice.
  
• Syntax: The study of the rules and patterns of the formation of grammatical sentences and phrases.
  
• Systematic instruction: The strategic design and delivery of instruction that examines the nature of the objective to be learned and selects and sequences the essential skills, examples, and strategies necessary to achieve the objective by (1) allocating sufficient time to essential skills; (2) scheduling information to minimize confusion on the part of the learner; (3) introducing information in manageable and sequential units; (4) identifying prerequisite skills and building on prior knowledge of the learner; (5) reviewing previously taught skills; (6) strategically integrating old knowledge with new knowledge; and (7) progressing from skills in easier, manageable contexts to more complex contexts

T

• Tier 1 instruction: High-quality, core instruction that all students receive in the general education classroom. It is designed to provide every student with access to grade-level standards and curriculum through evidence-based teaching practices, differentiation, and ongoing assessment. In a multilingual classroom, Tier 1 instruction includes the intentional integration of language and content so that multilingual learners can develop academic knowledge while simultaneously developing proficiency in English and, when applicable, the partner language.
• Tier 2 instruction: Targeted, supplemental instruction provided to students who need additional support beyond high-quality Tier 1 instruction to meet grade level expectations. It is delivered in addition to—not instead of—core classroom instruction and is based on identified learning needs through screening, formative assessment, and progress monitoring. The purpose of Tier 2 is to accelerate learning by providing focused instruction that addresses specific skill gaps while maintaining students’ access to grade-level content.
• Transference of skills: The process by which students use what they have learned in one language—such as decoding, vocabulary knowledge, grammar patterns, or writing strategies—to support learning and performance in the other anguage.
• Two-way immersion (also referred to as Dual Language Immersion): A classroom setting that provides language learning and academic instruction for native speakers of English and native speakers of another language, with the goals of high academic achievement, first- and second-language proficiency, and cross-cultural understanding.
  

U

• Universal Design for Learning (UDL): A set of principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn.

W

• Word analysis: Refers to the process used to decode words, progressing from decoding of individual letter-sound correspondences, letter combinations, phonics analysis and rules, and syllabication rules to analyzing structural elements (including prefixes, suffixes, and roots). Advanced word-analysis skills include strategies for identifying multisyllabic words.
  
• Word recognition: The identification and subsequent translation of the printed word into its corresponding sound, leading to accessing the word’s meaning.
  
• Writing as a process (or process writing): The process used to create, develop, and complete a piece of writing. Depending on the purpose and audience for a particular piece of writing, students are taught to use the stages of prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing.
  
• Writing types and purposes (text types): Three major types of writing are identified in the CCSS:
  • Argument/Opinion¹: A reasoned, logical way of demonstrating that the writer’s position, belief, or conclusion is valid. Students make claims about the word or meaning of a literary word or words and defend their interpretations or judgments with evidence from text. In grades K-5, the term opinion refers to this developing form of argument.
  • Informational/Expository: This writing conveys information accurately and serves one or more closely related purposes: to increase reader’s knowledge of a subject, to help readers better understand a procedure or process, or to provide readers with an enhanced comprehension of a concept.
  • Narrative: The writing conveys experience, either real or imaginary, and uses time as its structure. It can be used for many purposes, such as to inform, instruct, persuade, and entertain.