“Teacher Speak?”

Have you ever attended a parent conference and wondered what language the teacher was speaking? If so, you’re not alone. As in any profession, teachers use terms that are unfamiliar to non-educators. To help you communicate with your child’s teachers better, here are a few common terms and their definitions:

Reading Comprehension - accurately understanding what is read.

Vocabulary Development - the growth of a person’s stock of known words and meanings.

Phonics - a way of teaching reading and spelling that stresses symbol-sound relationships.

Phonemic Awareness - the awareness of the sounds that make up spoken words.

Fluency-the clear, easy, written or spoken expression of ideas; to read with ease.

Achievement Tests - tests students on what they know and are able to do. These will replace Proficiency Tests.

Diagnostic Assessments - tests that measure student progress in each grade. They help teachers identify each child’s strengths and weaknesses.

Sight Words - the number of different words known without word analysis; words understood quickly and easily.

Schema - knowing that stems from previous experience (prior knowledge).

Visualization - a strategy “in which the teacher verbalizes aloud while reading a selection orally, thus modeling the process of comprehension” (Davey, 1983) (think-aloud).

Inclusion - the placement of students of all abilities in a classroom.

Mainstreaming - the placement of special needs students in regular public school settings, often, but not necessarily, in regular classrooms.

Self-Contained Classroom - a classroom in which the same teacher teaches all or nearly all subjects.