Substitute Amendment to English, Language Arts, and Reading Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills

Substitute Amendment to
English, Language Arts, and Reading
Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills

February 13, 2008

DEFINITION OF TERMS

SYNTACTIC AWARENESS (GRAMMAR)

Syntactic awareness (i.e., grammar) refers to the student's ability to put phrases, clauses,and sentences together into correct and meaningful patterns. In this document, the term"syntactic awareness" as used in Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten indicates a listening/speaking skill--not the formal study of grammar.

PHONEMIC AWARENESS

The spoken word consists of a sequence of elementary sounds (phonemes).A phoneme is defined as the minimal change in sound that will change one word into another word: sit-> bit; top ->shop (see Figure 1, Intervention Strategies for Phonemic Awareness).Phonemic awareness is the ability to recognize and manipulate the number, type, and sequence of phonemes within the word.A syllable divides into two primary parts:onset and rime.The rime is the vowel and any consonant sounds that come after it.The onset, if it is there, consists of any consonant sounds that precede the vowel (e.g., split -- spl- is the onset and -it is the rime[see Figure 3, List of Phonemic Awareness Assessments]).

ALPHABETIC KNOWLEDGE

Alphabetic knowledge refers to the student's knowledge of symbols used to write English.Such knowledge includes letter names, alphabetic order, visual recognition of both lower and upper cases, written production of both lower and upper cases, and lower case and upper case correspondences.

PENMANSHIP

The student should be able to form legible letters--both lower and upper cases--in bothmanuscript style and cursive style.

PRINT CONCEPTS

Print concepts are the conventions and formats used in written English.
Directionality:
Left to right
Top to bottom
Front to back
Significance of spacing:
No space between letters of a word
A space between words
Empty line between paragraphs or indentation of paragraph
Titles and captions: as set apart from text
Punctuation and capitalization:as separating thoughts
Parts of a book (e.g., title page, table of contents, chapters, index, glossary)
Format of different genres (e.g., stanzas for poetic form)

ORTHOGRAPHIC KNOWLEDGE (SPELLING)

Orthographic knowledge refers to the knowledge of how the sounds (phonemes) of a language are mapped to the symbols (letters) of that language for use in reading and writing.Prerequisites for English orthographic knowledge are alphabetic knowledge and knowledge of the sounds (phonemes) used in English.Orthographic knowledge begins with the most basic mapping of letters to represent the 44 - 45 English phonemes.Published phonics programs typically cover 50 - 80 sound-symbol relationships or phonograms (see Figure 2, Amplified Chart of Basic Phonograms).More advanced orthographic knowledge consists of the mapping of letters to represent English syllables and morphemes.Because over the centuries English has imported vast amounts of vocabulary from other languages and generally retained the foreign spelling patterns, English orthography consists of over 2000 sound-symbol relationships.

SYLLABLE

A syllable is a sound unit in English that contains at least a vowel and is legally pronounceable (e.g., "isp" is legal while "agf" is not).

MORPHEME

A morpheme is the minimal structure in English that conveys meaning.Morphemes range from a single letter (the "s" that makes a noun plural) to multisyllabic structures (i.e., "inter," "micro").

*e.g. -- As used in this document -- "for example"-- not requirements
i.e. -- As used in this document -- "that is to say"

Subchapter A.Elementary

' 110.01.Implementation of Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for English Language Arts and Reading, Elementary.4

' 110.02.English Language Arts and Reading, Pre-Kindergarten

' 110.03.English Language Arts and Reading, Kindergarten

' 110.04.English Language Arts and Reading, Grade 1

' 110.05.English Language Arts and Reading, Grade 2

' 110.06.English Language Arts and Reading, Grade 3

' 110.07.English Language Arts and Reading, Grade 4

' 110.08.English Language Arts and Reading, Grade 5

Figure 1 - Intervention Strategies for Phonemic Awareness

Figure 2. Amplified Chart of Phonograms

Subchapter B.Middle School