Adolescent Literacy Glossary
Adequate Yearly Progress, Small Learning Communities, Explicit Instruction — do you know what these phrases mean? Find these and other commonly used terms related to reading, literacy, and reading instruction in our glossary.
Reader's Theatre
A strategy in which students read story scripts aloud during an informal skit or performance. In this active approach to reading, a student assumes the role of a character and reads his script aloud. A teacher works with small groups of students to help them read their scripts accurately, fluently, and with proper inflection. This experience can improve a child’s reading fluency, comprehension and self-confidence.
Reading Across the Curriculum
Teaching reading strategies in all classrooms and subjects, not just in reading and language arts classes. This helps students access and understand texts that are specific to subjects such as science, math, and history.
Reading Disability
Another term for dyslexia, sometimes referred to as reading disorder or reading difference.
Receptive Language
The aspect of spoken language that includes listening, and the aspect of written language that includes reading.
Reciprocal Teaching
Reciprocal teaching is a multiple-strategy instructional approach for teaching comprehension skills to students. Teachers teach students four strategies: asking questions about the text they are reading; summarizing parts of the text; clarifying words and sentences they don't understand; and predicting what might occur next in the text.
Response to Intervention (RTI)
Response to Intervention is a process whereby local education agencies (LEAs) document a child's response to scientific, research-based intervention using a tiered approach. In contrast to the discrepancy criterion model, RTI provides early intervention for students experiencing difficulty learning to read. RTI was authorized for use in December 2004 as part of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
Responsive Instruction
A way of making teaching decisions in which a student's reaction to instruction directly shapes how future instruction is provided.
Rime
The vowel and all that follows it in a monosyllabic (one-syllable) word. For example, the rime of bag is -ag; and the rime of swim is -im.
Root Word
Words from other languages that are the origin of many English words. About 60 percent of all English words have Latin or Greek origins.
