Automaticity—“accurate, speedy word recognition” (National Institute for Literacy, 2001, p. 24).

Benchmark—a clear, specific description of knowledge or skill that students should acquire at a specific point in their schooling (Kendall, 2001).

Brainstorm— “a learning technique involving open group discussion intended to expand the range of available ideas, as to solve a problem, clarify a concept, etc.” (Harris & Hodges, 1995, p. 22).

Collaboration Group—a group formed to discuss and reflect with one another to achieve a common goal through shared decision making.

Collaboration Group Meeting—a weekly group meeting of the course participants for approximately one hour to discuss new learning, observations, questions, personal connections, and other items suggested in the module assignments.

Collaboration Group Notebook—a notebook/binder kept by each Collaboration Group recorder that includes a copy of the work done during the Collaboration Group meeting and a weekly summary of the meeting.

Comprehension—a process of constructing meaning based on one’s prior knowledge, past experiences, and information from the text.

Concepts About Print (CAP)—an assessment developed by Marie Clay that determines what a child knows about beginning reading concepts, such as reading from left to right, one-to-one matching, and the difference between a letter and a word.

Cooperative Learning—a strategy of small group interaction that includes positive interdependence (working together to reach a common goal), individual accountability (each person being responsible for a section of the work), and group processing (groups self-evaluating how well they met lesson objectives and used various social skills such as encouragement and support).

Continuum of Reading Behaviors—a developmental chart to help teachers understand the behaviors children exhibit at different stages of becoming proficient readers.

Cueing Sources—sources of information that the reader uses for identification of an unknown word, such as phonics cues (visual), structural analysis, meaning cues (semantic), and language cues (syntactical information).

Culturally Responsive Classroom—a classroom in which students’ cultural history, values, and traditions are integrated into classroom activities.

Decode—a skill in which various codes or cues are used to identify a word, including visual (letter-sound), semantic (meaning), syntactic (structure/grammar), structural analysis (root words, word parts), and background knowledge.

Developmentally Appropriate—practices, actions, content, environment, and materials that are appropriate for a child’s age and stage of development.

Developmental Continuum—a chart to help indicate the developmental progress of a learner in a specified area such as reading.

Facilitator—a role that rotates among the Collaboration Group members. Duties include facilitating the Collaboration Group meeting; organizing the meeting location, time, and materials; notifying the participants about the meeting; helping the participants to agree on the goal, roles, and procedures of the meeting; guiding the group in decision making, problem solving, and conflict management; and facilitating the completion of the meeting goal(s).

Flexible Grouping—a method of organizing students in a variety of ways such as homogeneous, heterogeneous, individual, small group, and whole class.

Fluency—the ability to read a text accurately, quickly, and with expression.

Formative Assessment—a classroom assessment that tracks over time what readers can and cannot yet do as they develop early literacy.

Frustration Reading Level—the level of material that is too difficult for a student even with support from the classroom teacher. The student makes more than 1 mistake in every 10 words and does not understand what is being read. The frustration reading level is also referred to as “On the Hard Side.” (See also Independent Reading Level and Instructional Reading Level.)

Heterogeneous grouping—a method of organizing students into small groups of mixed levels of ability and skills.

High-Frequency Word—a word that appears many more times than other words both in written text and oral language.

Homogeneous Grouping—a method of organizing students into small groups based on similar levels of ability.

Independent Reading Level—the level of material that a student can read with little or no word errors and excellent comprehension. The independent reading level is also referred to as “On the Easy Side.” (See also Frustration Reading Level and Instructional Reading Level.)

Instructional Reading Level—the level of material that is challenging for a reader but not frustrating. The student makes no more than 1 mistake in every 10 words and understands what is being read. The instructional reading level is also referred to as “Just Right.” (See also Frustration Reading Level and Independent Reading Level.)

Instructor—the individual who works closely with the site coordinators, responds to the assignments, assigns the final grade, and contacts the site coordinators for additional feedback regarding the progress of the participants.

Intervention Program—a program that supplements an existing instructional program and usually targets students in need of extra assistance.

Literacy—“a minimal ability to read and write in a designated language, as well as a mindset or way of thinking about the use of reading and writing in everyday life” (Harris & Hodges, 1995, p. 19).

Literacy Profile—a folder that stores ongoing assessment records and information regarding the literacy development of a student.

Literature Discussion Group—a small, cooperative group of students who meet to discuss a book. The groups are homogeneous (similar ability) or heterogeneous (mixed ability) and are based on students’ interests.

Literacy Talk—an online discussion that allows all participants across the Pacific region to read and respond to each other’s comments. Each module has one “big idea” discussion question to which the participants respond online. After the participants initially respond, they respond two or more times to other participants’ comments.

Metacognition—the ability to think about one’s own thinking (e.g., “I don’t understand what I’m reading. I am going to visualize what an outrigger looks like so I can better understand this story.”).

Module Evaluation—an evaluation form that is completed at the end of each module and posted on a website. The site coordinator provides the URL. The evaluation includes two tasks: (1) posting one reflection journal entry to share with the instructor and (2) answering the questions on the website. The module evaluation form is for the instructor only and is not available for others to read.

Monitoring—the ability to know whether something is making sense (e.g., when students are monitoring, they ask such questions as “Does it make sense?”, “Does it sound right?”, and “Does it look right?”).

Needs Assessment—a tool used to determine the strengths and challenges students face. These challenges are then considered goals for the students to achieve.

Onset—the initial consonant(s) sound of a word (e.g., in the word “ball,” the onset is “b”).

Philosophy—basic ideas and opinions about a particular subject.

Phoneme—“the smallest part of spoken language that makes a difference in the meaning of words” (e.g., the word “if” has two phonemes, i/f) (National Institute for Literacy, 2001, p. 4).

Phonemic Awareness—“the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate the individual sounds/phonemes in spoken words” (National Institute for Literacy, 2001, p. 4).

Phonics—“the understanding that there is a predictable relationship between phonemes (the sounds of spoken language) and graphemes (the letters and spellings that represent those sounds in written language)” (National Institute for Literacy, 2001, p. 4).

Phonological Awareness—“a broad term that includes phonemic awareness. In addition to phonemes, phonological awareness activities can involve work with rhymes, words, syllables, and onsets and rimes (National Institute for Literacy, 2001, p. 4).

Profile of Reading Instructional Practices—a tool used to measure professional growth in reading practices.

Recorder—a role that rotates among the Collaboration Group members. The recorder takes notes during the meeting, records other work that is done, and places the meeting notes and papers in the Collaboration Group Notebook for future reference. The recorder holds on to the Collaboration Group Notebook until the next meeting and then passes it to the new recorder. After the Collaboration Group meeting, the recorder emails the instructor any papers that are requested in the lesson.

Reflection journal—a paper or online journal in which students write about their new learning, observations, questions, connections, and possible new learning directions one or more times a week.

Rime—the part of a word that contains the vowel and everything that follows it (e.g., in the word “ball,” the rime is “all”).

Site Coordinator—an individual who serves as a resource to the participants at a specific site and is a liaison with the instructor. The site coordinator facilitates some of the weekly Collaboration Group meetings on a rotating basis, provides in-class coaching, observes the teachers and provides feedback, and in general coordinates the logistics of the class.

Standard—a clear, broad statement of important ideas, concepts, and skills to be taught and learned in a specific content area.

Summative Assessment—information collected at certain end points about early readers (e.g., grade 1 “final” test).

Syllable —“a word part that contains a vowel or in spoken language, a vowel sound” (National Institute for Literacy, 2001, p. 4).

Timekeeper—a role that rotates among the Collaboration Group members. The timekeeper works with the facilitator and the other group members to determine the amount of time needed for each goal of the meeting; helps the group to stay on task and stay within the time allotted for each goal; makes an attendance list that includes the lesson number, date, and who attended the Collaboration Group meeting; emails the instructor the attendance list; and places a copy in the Collaboration Group Notebook.

Transmittal Communication—one-way communication from teachers to parents, usually with no opportunities for parents to give feedback (e.g., newsletter).

Vocabulary—“the words we must know to communicate effectively“ (National Institute for Literacy, 2001, p. 34).

Word Wall—a large area in a classroom with the letters of the alphabet and target words listed underneath them on chart paper. The Word Wall is used as an instructional and problem solving tool (e.g., students use it to help them spell a word).

Writers’ Workshop—a block of instructional time used for students to engage in process writing (e.g., plan, write, respond to each other’s writing, edit, and publish).