| A | B |
|---|
| Accuracy | Correctness or precision. |
| Affix | One or more letters occuring as a bound form attached to the beginning or end of a word. (Prefix or suffix) |
| Alliteration | The repitition of initial consonant sounds in neighboring words. |
| Allusion | An implied or indirect refeence in literature to a familiar person, place, or event. |
| Analysis | The process or result of identifying the parts of a whole in their relationship to one another. |
| Antonym | A words that is the opposite of another word. (ex: hot-cold, night-day) |
| Appositive | A grammatical construction in which two adjacent nouns having the same referent stand next to one another, often separated by commas. (ex: My father, Tom, likes fishing) |
| Assertion | A declaration, statement, allegation, or claim. |
| Author's Purpose | The author's intent either to inform or to teach someone about something, to entertain people, or to persuade or convince their audience to do something. |
| Author's Thesis | The topic and a specific feeling or idea associated with it. It can be directly stated or implied in the examples and illustrations used by the author. |
| Autobiography | The story of a person's life written by himself or herself. |
| Bias | A judgement based on a personal point of view. |
| Biography | The story of a person's life written by someone other than the subject of the work. |
| Cause & Effect | Cause statements stem from actions and events, and effects are what happens as a result of the action or event. |
| Characterization | The method an author uses to reveal characters and their various personalities. |
| Climax | The turning point in a narrative, the moment when the conflict is most intense. Typically, the structure of stories, novels, and plays is one of rising action, in which tension builds to the climax. |
| Compare | Placing together characters, situations or ideas to show common or differing features in literary selections. |
| Compound Word | A word composed of two or more smaller words, the definition of which is a combination of the definitions of the smaller words. (EX: wallpaper) |
| Conclusion | The ending of a story or the summarization of ideas or closing argument in nonfictional texts. |
| Conflict/Problem | A struggle or clash between opposing characters, forces, or emotions. |
| Content Specific Words | Core vocabulary that is peculiar to an academic discipline or subject. For example, the word precipitation is related to the discipline of science as it relates to weather. |
| Context Clues | Information from the reading that identifies a word or group of words. |
| Contrast | To compare or appraise differences. |
| Conventions of Language | Mechanics, usage and sentence completeness. |
| Descriptive Text | Writing intended to allow the reader to picture the scene or setting in which the action of a story takes place. |
| Dialogue | Simply the conversation between people in a literary work; more specifically, speech of characters in a drama. |
| Differentiate | Distinguish, tell apart and recognize differences between two or more items. |
| Editorials | A newspaper or magazine article that gives the opinions of the editors or publishers; an expression of opinion that resembles such an article. |
| Epic | A long narrative poem about the adventures of a hero of great historic or legendary importance. |
| Evaluate | To examine or judge carefully. |
| Exaggeration | To make an overstatement or to stretch the truth. |
| Explanatory Sentence | A sentence that explains something. |
| Explicit | Referring to a specific text that is included in the reading passage or directions. |
| Expository Text | Text written to explain or convey information about a specific topic. Contrasts with narrative text. |
| Fable | Narrative intended to convey a moral. Animals on inanimate objects with human characteristics ofter serve as characters in fables. |
| Fairy Tale | Short narratives featuring mythical beings such as fairies, elves, and sprites. These tales originally belonged to the folklore of a particular nation or region, such as those collected in Germany by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. |
| Fiction | Any story that is the product of imagination rather than documentation of fact. Characters and events in such narratives may be beased in real life but their ultimate form and configuration is a creation of the author. |
| Figurative Language | Language that cannot be taken literally since it was written to create a special effect or feeling. |
| First Person | The "first person" or "personal" point of view relates events as they are perceived by a single character. The main character tells the story and may offer opinions about the action and characters that differ from those of the author. |
| Flashback | A device used in literature to present action that occurred before the beginning of the stoyr. Flashbacks are often introduced as the dreams or recollections of one or more characters. |
| Fluency | The clear, easy, written or spoken expression of ideas; freedom from word-identification problems that might hinder comprehension in silent reading or the expression of ideas in oral reading. |
| Focus | The center of interest or attention. |
| Folktales | A story originationg in oral tradition. Folktales fall into a variety of categories, including legends, ghost stories, fairy tales, fables and anecdotes based on historical figures and events. |
| Foreshadowing | A device used in literature to create expectation or to set up an explanation of later developments. |
| Free Verse | Poetry that lacks regular metrical and rhyme patterns but that tries to capture the cadences of everyday speech. The form allows a poet to exploit a variety of rhythmical effects within a single poem. |
| Generalization | A conclusion, drawn from specific information, that is used to make a broad statement about a topic or person. |
| Genre | A category used to classify literary works, usually by form, technique or content (ex: prose, poetry) |
| Graphic Organizer | A diagram or pictoral device that shows relationships. |
| Headings, Graphics, and Charts | Any visual cues on a page of text that offer additional information to guide the reader's comprehension. |
| Homophone | One of two or more words pronounced alike, but different in spelling or meaning. |
| Hyperbole | An exaggeration or overstatement (Ex: I was so embarrassed I could have died) |
| Idiomatic Language | An expression peculiar to itself grammatically or that cannot be understood if taken literally. (EX: Let's get on the ball) |
| Imagery | A word or group of words in a literary work which appeal to one or more of the senses; sight, taste, touch smell, and hearing; figurative language. The use of images serves to intensify the impact of the work. |
| Implicit | Meanings which, though unexpressed in th eliteral text, may be understood by the reader; implied. |
| Inference | A judgement based on reasoning rather than direct or explicit statement. A conclusion based on facts or circumstances; understandings gaind by "reading between the lines." |
| Inflectional Endling | A form, suffix or element added to the end of a word that changes the form of the word to mark such distinctions as those of case, gender, numer, tense, person, mood, or voice. |
| Informational Text | It is nonfiction, written primarily to convey factual information. Informational texts comprise the majority of printed material adults read (textbooks, newspapers, reports, directions, brochures, technical maunals etc...) |
| Irony | Th euse of a word ot phrase to mean the exact opposite of its literal or usual meaning; incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the expected result. |
