Word Identification
What’s the student’s most pressing need at this time?
Click on an element to see definition and common indicators.










- Increasing Sight Word Knowledge
- Decoding
- Understanding Alphabetic Principle
- Letter-Sound Knowledge
- Segmenting
- Blending
- Other Word ID Strategies
- More Advanced Phonics Knowledge
- More Sophisticated Word ID Strategies
Understanding Alphabetic Principle
The concept that our written language is a code for sounds; that letters and letter combinations represent sounds that make up words
Letter-Sound Knowledge
Ability of child to see a letter (i.e., "s") or letter combination (i.e., "sh") and identify its common sound (i.e., /s/ or /sh/, respectively)
Segmenting
Phonemic awareness ability to segment, or separate, each sound (phoneme) in a word
Blending
Phonemic awareness ability to blend, or connect, sounds (phonemes) to hear a word
Other Word ID Strategies
Ability to draw from other strategies to identify unknown words, in addition to phonemic decoding.
More Advanced Phonics Knowledge
Ability of child to see an advanced letter combination (i.e., "oi" or "ow") and identify its common sounds (i.e., /oy/ and /ō/ or /ow/, respectively)
More Sophisticated Word ID Strategies
Ability of child to read Multisyllable Words, or Ability of hild to see chunks in words, such as "ent" and to see affixes, such as "pre" and "tion"
Increasing Sight Word Knowledge
Ability of child to automatically recognize a word