51ºÚÁÏÍø

Levelled books

Books from a reading series that have been written in levels of difficulty to enable a child to take small but steady steps to reading success.

As children’s skills increase, so children can read more and the need for such careful levelling lessens. Read more about .

Modal verb

A type of auxiliaryÌýverb.

Modal verbs are: ‘can’, ‘could’, ‘will’, ‘would’, ‘may’, ‘might’, ‘shall’, ‘should’, ‘must’, and ‘ought to’.

Modal verbs are used for expressing:

• Possibility, ability or likelihood:Ìý‘can’, ‘could’, ‘may’, ‘might’, ‘should’.
• Necessity:Ìý‘must’, ‘ought to’, ‘should’.
• The future:Ìý‘shall’, ‘will’, ‘would’.

Morphology

A morpheme is a unit of meaning that cannot be divided further. Morphemes are the bits that make up words, such asÌýreadÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýingÌýin ‘reading’ orÌýreadÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýsÌýin ‘reads’. A word consists of one or more morphemes.

Some morphemes are words in their own right; others, such as manyÌýprefixesÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýsuffixes, are not.

Mnemonics

Memory joggers such as a rhyme, aÌýphraseÌýor a shape. For example, seeing a dinosaur in the shape of a letter ‘d’ might help your child to associate the dinosaur with the letter ‘d’ and the ‘d’ sound.

Non-fiction

A broad category of texts that includes anything that isn’t fictional/made-up (information books, reference materials, newspapers, biography, Wikipedia, and so on).

Noun

A noun names a person, place or thing.

Apple, dog, team, chair, happiness, beauty.

Test whether something is a noun by seeing whether aÌýdeterminerÌýin front of it makes sense.

‘The apple’, ‘my dog’, ‘their team’, ‘her chair’ and ‘that beauty’ would all make sense in a sentence, but ‘the reads’, ‘those cuddly’, ‘her went’ would not.

Common noun:ÌýA noun that refers to people or things in general.

Dog, tree, bridge, chair, beauty, excitement, advice, bread.

Proper noun:ÌýA noun that identifies a particular person, place or thing. Proper nouns begin with capital letters.

James, Africa, Friday, December.

Noun phrase:Ìý´¡ÌýphraseÌýwith a noun as its head, or key word.

The ball was lost.

A noun phrase can be expanded by adding words before or after it.

The ball by the fence was lost. The red cricket ball by the fence was lost.

Object

The object of aÌýverbÌýis who or what is acted upon by the verb. In aÌýstatement, the object is usually theÌýnounÌý(or noun phrase orÌýpronoun) just after the verb.

The bird pecked the apple. The bird peckedÌýit.

Paragraph

A group of linkedÌýsentencesÌýthat are usually about the same thing. A new paragraph starts when you are writing about a new idea, person, place or event.

Parenthesis

Brackets,Ìýcommas, andÌýdashesÌýcan all be used to separate a word orÌýphraseÌýthat has been added to aÌýsentenceÌýas an explanation or afterthought. The word or phrase inside the brackets, commas or dashes is called a parenthesis.

I looked up, squinting because of the sun, and saw the birds flying across the sky.

Passive voice

In a passive sentence, theÌýsubjectÌýof theÌýverbÌýis the one that has something done to it, so theÌýdo-er disappears or is mentioned after ‘by’.

The ball was caught. The ball was caught by the little girl.

You can tell that a sentence is passive because:

• The subject of the verb has the action done to it.
• There is part of the verb ‘to be’ (such as ‘was’ or ‘is’) or a verb like ‘get’, followed by a past participle.
• The person or thing carrying out the action is introduced by the word ‘by’, or not at all.

Phoneme

The smallest unit of sound in a word, represented by single letters or groups of letters.

Phonic books

³§±ð±ðÌýdecodable books.

Phonics

A method of teaching children to read and write the English Language. It teaches children that the sounds of English are represented by letters or groups of letter. (Also seeÌýsynthetic phonics).

Find out more about phonics on ourÌýLearn to read with phonics page.

Phrase

A group of words that can be understood as a unit.

Her tableÌýis a noun phrase.

Picture books

Books in which the pictures play a major part in the story and the text is not levelled by difficulty (for example,ÌýÌýby Julia Donaldson). Picture books are not necessarily just for the very young and they can support the understanding of quite complex ideas (for example,ÌýÌýby Shaun Tan).

Take a look at some of the latestÌýpicture books from 51ºÚÁÏÍø.

Plural

The plural of aÌýnoun is used when there is more than one. It is usually formed by adding -s.

‘Cat’ becomes ‘cat²õ’; ‘cake’ becomes ‘cake²õ’.

Some nouns have irregular plural endings or no plural ending at all.

‘BushÌýbecomesÌýbushe²õ’; ‘sheepÌýstays asÌýsheep’; ‘mouseÌýbecomesÌýmice’.

Prefix

AÌýmorphemeÌýthat can be added to the beginning of aÌýroot word.

Different prefixes have different meanings so, when you add a prefix to a word, you change its meaning and make a new word.

dis + appear =Ìýdisappear.

 

im + possible =Ìýimpossible.

 

un + well =Ìýunwell.

 

sub + marine =Ìýsubmarine.

Preposition

A preposition usually comes before aÌýnounÌýorÌýpronoun. It often shows place or direction.

A cat crept upÌýthe tree. Suddenly, the cat tried to pounceÌýonÌýthe little green bird, but crashedÌýintoÌýthe tree.

Some prepositions show time or cause.

AfterÌýthis, the cat was furiousÌýwithÌýthe bird.

More prepositions: ‘above’, ‘against’, ‘behind’, ‘below’, ‘beside’, ‘between’, ‘in’, ‘inside’, ‘near’, ‘on’, ‘off’, ‘onto’, ‘outside’, ‘over’, ‘through’, ‘under’.

Progressive

The progressive (or ‘continuou²õ’) form is created by the verb ‘to be’ followed by the present participle of the verb. It describes an ongoing event.

The bird is peckingÌýat the apples. The catÌýwas lookingÌýat the bird.

The past progressive, formed with the pastÌýtenseÌýof theÌýverbÌý‘to be’, can show that something was in the process of happening when something else happened.

I was goingÌýto the shops when I lost my glove.

Pronoun

A pronoun can be used instead of aÌýnoun. Using a pronoun avoids repeating the noun again and again.

The bird pecked the apple and ate it as he sat on a branch

Personal pronoun:ÌýPersonal pronouns replace the name of a person or thing. The subject personal pronouns are ‘I’, ‘you’, ‘he’/’she’/’it’, ‘we’ and ‘they’. TheÌýobjectÌýpersonal pronouns are ‘me’, ‘you’, ‘him’/’her’/’it’, ‘us’ and ‘them’.
Possessive pronouns:ÌýPossessive pronouns tell you who something belongs to.

This apple is mine!

Relative pronouns:ÌýRelative pronouns introduce more information about the noun.

The bird thatÌýsat on the branch was eating an apple.

The words where and when are also sometimes used as relative pronouns.

This is the house whereÌýI grew up.

Punctuation

Punctuation marks are used inÌýsentencesÌýto make the meaning clear. Sentences can mean very different things if they don’t have punctuation.

Let’s eat Granny! Let’s eat, Granny!

Pure sounds

Pure sounds areÌýphonemes, the smallest units of sound in a word represented by single letters or groups of letters. It is important when saying pure sounds not to add an ‘uh’ to the end of the letter.

For the letter ‘m’, you should say ‘mm’, not ‘muh’. (A slight ‘uh’ cannot be helped when saying ‘b’, ‘d’, ‘g’, ‘j’, ‘w’ and ‘y’.)

Question

A question is aÌýsentenceÌýthat is used to find out information.

You can tell that a sentence is a question because:

• It ends with a question mark.
• It asks something.
• If there is a modal verb, it usually comes before theÌýsubject.
• It might start with ‘how’, ‘when’, ‘what’, ‘why’ or ‘where’.

Question mark ?

A question mark comes at the end of aÌýsentenceÌýwhich is asking aÌýquestion.

Where are you?ÌýWhat is your favourite colour?

Quiet reading

Children reading by themselves for a short time.

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