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Literacy Resources

Literacy Resources Video Series

The literacy resources video series provides quick tips and strategies for helping children build their literacy skills and prepare for kindergarten. The activities require no special tools, just simply fun games to play and enjoy with your young child.

Video Language Tips

Select the settings gear on each video to change the closed caption language to Spanish or Somali. 

View Hmong captioned videos here

The first video introduces the series and how to use these videos.

In this family literacy video, you will learn about a strategy you can use with children when reading to them.

That alphabet song adults learned when they were young is still effective in promoting reading readiness in young children. There are a few important details included in this video to make the alphabet song most beneficial to young learners.

Having conversations with young children promotes language development and comprehension. These are essential pre-reading skills. Learn how this simple technique can promote language in young learners.

Rhyme is a fun way to learn early reading skills students will need before they learn to read and write. Helping young children identify rhyme words in their favorite songs can be fun for both the child and caregiver.

Literacy Glossary

Use the glossary to improve your understanding of commonly used literacy terms.

TERMS

DEFINITIONS

Automaticity 

Automaticity is the ability to recognize or decode words quickly, accurately, and effortlessly, allowing readers to focus on comprehension rather than individual word recognition.

Benchmark Advance/Adelante

Benchmark Advance/Adelante is the current K-5 reading comprehension curriculum used in all MPS elementary schools, including Dual Language schools.

Comprehension

Reading comprehension is the process of understanding and interpreting what you read.

ELA

English Language Arts

Expression

Using expression means using tone, pitch, volume, emphasis and rhythm while reading out loud in a way that sounds like spoken language

Fluency

The ability to read a text accurately, quickly and with expression

Foundational Skills: Grapheme

The written letter or letter combination that represent a sound in a word

Foundational Skills: Phoneme

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word that makes one word different from another.

Foundational Skills: Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to hear, identify and manipulate individual sounds that make up words.  The awareness of the sounds in words is foundational for reading success.

Foundational Skills: Phonics

Phonics is the ability to match sounds to letters and letter groups in reading.

Phonics instruction teaches the relationships between the letters of written language (graphemes) and the sounds of spoken language (phonemes). To read, children need to understand the alphabetic principle — the idea that letters represent the sounds of spoken language. Decoding is when we use letter-sound relationships to translate a printed word into speech. 

Intervention 

Small group instruction, in addition to tier one,  for students whose screening data indicates a need for additional support.

Morpheme

A morpheme is the smallest part of a word that holds meaning.  It can be a whole word, like dog, or it can be part of a word like “pre-,” meaning "before" in the word prefix.

PRESS

Path to Reading Excellence in School Sites (PRESS) is used in K-5 as a reading intervention resource.

Prosody

Prosody in reading means reading with expression and fluency, including rhythm, intonation, pitch and pauses, which help convey meaning and emotion. 

READ Act

Minnesota Reading to Ensure Academic Development Act, known as the READ Act, was passed and signed into law by Governor Tim Walz on May 24, 2023. The goals of this legislation are to have every Minnesota child reading at or above grade level every year, beginning in kindergarten, and to support multilingual learners and students receiving special education services in achieving their individualized reading goals in order to meet grade-level proficiency. It includes requirements for screening, professional development for teachers, and intervention for all students reading below grade level.

Reading Accelerator

EPS Reading Accelerator is an evidence-based reading intervention program for middle school that accelerate mastery of foundational reading skills for striving readers.

S.P.I.R.E.

S.P.I.R.E stands for Specialized Program Individualizing Reading Excellence. S.P.I.R.E. is an evidence-based reading curriculum used in grades 6-12 to solidify foundational reading skills for striving readers.

Science of Reading

A body of research that explains how the human brain learns to read and identifies best practices in reading instruction

STARI 

STARI stands for Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention. STARI is a literature-focused, Tier II intervention for students in grades 6-9 who read two or more years below grade level.

Tier I / Core Instruction

Students are exposed to grade level curriculum.

Tier II

Tier II supports are delivered in small groups and provide targeted support in addition to core instruction, focusing on specific student needs as identified through diagnostic assessments and progress monitoring.

Tier III

Intensive, targeted supports in addition to core instruction, focusing on specific student needs as identified through diagnostic assessments and more frequent progress monitoring. Tier three supports are delivered in very small groups or individually. Students meet more frequently and for more time than tier two groups. Tier three should be administered by a trained educator. 

UFLI

University of Florida Literacy Institute (UFLI) is the early adopted foundational skills/phonics curriculum in elementary schools.

Vocabulary 

Vocabulary is words that a person can use correctly in spoken and written language.  Strong vocabulary knowledge is crucial for reading success.