The strongest indicator of whether a child understands a concept or has mastered a skill is their ability to explain it to others. And in order to do so, they must have mastery of the terminology used to describe the various aspects of the spoken and printed word. Too often people underestimate children, judging the terminology is too complicated for them to master. But if a three year old can master dinosaur names, they are more than ready to master the various words associated with word study.

Here is the key vocabulary students will be exposed to (and encouraged to use) during their tutoring sessions:

Phonemes: the smallest unit of sound in a word - this is to do with what you hear when you say the word

Orthography: the spelling system of a language, the way spoken words are written down. English orthography is devised to make the meaning of words visible.

Graphemes: the smallest unit of print needed to represent a phoneme. A single, spoken sound may be represented by a single grapheme (such as <b>), a two letter grapheme (referred to as a digraph, such as <sh> or <ay>) or a three letter grapheme (referred to as a trigraph, such as <tch>).

Orthographic Markers: a grapheme that does not represent a phoneme in a word, but serves another purpose (often referred to as silent letters). For example, the "final silent <e>" can mark that the preceding vowel represents its long sound or name; it can prevent an "illegal letter" being at the end of a word as in <love>; or can signal a change to the sound made be the preceding grapheme, such as signalling the <c> in 'face' will be pronounced as /s/.

Orthographic markers can also signal etymological or morphological information, marking connections to other words. For example, the <g> in the word 'sign' is there to enable the related words 'signal' and 'signature' to be formed using the same base morpheme; the <o> in the word 'people' is to show it is connected in meaning to the words popular, population, populous, etc.

Morphemes: the smallest units of meaning that together make the structure of a word. All words consist of a base, and then become increasingly complex as prefixes or suffixes are added. For example, the word 'unhopeful' contains three morphemes - the prefix <un>, meaning not, or the reversal of; the base <hope>, meaning to desire or wish for; and the suffix <ful>, meaning to be full of or causing something.

Base: the morpheme serving as at the primary unit of meaning. A base can have other morphemes added to it to modify its meaning

Free Base: a base that can function independently of any other morphemes, also serving as a complete word e.g. swim, dog, fun

Bound Base: a base that can only function with the addition of one or more affixes. For example, the base <rupt> (from the Latin ruptus, meaning to break or burst) cannot be used in its current form. We can, however, add the prefix <dis> to build the word 'disrupt' or the suffix <ure> to build the word 'rupture'.

Compound Word: a word containing two connected base morphemes e.g. butterfly, girlfriend, healthcare

Affix: a general term to describe any morpheme added to a base

Prefix: one or more morphemes placed before a base to modify its meaning in some way e.g. adding <re> to the base <play> changes its meaning to 'to play again'. Adding a prefix to a base will not change the base's spelling in any way.

Suffix: one or more morphemes placed after a base to modify its meaning in some way e.g. adding <er> to the base <play> changes its meaning to 'one who does the playing'. Adding a suffix to a base may necessitate changes to the spelling of the base word.

Vowel Suffix: a suffix commencing with a vowel letter

Consonant Suffix: a suffix commencing with a consonant letter

Etymology: the history of words and the relationship between words

Structure: the morphemic elements the word contains e.g. the word 'unhopefully' has a prefix - base - suffix - suffix structure

Word Sum: a way to represent the morphemic structure of a word e.g. un + hope + fun + ly --> (is rewritten as) unhopefully