Background knowledge: A personal reservoir of information on a variety of topics; information retained in one's long-term memory.

Cognition: The process of knowing by thinking, comprehending, analyzing, or evaluation. Examples : Students use the cognitive process to be able to understand or gain meaning from spoken or written material by reasoning, making inferences, seeing relationships, etc.

Cohesion: Refers to the relationship of ideas within a text and occurs when a speaker or author enables the listener or reader to make logical connections between and among the ideas presented.. Examples : By using the word "because" (a conjunctive cohesive tie) in the following sentence, the author has helped the reader understand the causal relationship between the two events mentioned. "We missed the entire wedding ceremony because we were unable to find the car keys."

Decoding: The ability to relate a sequence of letters in print to their corresponding sounds, thus allowing the reader to translate the sequence into a word.

Deportment: The manner in which one carries oneself; behavior.

Elaborative language: Language that is more complex and detailed than the usual public language, thereby expanding the meaning and context of words.

Extended clause: A clause (independent or dependent) that follows connectives such as 'and', 'but', 'for', 'which', and 'where' in a sentence.

Figurative language: Expressed thoughts and emotions using language not intended to be interpreted in a literal sense; words that depict non-literal meanings. Examples: "This car is a lemon!" "It's raining cats and dogs."

Graphic organizer: An organized, visual representation of information used to facilitate comprehension and remembering; a visual depiction.

Language development: Continued improvement and growth in spoken and written language over time.

Language disorder: Impairment in the process of comprehending or using written or spoken language.

Language status: The position or level of a person in regard to his/her development of language.

Language structure: The pattern or organization of letters in words, words in sentences, sentences in paragraphs, and paragraphs in whole texts, often specific to a particular language. Knowledge of language structures plays a key role in the comprehension of words, sentences, and texts.

Lexicon: A compilation of words and their meanings in a book (dictionary) or stored in a person's memory (vocabulary). We each have our own personal lexicon or mental dictionary.

Linguistics: Relating to languages or the study of human speech and speech sounds.

Literacy development: Developing the ability to read, write, listen, and speak in ways that enable communication, enhance understanding of ideas, and enrich lives.

Literal question: An inquiry, based on clearly stated or obvious information.

Matthew effects: Briefly stated, the effects of a cycle, in which students with learning disabilities may find themselves. Poor decoding skills limit their ability to advance to more complex texts. This, in turn, limits their exposure to the content, as well as the more complex structure, of texts that are necessary for future learning.

Metacognitive skills: Skills that deal with a person's reflection on his or her own thinking processes. By using metacognitive skills, readers are able to make judgments about whether or not they are understanding what they are reading.

Metalinguistic skills: Referring to language awareness; skills that enable us to reflect consciously on the nature and properties of language; the process of being able to think and talk about the use of language.

Morphology: With regard to language, the structure and forms of words; the pattern of word formation. The related term, morpheme, is a linguistic unit that conveys meaning. You already know a lot about morphemes and the morphology of words because you know that by adding 'ness' or 'less' to a root or base word, you can make a new word. In addition, you know that by adding 's' or 'es' to a singular noun, you can make the word plural and thereby change the meaning, if only slightly. By putting two words together ('dog' and 'house'), you can form the compound word 'doghouse'.

Multiple predication: The part of a sentence showing the subject's state of being or action, formed with verb phrases, compound verbs or predicates. Sentences with multiple predication can be problematic for students who are unable to recognize or understand signal words that connect, order, or relate these parts of the sentence.

Non-verbal cues: Cohesive devices, other than speaking or writing, which convey meaning. Non-verbal cues include facial expressions and body language.

Phoneme-grapheme correspondence: The connection between a phoneme, the smallest unit of speech that serves to distinguish one utterance from another, and the symbols that represent each phoneme.

Phonology: The system or science of speech sounds in a language focusing especially on the history and theory of sound changes.

Pragmatics: Part of the structure of language, along with phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, which involves knowing how language is used differently in a variety of contexts.

Reading comprehension: The process or result of gaining intended and personal meaning from written material.

Reciprocal relationship: A situation or state in which two parties are dependent on each other.

Repertoire: All of one's experiences or one's expertise in a particular are.

Semantics: Part of the structure of language, along with phonology, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics, which involves understanding the meaning of words, sentences, and texts.

Speech-language pathologist: A trained professional who helps students who have language and speech deficiencies.

Synonymity: Using words or phrases which are recognized as representing equivalent ideas or interpretations.

Syntax: The ordering of words within phrases, clauses, and sentences whereby the relations among the words are indicated. For example, in English, verbs usually follow nouns, and adjectives usually precede nouns: Dorothy followed the yellow brick road.

Venn diagram: A graph or chart that uses circles to show relationships between different sets of information.

Word consciousness: The process of recognizing a word from its symbol. Also, the ability to talk about and understand language.

World knowledge: Sometimes used as a synonym for "prior knowledge" ; information stored in one's long-term memory; knowledge that comes from previous experience.