Reading Skills Glossary

Reading Skill

Meaning

Author's Purpose

To figure out why the author was writing and what the author’s reason was for writing

Purposes: To inform, entertain, persuade, and explain how to do something.

Character Feelings

Character feeling are understanding the emotions of a character through his/her words, thoughts, and actions.   Or, the emotions felt by a person told directly or indirectly by their actions.

Characterization

Understanding what the characters in the story are like, by the character’s words, thoughts and actions.

Compare & Contrast

Compare: How are things similar/same/alike?

Contrast: How are things different/unlike?

Compound Words

A word “made up of” two smaller words.

Diagrams

Diagrams are used to help us see how things work, how they fit together, or if things are next to each other or far apart.

Drawing Conclusions

When you figure out  some things on your own about the story using information from what you’ve read, so that you can better understand what you are reading.

Fact & Opinion

Fact: Something that has actually happened. Facts can be proven

Opinion: The idea, feeling or wish of someone. Opinions can not be proven, they change from person to person

Family Trees

A family tree is a chart that shows how people are related.

Following

Written Directions

It is the ability to understand written directions by answering content and sequence questions.

Main Idea & Details

Main idea is what the story/paragraph is about (focus/theme).

Details support the main idea.

Making Inferences

Use what you already know along with clues and information from your story or text to make assumption about what is NOT written.

 Making inferences helps you to develop causes/effects, predictions, and conclusions.

Maps

A map is a drawing that shows us where things are.

A map is a drawing that shows us what a place looks like from above.

Metaphors

A comparison in which the writer says that someone or something is something else.

Multiple Meaning

Words that are spelled one way, but can have different meanings as it’s used in a selection (also known as a homograph).

Prediction

To say what will happen next based on text or pictures.  More than a guess

The reader uses what they know about the passage, the characters, the events, and personal knowledge to decide what will happen.  There are no wrong answers that have logical support

Problem & Solution

A problem in a story is something that causes trouble and makes the character take some action. 

A solution is a way to fix the problem.

Prefixes

Prefixes are groups of letters that are added to the front of a word that change the meaning of the original word.

Sequence

Arranging a series of related statements in order based on clue words and/or time markers.

The order in which things or events occur

Setting

Understanding where a story takes place which may include: What time of year?  What time of day?

Similes

A simile is a figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared. 

A simile describes one thing by comparing it to another thing, such as using the words like, as, or than.

Suffixes

A suffix is a syllable that is added to the end of a word (ed, ing, ful, ous, etc.)

Synonyms

A synonym is a word that has the same or nearly the same meaning as another word.

Timelines

Timelines shows us the events that happened in the order that they occurred

Titling a Paragraph

Identifying a title that tells about the topic of the paragraph and makes people want to read it.

Unfamiliar Words

Unfamiliar words are words for which you do not already know the pronunciation and/or definition.

Literacy Resources

Literacy Notes: A (PDF) Handout

by Grandview Elementary School Library (Monsey, N.Y.)