The “What” of Slingerland Teaching

Learn what literacy terms mean in everyday language and why they matter in literacy development.

I had been leading parent-teacher conferences for years as a high school teacher before the tables were turned and I sat before my daughter’s first-grade teacher. I felt confident that my masters in education and classroom experience meant that I would somehow be a gold star parent when it came to literacy instruction. I could not have been more wrong. 

I began to talk to Ms. Jenny, a young woman with a sunny disposition and infectious smile. Then she told me, in the warmest and kindest way possible, that my daughter was having some challenges with phoneme-grapheme alignment and displayed orthographic inconsistencies when encoding. Then she sent me on my way, encouraging me to practice at home.

Practice what? Even with all my education and experience, I had no idea what those words meant.

I realized that instead of a gold star, she gave me the start of my years-long quest to understand what is really necessary to learn essential literacy skills.

Terminology: Precision is the Problem

Teachers and doctors have a lot more in common than people may think. Both have specialized training. Both have the duty to communicate clearly and concisely so people know how to get better. Both have practices and remedies rooted in science and research. And, frankly, both have a lot of important, precise terms that, without specific training, may be totally confusing.

In 2025, the International Dyslexia Association published their Structured Literacy Infographics that succinctly present the “what” (content and skills) and “how” (instructional strategies and principles) that the Science of Reading indicates are key to a successful structured literacy method like the Slingerland® Approach.

Since it has been published, I have received numerous calls and emails from teachers and families asking for clarification on the terms used.

In this first of three articles, I want to start with the “what” of literacy instruction. We will review key terms used to discuss aspects of literacy instruction and development and provide two important pieces of information for each term:

1. what the term means in everyday language

2. why it matters to literacy development

Three Skills that Reinforce Each Other

Oral Language Development

• What does this mean? Developing vocabulary, listening comprehension, speaking skills, and the ability to express and understand ideas.

• Why does this matter? Strong oral language provides the foundation for reading, writing, learning, and communicating with others.

Encoding

• What does this mean? Hearing a spoken sound and choosing the letters or letter patterns needed to write it correctly. (This includes sounds representing single letters, groups of letters, a single word, a phrase, and so on.)

• Why does this matter? Encoding is central to writing. Encoding helps students become accurate spellers and stronger writers. 

  • Importantly, encoding reinforces the reading skills they use when decoding.

Decoding

• What does this mean? Looking at letters and letter patterns to identify the spoken sounds (then words) they represent. 

• Why does this matter?  Decoding is central to reading. Decoding helps students read unfamiliar words accurately, which builds both written and spoken vocabulary as well as reading confidence, fluency, and comprehension.

  • Importantly, decoding reinforces the reading skills they use when encoding.

The Slingerland Approach is multisensory (multimodal), meaning students learn through hearing, speaking, seeing, and writing at the same time. This allows students to develop their encoding and decoding skills with oral language as the basis of everything they do. 

Plain Language Definition of Literacy Skills

Phonemes

• What does this mean? The smallest individual sounds in spoken language. Words are made up of one or more phonemes.

• Why does this matter? Understanding phonemes helps students connect spoken sounds to written letters, making it easier to decode (read) and encode (spell) words.

Graphemes

• What does this mean? The letters and groups of letters that represent individual sounds in written language.

• Why does this matter? Recognizing graphemes helps students connect written letters to sounds, then to written words, supporting both reading and spelling.

Phonics

• What does this mean? Learning the relationship between sounds and the letter(s) that represent them.

• Why does this matter? Understanding letter-sound relationships helps students both encode words they hear, spell accurately, decode unfamiliar words, and become more confident writers and readers.

Morphemes

• What does this mean? The smallest meaningful parts of words, including prefixes, suffixes, bases, and roots.

• Why does this matter? Knowing morphemes helps students figure out the meaning of unfamiliar words, expand vocabulary, and improve spelling.

Syllable Patterns

• What does this mean? Common ways sounds and letters are organized into syllables within words.

• Why does this matter? Understanding syllable patterns helps students read longer words more accurately and spell them more confidently.

Vocabulary

• What does this mean? The collection of words a person understands and uses.

• Why does this matter? A strong vocabulary improves reading comprehension, speaking, writing, and overall communication.

Grammar

• What does this mean? The rules for using words correctly to create clear, meaningful sentences.

• Why does this matter? Understanding grammar helps students communicate clearly and improve both their speaking and writing.

Text Structure

• What does this mean? The ways written information is organized, such as titles, headings, paragraphs, captions, and other text features.

• Why does this matter? Recognizing text structure helps students find information, understand what they read, and organize their own writing.

Orthographic Conventions

• What does this mean? The accepted rules and patterns of written English, including spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and other writing conventions.

• Why does this matter? Understanding these conventions helps students write clearly and accurately while making their writing easier for others to read. It also aids in reading with proper phrasing, which supports comprehension.

Syntax

• What does this mean? The way words are arranged to form sentences.

• Why does this matter? Understanding sentence structure helps students express their ideas more clearly in writing and speech and improves reading comprehension.

Semantics

• What does this mean? Understanding the meanings of words, phrases, and sentences.

• Why does this matter? Understanding meaning is essential for reading comprehension, following directions, and communicating effectively.

  • Semantics answers: “What does this word/phrase/sentence mean?”

Pragmatics

• What does this mean? Using language appropriately in different situations and with different audiences.

• Why does this matter? Strong pragmatic skills help students participate in conversations, build relationships, and communicate effectively in school and everyday life.

  • Pragmatics answers: “How should I use or interpret language in this situation?”

Connecting Background Knowledge

• What does this mean? Using what a student already knows and has experienced to make sense of new information.

• Why does this matter? Making connections between new learning and prior knowledge helps students understand, remember, and apply what they learn.

Critical Thinking

• What does this mean? Carefully analyzing information, asking questions, making connections, and drawing thoughtful conclusions.

• Why does this matter? Critical thinking helps students understand what they read, solve problems, evaluate information, and become independent learners

I do appreciate that Ms. Jenny used technical language. I am curious and want to learn. It also helped me understand that Ms. Jenny was an expert who knew exactly what my daughter needed.

As a parent, I also needed that plain language explanation so I could understand what my daughter needed as support at home. I wish that Ms. Jenny had explained, or I had understood, that what she meant was, “Your daughter is having some trouble matching sounds to written letters (phoneme-grapheme alignment) and is not capitalizing the first letter of a sentence, nor putting periods at the end (difficulties with orthographic conventions while encoding).” 

We hope that this series of blog posts is a useful tool for parents and teachers alike so they can communicate more easily. In our next blog, we will go into the “how” of instructional practices.

And if you have a parent-teacher conference coming up, I hope this list will help you get the gold star whether you are parent or teacher.