What in the heck are they talking about?

My daughter, Amy is a teacher so when we get together we eventually talk school.  Emily, my oldest is not a teacher.   When Amy and I start talking school, Emily  rolls her eyes and says, Oh they are in their yaya school club! When I would share about my day, my husband would stare at me and say, What are you talking about?  Why does education have to have its own language?  Forget that I could argue that his silly technology/computer stuff has its own language but I won't go there!   But he is right, teachers throw terms around as if everyone understands them.  Fact is, everyone doesn't.

Here are a few of the terms that a teacher may use that you might be wondering huh?

1. Phonological awareness - This is listening to the individual sounds in words.  There is no print, just listening.   This builds a foundation for spelling later on.  It includes rhyming and beginning sounds and eventually individual sounds in words.  Most of the activities done are games because it is all listening.  You shouldn't see homework for phonological awareness!

2. Phonics - This is such a 'hot' term but all it really is is putting print to the sounds.   So when we work with letters, we are 'doing' phonics.   When we spell words, we are doing phonics.

3. Stations/Centers - This is the time (hopefully) that your child is working in small groups with one or two other children.  Typically they rotate through them,  It is a time for the children to work or play independently; to practice what they have done with teacher support.

4. Developmentally appropriate - You have heard the term used by pediatricians.  As teachers we use the term to justify that what we are having children do is appropriate for that developmental age or stage.  Be careful because sometimes we use this term and it conflicts with what is really developmentally appropriate.  For example, writing is developmentally appropriate for 3-5 year olds but it is not developmentally appropriate for 3-5 year olds to be writing on notebook paper.   They need blank paper or 1-2 lines on a page.

5. Standards -  Standards are what the state expects your child to learn in that particular grade. The state of Texas uses the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills). The standards are either state adopted for each grade beginning in prekindergarten through 12th grade or they are common core standards which many states have adopted.
6. Fluency - This applies to how fast or slow your child reads.  Once a child can read, their fluency is checked.  This is how many words per minute one reads.  At the end of 1st grade most children should be reading 60 words a minute.  Be careful though because fluency isn't just about speed and sometimes teachers forget that.   Does the child read with expression and intonation? We call that prosody. Keep in mind that some children are very good readers but just read slowly.  The belief is that at some point one might read so slowly comprehension breaks down.  In other words, we don't get what we read if we read real slowly.

There are too many terms to list.  We love acronyms in education too.  ARD, 504, ESL, SPED, and on and on it goes.   Bottom line, whenever you are talking with your child's teacher or caregiver, if you have no idea what they are talking about -  stop them and say, HUH?  They owe it to you to explain. If they can't explain it, well then......