Abstract: Difficult to fully or easily understand because it is intangible or theoretical and is not associated with a particular instance or concrete example. The concept of "hope" is more abstract than the concept of "house."

Academy Modules: Modules developed for students in the three content areas are referred to as Academy modules. The instructor's modules are created for orientation purposes and are not intended for professional development. Rather, they are designed to convey information about Academy modules and how they can be integrated into teacher education programs.

Acronym: A word made up of the initial letters of words in a phrase or sentence; an example is the acronym ASK IT (Attend to clues, Say some questions, Keep predictions in mind, Identify the answers, Talk about the answers.)

Advance organizer: Oral or written statements at the beginning of a lesson intended to orient learners to the content and/or procedures used. These statements facilitate learning and comprehension of new material.

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

Clause: An arrangement of words containing a subject and verb that creates part, but not all, of a sentence. Clauses can be independent or dependent.

Cognition: The process of knowing by thinking, comprehending, analyzing, or evaluating. Examples: Students use cognition to gain meaning from spoken or written material by reasoning, making inferences, seeing relationships, etc.

Concept development: The process of gaining an understanding of an idea.

Content Areas: OSEP has specified three content areas within the teacher education curriculum for the Academy to focus on. The content areas include reading, positive behavioral supports and technology in education. These are the content areas from which research-based interventions will be selected and transformed into instructional modules.

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

Directed Questions: A series of questions about lesson content has been included as a feature in each module. A question is presented. Once students enter their response they are able to access exemplary answers. This allows them to compare their response to responses prepared by the Academy staff.

Explicit: Completely and clearly expressed without ambiguity or vagueness; fully developed. Example: Explicit instructions would leave no doubt in your mind about what you were to do. Every part would be "spelled out."

Expository text: A collection of written words that gives information, explains something, or seeks to persuade. Most classroom textbooks are expository - science, social studies, health, etc.

External controls: With regard to reading comprehension, prompts or instructions given and controlled by the teacher to guide student use of a strategy, as opposed to independent student control of the strategy.

Goal-specific strategies: Procedures readers use to process specific material. Examples include predicting the outcomes, self-questioning, analyzing the text, visual imagery, using graphic organizers, paraphrasing, and summarizing.

Hierarchical relationships: The order of relationships among ideas, determined by degree of inclusiveness. An understanding of the hierarchical relationships that exist in textual material can aid in the comprehension of that material. For example, when a student is reading expository text, he might determine the relationships among the ideas presented by looking at the headings, subheadings, and then noting the details.

Inference: A conclusion arrived at from facts and by reasoning. Example: If you arrived at a gathering of friends and one of them was sitting in from of a decorated cake and blowing out candles, you would make the inference that it was a birthday celebration and the person celebrating the birthday was the one blowing out the candles.

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

Macrostructure: The overall organizational pattern of a text.

Menu: There are menus for each level and lesson in an Academy module. Links to the level menus appear in the center of the menubar. Access any level menu by clicking the level titles in the center of the menubar. Click the up arrow (top right) to access the menu for the current level or to go to the next higher menu level. For example, if you are viewing a page in a lesson the up arrow takes you to the current Lesson menu then to the menu for all Lessons then to the Table of Contents (ToC) for the entire module.

Metacognition: A person's reflection on his or her own thinking processes. By using metacognitive skills, readers are able to reflect on their own reading processes, for example, whether or not they understand what they read.

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.

Multisensory imaging: The integrating of sounds, sights, smells, and tastes to help students create an image.

Narrative text: A collection of written words that seeks to entertain, display knowledge or skill, teach, organize, and plan behavior, most frequently involving imaginative stories with a setting, characters, and a plot. Examples of narrative writing: Little Women, A Tale of Two Cities.

Navigation: Navigation refers to the technical process of moving from one feature to another in an online module. The navigation system for Academy modules allows students to follow a critical path, but also to exercise flexibility when they wish to vary from the normal path of progressing through a module.

Paraphrasing: A process that involves taking information from reading or listening and rephrasing the information in one's own words in a way that personalizes the information. This can facilitate one's ability to understand and remember the information.

Prediction: A learning strategy that involves taking information gained from listening or reading, identifying questions that emerge, and then making an educated guess as to the content and structure that will follow. An important aspect of using prediction is confirming guesses after reading. Prediction can facilitate understanding and remembering.

Prior knowledge activation strategy (PKA): A previewing strategy that teaches students to talk about how an idea they will encounter in the text relates to personal thoughts and/or experiences.

Proficient readers: Individuals who effectively and independently use skills and strategies to construct meaning from print.

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

Schema: The structure, frame, unit, or script into which knowledge is packed and organized.

Schemata: The plural of schema; a network of many schemas; the structures, frames, units, or scripts into which all knowledge is packed and organized.

Self-questioning: Identifying cues from information heard or read that make a learner wonder about who, what, when, where, which and why and ask personalized questions that relate to the information. The learner then reads to find the answers to these questions. Self-questioning can facilitate understanding and remembering. Good readers automatically self-question; weaker readers need to be taught to do this.

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

Story grammar: A schema or framework for the components of a story. In its simplest form, story grammar involves specification of the main character, his or her problem or conflict, his or her attempts to solve the problem, and the chain of events that lead to a resolution. It also includes analysis of how characters react to the events and the articulation of the theme or themes.

Strategic instruction: An educational approach aimed at providing rules or guidelines to help individuals approach tasks more effectively, efficiently and independently.

Strategy: An individual's approach to a task; how a person thinks and acts when planning, executing, and evaluating the performance of a task and its outcomes.

Summarization: The process of concisely restating the essential ideas of a text or passage, and synthesizing the ideas into an overarching, or superordinate, idea.

Superordinate: As used in this lesson, a larger, more inclusive concept or category, to which subordinate concepts or ideas belong.

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.

Table of Contents: Each module includes a general Table of Contents (ToC) covering the entire module. Click "ToC" in the top right of the menubar to access the Table of Contents

Tactic: An approach a teacher uses to help a student learn.

Visual imagery strategy: A strategic approach to aid comprehension, interpretation, and retention of information during which individuals create detailed pictures in their minds and link the images to the content being learned.

Vocabulary deficit: A gap in the number of words which one knows in comparison to peers; problems with learning new words fast enough to serve well in acquiring new information.