Reading Skills, Homonyms, and Homophones

The Reading Skills Pyramid illustrates a typical sequence for acquiring reading skills for use by parents for homeschools and enrichment. The reading skills are organized using the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) system. The "What Works?" Report found that the five key areas in learning to read are phonemic awareness, phonics, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and reading fluency.

Homonyms & Homophones Homonyms are words that share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings.  For example, bear.  A bear (the animal) can bear (tolerate) very cold temperatures. The driver turned left (opposite of right) and left (departed from) the main road.  Homophones, also known as sound-alike words, are words that are pronounced identically although they have different spellings and meanings.  These words are a very common source of confusion when writing.  Common examples of sets of homophones include: to, too, and two; they're and their; bee and be; sun and son; which and witch; and plain and plane.  SpellingCity is a particularly useful tool for learning to correctly spell the soundalike words. Homographs Homographs are words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings and different pronunciations. Some examples of homographs are: bass as in fish vs bass as in music, bow as in arrow vs bow as in bending or taking a bow at the end of a performance, close as in next to vs close as in shut the door, desert as in dry climate vs desert as in leaving alone. Currently, SpellingCity cannot distinguish between homographs, as we are unable to have two pronounciations for the exact same word. We are looking for possibilities in the future.