Glossary

All A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Other

California English Language Development Test (CELDT): CELDT is a language proficiency test developed for the California Department of Education. Progress on language proficiency assessments like the CELDT is a requirement for ELLs under the No Child Left Behind Act .
Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL): CAL is a private, non-profit organization consisting of a group of scholars and educators who use the findings of linguistics to identify and address language-related problems. CAL carries out a wide range of activities including research, teacher education, analysis and dissemination of information, design and development of instructional materials, technical assistance, conference planning, program evaluation, and policy analysis. Visit the CAL website.
Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD): A disorder that occurs when the ear and the brain do not coordinate fully. A CAPD is a physical hearing impairment, but one which does not show up as a hearing loss on routine screenings or an audiogram. Instead, it affects the hearing system beyond the ear, whose job it is to separate a meaningful message from non-essential background sound and deliver that information with good clarity to the intellectual centers of the brain (the central nervous system).

For more information, go to Auditory Processing Disorder in Children.
Cloze passage: A cloze passage is a reading comprehension exercise in which words have been omitted in a systematic fashion. Students fill in the blanks, and their responses are counted correct if they are exact matches for the missing words. Cloze exercises assess comprehension and background knowledge, and they are also excellent indicators of whether the reading level and language level of the text are appropriate for a given student.
Cognates: Words in different languages related to the same root, e.g. education (English) and educación (Spanish).
Cognitive/Academic Language Proficiency (CALP): Cognitive/Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) is the language ability required for academic achievement in a context-reduced environment. Examples of context-reduced environments include classroom lectures and textbook reading assignments, where there are few environmental cues (facial expressions, gestures) that help students understand the content. CALP is part of a theory of language developed by Jim Cummins, and is distinguished from Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS).
Collaborative writing: Collaborative writing is an instructional approach in which students work together to plan, draft, revise, and edit compositions.
comprehension strategies: Techiniques to teach reading comprehension, including summarization, prediction, and inferring word meanings from context.
comprehension strategy instruction: The explicit teaching of techniques that are particularly effective for comprehending text. The steps of explicit instruction include direct explanation, teacher modeling ("think aloud"), guided practice, and application. Some strategies include direct explanation (the teacher explains to students why the strategy helps comprehension and when to apply the strategy), modeling (the teacher models, or demonstrates, how to apply the strategy, usually by "thinking aloud" while reading the text that the students are using), guided practice (the teacher guides and assists students as they learn how and when to apply the strategy) and application (the teacher helps students practice the strategy until they can apply it independently).
connected instruction: A way of teaching systematically in which the teacher continually shows and discusses with the students the relationship between what has been learned, what is being learned, and what will be learned.
Content area: Content areas are academic subjects like math, science, English/language arts, reading, and social sciences. Language proficiency may affect these areas, but is not included as a content area. Assessments of language proficiency differ from those of language arts.
context clues: Sources of information outside of words that readers may use to predict the identities and meanings of unknown words. Context clues may be drawn from the immediate sentence containing the word, from text already read, from pictures accompanying the text, or from definitions, restatements, examples, or descriptions in the text.
Context-embedded language: Context-embedded language refers to communication that occurs in a context of shared understanding, where there are cues or signals that help to reveal the meaning (e.g. visual clues, gestures, expressions, specific location).
Context-reduced language: Context-reduced language refers to communication where there are few clues about the meaning of the communication apart from the words themselves. The language is likely to be abstract and academic. Examples: textbook reading, classroom lecture.
continuous assessment: An element of responsive instruction in which the teacher regularly monitors student performance to determine how closely it matches the instructional goal.
cooperative learning: A teaching model involving students working together as partners or in small groups on clearly defined tasks. It has been used successfully to teach comprehension strategies in content-area subjects.
Criterion-referenced test: Criterion-referenced tests are designed to determine whether students have mastered specific content, and allow comparisons with other students taking the same assessment. They are nationally and locally available.
curriculum-based assessment: A type of informal assessment in which the procedures directly assess student performance in learning-targeted content in order to make decisions about how to better address a student's instructional needs.

These terms and definitions were collected from the following sources: Dr. Jean Lokerson, ERIC Digest; Southwest Educational Laboratory (SEDL); Dr. Linda Wilmshurst and Dr. Alan Brue, A Parent's Guide to Special Education, American Management Association, 2005; The Partnership for Reading; Learning Disabilities Council; Dr. Don Deshler, University of Kansas.

*Source: Common Core State Standards. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010.