Section 44757.5.

For the purposes of this chapter, the following definitions apply:

(a) "Phoneme awareness instruction" means teaching awareness of words, syllables, and phonemes along a developmental progression, and includes rhyming, recognition and production, blending and matching of phonemes, and segmentation, and substitution.

(b) "Systematic explicit phonics instruction" means an organized, sequential program in which letter-sound correspondence for letters and letter clusters are directly taught and blended, practiced in words, word lists, and word families, and practiced in "decodable text." "Decodable text" means reading material in which a high percentage of words are linked to phonics lessons. Systematic explicit phonics instruction builds from basic elements to complex patterns and teachers provide prompt and explicit feedback. Systematic explicit phonics instruction does not mean "embedded phonics instruction" which is ad hoc instruction in phonics based on a random selection of sound and word elements.

(c) "Decoding instruction" means teaching how to read printed words fluently and automatically, from simple letter combinations to more complex, multisyllabic combinations through the use of connected or practice text.

(d) "Diagnosis of a pupil's ability to decode" means regularly assessing the pupil's mastery of word recognition, fluency and automaticity, and word analysis in order to plan future instructional activities.

(e) "Explicit instruction" means systematic teaching of skills.

(f) "Spelling instruction" means teaching a logical scope and sequence of word knowledge, orthographic patterns, and frequently used words connected to the phonics sequence used in reading and writing instruction.

(g) "Word-attack skills instruction" means direct instruction of decoding skills and of structural elements, including prefixes, suffixes, and roots.

(h) "Vocabulary instruction" means teaching word meanings.

(i) "Instruction of comprehension skills" means systematic teaching of vocabulary development, text organization, and syntactic patterns, including, but not limited to, strategies for interpretation, summarization, prediction, clarification, and question generation.

(j) "Research on how reading skills are acquired" means research that is current and confirmed with generalizable and replicable results. "Current" research is research that has been conducted and is reported in a manner consistent with contemporary standards of scientific investigation. "Confirmed" research is research that has been replicated and the results duplicated. "Replicable" research is research with a structure and design that can be reproduced. "Generalizable" research is research in which samples have been used so that the results can be said to be true for the population from which the sample was drawn.

(Added by Stats. 1997, Ch. 286, Sec. 9. Effective August 18, 1997.)