There are 5 Big Ideas in beginning reading:

1. Phonemic Awareness: The ability to hear and manipulate sounds in words.
2. Alphabetic Principle: The ability to associate sounds with letters and use these sounds to form words.
3. Fluency with Text: The effortless, automatic ability to read words in connected text.
4. Vocabulary: The ability to understand (receptive) and use (expressive) words to acquire and convey meaning.
5. Comprehension: The complex cognitive process involving the intentional interaction between reader and text to convey meaning.

• Big Ideas are the basis for curriculum and instruction.
• Big Ideas inspire the measures we use.



Big Idea of Literacy	DIBELS Measure
Phonological Awareness	Initial Sounds Fluency Phoneme Segmentation Fluency
Alphabetic Principle	Nonsense Word Fluency
Fluency with Text	Oral Reading Fluency