Logic of English Pop Quiz

The smallest unit of speech that distinguishes one word from another is...

• a morpheme.

• a phoneme.

• a grapheme.

• a homophone.

Answer explanation

Phonemes are the sounds that make up a word. The words "map" and "cap" differ by just one phoneme.

The letter or letters that represent the individual speech sounds are...

• morphemes.

• phonemes.

• phonographs.

• phonograms.

Answer explanation

"Phono" means sound and "gram" means picture. Phonograms are the symbols that represent sounds. In English, we have 26 single letter phonograms as well as 49 basic multi-letter phonograms.

Phonogram is also synonymous with grapheme.

A sound that is produced when the mouth is open and is not blocked by the lips, teeth, or tongue is called...

• a syllable.

• a vowel.

• a consonant.

• a digraph.

Answer explanation

Vowel sounds are unblocked. We often teach kids that vowels are sounds that can be sung or shout with your mouth opened.

A sound that is produced by blocking with the teeth, lips, or tongue in some way is called...

• a vowel.

• a syllable.

• a consonant.

• an orthograph.

Answer explanation

Consonants can be further classified into to groups based on the parts of the mouth used to make the sound.

An uninterrupted segment of sound formed by the open and closing of the mouth to form vowels is...

• a consonant.

• a vowel.

• a digraph.

• a syllable.

Answer explanation

Syllables are the number of parts that make up a word. The ability to identify syllables is critical to reading and spelling because many rules are dependent on where a sound occurs in a syllable.