Year 2 vocabulary glossary

retrieve

To find and take out a specific piece of information that is directly stated in a text.

inference

A sensible guess about something a text doesn't say directly, worked out from clues in the text.

prediction

A sensible guess about what might happen next in a text, based on what has happened so far.

character

A person, animal or being that a story is about.

setting

Where and when a story takes place.

non-fiction

Writing about real facts and real things, rather than an invented story.

adjective

A word that describes a noun, such as 'blue', 'tall' or 'exciting'.

adverb

A word that describes a verb, often telling you how, when or where something happens, such as 'quickly' or 'yesterday'.

expanded noun phrase

A noun with one or more adjectives added to describe it in more detail, such as 'the enormous, roaring dragon'.

statement

A sentence that tells you something, ending in a full stop.

command

A sentence that tells someone to do something, such as 'Close the door.'

exclamation

A sentence that shows strong feeling, usually starting with 'What' or 'How' and ending in an exclamation mark, such as 'What a lovely day!'

subordination

Joining two ideas by making one of them depend on the other, using a word like 'because' or 'when'.

coordination

Joining two equal ideas together using a word like 'and', 'but' or 'or'.

comma

The punctuation mark ( , ) used to separate items in a list or to add a small pause in a sentence.

apostrophe for contraction

An apostrophe used to show that letters have been missed out when two words are joined, such as in 'can't'.

prefix

A group of letters added to the start of a word that changes its meaning, such as 'un-' in 'unhappy'.

suffix

A group of letters added to the end of a word that changes its meaning or word class, such as '-ful' in 'careful'.

homophone

A word that sounds the same as another word but has a different spelling and meaning, such as 'sea' and 'see'.

compound word

A word made by joining two smaller words together, such as 'football' from 'foot' and 'ball'.

antonym

A word that means the opposite of another word, such as 'big' and 'small'.