Foundations of Reading Test (FoRT) cheat sheet

Phonological awareness is the umbrella skill: it covers syllables, onsets and rimes, and phonemes; phonemic awareness is the narrowest level and involves isolating and manipulating individual phonemes.

The typical progression is word, syllable, onset-rime, then phoneme; blending and segmenting phonemes are the strongest predictors of later decoding success.

Alphabetic principle has two parts: letters map to sounds, and sounds are blended to form words; it is distinct from print concepts such as directionality and one-to-one matching.

Consonant digraphs (sh, ch, th, wh, ph) represent one phoneme with two letters; consonant blends (bl, str, nd) keep each letter's sound audible.

Vowel patterns: closed syllable = short vowel (cat); vowel-consonant-e = long vowel (cake); open syllable = long vowel (hi); r-controlled changes the vowel (car, bird); vowel teams/diphthongs (ai, oa, oi, ou) produce glides or single long sounds.

Six syllable types: closed, open, vowel-consonant-e, vowel team, r-controlled, consonant-le; syllable division rules let readers decode multisyllable words by pattern rather than guessing.

Orthographic knowledge develops in layers: alphabetic (letter-sound), pattern (within-word patterns, silent e), and meaning (morphemes such as prefix, root, suffix); spelling stages generally move from semiphonetic to phonetic to transitional to correct.

Morphemic analysis supports vocabulary and spelling: inflectional suffixes (-s, -ed, -ing) change grammar, derivational affixes (un-, -tion, -ness) change meaning or part of speech.

Fluency has three components: accuracy, automaticity (rate), and prosody; repeated reading with modeling and feedback is the standard route to automatic word recognition.

Comprehension is best modeled as the reader's construction of a situation model by integrating text base (explicit propositions) with prior knowledge; inference making is the central mechanism.

Narrative text structure: setting, characters, initiating event, internal response, attempts, consequence, resolution; story grammar maps improve retelling and comprehension of fiction.

Expository text structures: description, sequence, compare-contrast, cause-effect, problem-solution; signal words (because, however, first, as a result) are the cue system students must learn to use.

Vocabulary tiers: Tier 1 = everyday words; Tier 2 = high-frequency academic words used across domains (e.g., contrast, analyze); Tier 3 = domain-specific terms; Tier 2 words give the greatest comprehension return.

The Simple View of Reading: comprehension = decoding x language comprehension; a weakness in either factor produces a distinct profile (dyslexia-like vs. hyperlexic/comprehension-specific).

Scarborough's Rope: word recognition strands (phonological, phonics, fluency) and language comprehension strands (vocabulary, syntax, background knowledge, verbal reasoning, literacy knowledge) intertwine across development.

Levels of comprehension: literal (explicit), inferential (implied), evaluative/critical (judging, comparing sources); constructed-response items usually demand inferential and evaluative reasoning with text evidence.

Cognitive strategies that research supports: predicting, questioning, visualizing, monitoring/clarifying, summarizing, and using text structure; strategy use must be modeled, scaffolded, and gradually released.

Cohesive devices (pronoun reference, ellipsis, connectives) carry meaning across sentences; failure to resolve anaphora is a common source of comprehension breakdown in upper grades.

Screening identifies students at risk before failure; diagnosis pinpoints specific skill gaps; progress monitoring tracks response to intervention; outcome measures evaluate program effectiveness.

Valid measures of phonemic awareness are oral (segmenting, blending, deletion) because they must not depend on letter knowledge; letter-name and letter-sound tasks measure alphabetic knowledge instead.

Curriculum-based measurement (CBM) oral reading fluency uses brief, timed passages; benchmark and slope data (words correct per minute growth) drive instructional decisions in an RTI/MTSS framework.

Running records and miscue analysis classify errors as semantic, syntactic, or graphophonic; a high proportion of meaning-based miscues suggests the reader is over-relying on context rather than decoding.

Informal reading inventories yield independent, instructional, and frustration levels; a reader at instructional level typically scores about 90-95% word accuracy with adequate comprehension.

Formative assessment is ongoing and used to adjust instruction; summative assessment occurs after instruction and measures achievement; portfolios and rubrics support constructed-response evaluation.

Diagnostic spelling inventories reveal orthographic stage (letter-name, within-word pattern, syllable juncture, derivational relations), which determines the appropriate word-study level.

Instructional grouping should be flexible and skill-based; explicit, systematic, sequential phonics instruction with cumulative review outperforms incidental or embedded phonics for at-risk readers.

Data-based decision rules: if progress-monitoring data show a flat or below-goal slope after several weeks of intervention, the intervention is changed in intensity, duration, or focus rather than simply continued.

Score points come from explicit, defensible claims tied to evidence in the prompt's scenario; each claim should name the specific skill or concept and explain why it fits the described student.

A strong response structure: state the diagnosis or recommendation, cite the evidence in the scenario that supports it, name the research-based principle, then describe the concrete instructional action.

Use precise terminology (phonemic awareness vs. phonics, fluency vs. automaticity, screening vs. diagnostic) because imprecise terms are scored as conceptual errors.

When a scenario describes a student who decodes accurately but comprehends poorly, the response should target language comprehension and vocabulary, not more decoding practice.

When a scenario describes slow, labored decoding with adequate oral language, the response should target word recognition and fluency: explicit phonics, decodable text, repeated reading.

Every recommendation must be connected to the described learner; generic activities that could apply to any student do not earn credit for integration.

Answer all parts of a multi-part prompt explicitly and in order; unaddressed components cap the score regardless of the quality of the addressed parts.

Support explanations with a mechanism (why the strategy works), not just a label; e.g., repeated reading builds automatic word recognition, freeing attention for meaning construction.