Foundations of Reading Test (FoRT) flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Phonemic awareness

The ability to notice, isolate, blend, segment, and manipulate individual phonemes in spoken words, without reference to print; the most advanced level of phonological awareness.

Phonological awareness

Broad sensitivity to the sound structure of spoken language, including words, syllables, onsets and rimes; it develops before and supports phonics learning.

Alphabetic principle

The understanding that letters represent speech sounds and that these sounds can be blended to read words; it is the conceptual foundation of decoding.

Consonant digraph

Two consonant letters representing a single phoneme, as in sh, ch, th, wh, and ph; unlike blends, the individual letter sounds are not produced.

Consonant blend

Two or three consonants in a word where each sound is still heard, as in bl in black or str in street; often called a cluster.

Closed syllable

A syllable ending in a consonant with a single short vowel sound, as in cat, sit, and jump; the most common syllable type in English.

Vowel-consonant-e pattern

A syllable pattern in which a final silent e makes the preceding vowel long, as in cake, ride, and note; also called silent-e or magic-e.

R-controlled vowel

A vowel followed by r whose sound is changed and neither short nor long, as in car, bird, her, and fork.

Morphemic analysis

Using knowledge of prefixes, roots, and suffixes to determine word meaning and spelling, as in un- plus happy or teach plus -er.

Fluency components

Accuracy, automaticity of word recognition, and prosody (appropriate expression and phrasing); all three are needed for fluent, meaningful reading.

Simple View of Reading

A model stating reading comprehension equals decoding ability multiplied by language comprehension; weakness in either factor limits overall comprehension.

Scarborough's Rope

A model showing word recognition strands and language comprehension strands woven together as reading develops, from emergent through skilled reading.

Story grammar

The organizational elements of narrative text, including setting, characters, initiating event, internal response, attempts, consequence, and resolution; supports retelling and comprehension.

Expository text structures

Common organizational patterns in informational text: description, sequence, compare-contrast, cause-effect, and problem-solution, each signaled by specific cue words.

Tier 2 vocabulary

High-frequency words used across academic domains, such as analyze, contrast, and evidence; instruction in these yields strong comprehension benefits.

Inferential comprehension

Understanding meaning that is implied rather than stated, requiring the reader to connect text clues with prior knowledge to draw conclusions.

Anaphora resolution

Identifying what a pronoun or substitute word refers to across sentences; failure to resolve these references disrupts comprehension of connected text.

Reciprocal teaching

A discussion-based comprehension approach in which students take turns predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing while the teacher scaffolds and gradually releases control.

Screening assessment

A brief measure administered to all students to identify those at risk for reading difficulty, so intervention can begin before failure becomes entrenched.

Progress monitoring

Frequent, brief measurement of a student's growth in a target skill, used to judge whether an intervention is working and to adjust instruction.

Miscue analysis

Examining oral reading errors to determine whether the reader relied on meaning, syntax, or letter-sound information, revealing the reader's strategy system.

Running record

A recorded oral reading of a leveled text that documents accuracy rate, error types, and self-corrections, used to place students and plan instruction.

Instructional reading level

The text difficulty at which a student reads with roughly 90 to 95 percent word accuracy and adequate comprehension, allowing productive guided instruction.

Formative assessment

Ongoing assessment during instruction that informs immediate teaching decisions; it is distinguished from summative assessment, which measures achievement after instruction.

Systematic phonics instruction

Teaching letter-sound relationships in a planned, sequential order with cumulative review and application to reading and writing, rather than incidentally as words arise.

RTI/MTSS framework

A tiered prevention model using universal screening, evidence-based instruction, progress monitoring, and increasingly intensive intervention based on student response data.

Constructed response evidence

Specific details drawn from the prompt's scenario, quoted or closely paraphrased, used to justify each claim made in a written response.

Diagnosis versus recommendation

Diagnosis names the specific skill deficit shown in the scenario; recommendation names the research-based instructional action that addresses that deficit.

Decoding-comprehension mismatch

A profile in which accurate word reading coexists with weak comprehension, indicating the instructional need is language comprehension rather than more phonics.

Comprehension-specific deficit

A profile of adequate decoding with poor understanding, often linked to weak vocabulary, background knowledge, or inferencing; instruction should target language comprehension.

Answering multipart prompts

Address every required component explicitly and in sequence, since an omitted part caps the score even when the remaining parts are strong.

Mechanism explanation

Stating why a recommended strategy works, such as repeated reading building automatic word recognition so attention is freed for comprehension.