MTTC Reading (005) cheat sheet

Phonological awareness is the umbrella skill (syllables, rhyme, onset-rime, phonemes); phonemic awareness is the narrowest level - isolating, blending, segmenting, deleting, and substituting individual phonemes.

Alphabetic principle: readers map printed letters to speech sounds. Mastery requires both letter-sound correspondence and the understanding that sounds in words are sequenced.

Consonant digraphs are two letters producing one sound (sh, ch, th, wh, ph, ck). Consonant blends are two or three letters where each sound is still heard (bl, str, spl).

Six syllable types: closed (CVC, short vowel), open (CV, long vowel), vowel-consonant-e (silent e, long vowel), vowel team (ai, ee, oa), r-controlled (ar, er, ir, or, ur), and consonant-le (final stable syllable, as in ta-ble).

Synthetic phonics teaches letter-sound correspondences in a defined sequence and then blends them into words; analytic phonics starts from whole words and draws out the sound patterns.

Fluency has three components - accuracy, automaticity (rate), and prosody (expression). Repeated reading with modeling and feedback is the standard intervention for building all three.

Orthographic knowledge develops in stages: pre-alphabetic, partial alphabetic, full alphabetic, and consolidated alphabetic, in which letter patterns and morphemes are processed as chunks.

Structural analysis: inflectional endings (-s, -ed, -ing) change tense or number; derivational affixes (un-, -tion, -ness) change meaning or part of speech.

Running records and curriculum-based measurement (words correct per minute) quantify fluency; a prosody rubric is needed because rate alone does not capture expression.

Three tiers of vocabulary: Tier 1 is everyday oral language; Tier 2 is high-frequency academic words that generalize across texts (e.g., contrast, infer); Tier 3 is low-frequency domain-specific terminology. Instruction should target Tier 2.

Context clues types: definition (restatement), synonym, antonym/contrast, example, and inference. Signal words such as 'however', 'that is', and 'for example' flag the clue type.

Morphological instruction teaches roots, prefixes, and suffixes so students can derive meaning from unfamiliar words; it is most productive once students have a base of Tier 1 vocabulary.

Comprehension strategies with strong evidence: activating prior knowledge, predicting, questioning, visualizing, monitoring and repairing understanding, summarizing, and using text structure.

Narrative text structure: characters, setting, initiating event, rising action, climax, resolution, and theme. Expository structures: description, sequence, comparison-contrast, cause-effect, and problem-solution.

Question-answer relationships (QAR): right there, think and search, author and me, and on my own - used to teach that not all answers are literally in the text.

Literal comprehension retrieves stated information; inferential comprehension combines text with background knowledge; evaluative comprehension judges quality, purpose, and bias.

Main idea is often stated in a topic sentence but may be implicit; supporting details are distinguished from the main idea by testing whether removing the detail destroys the central point.

Text complexity is judged on three dimensions: quantitative (readability formulas), qualitative (levels of meaning, structure, knowledge demands), and reader-task considerations.

Screening identifies students at risk before failure; diagnostic assessment pinpoints specific skill gaps; progress monitoring is administered frequently (e.g., weekly) to gauge response to intervention; summative assessment measures outcome.

Reliability is consistency of scores across occasions and raters; validity is whether an assessment measures what it claims. A test can be reliable but not valid.

Norm-referenced tests compare a student to a norm group and yield percentiles or stanines; criterion-referenced tests compare performance to a defined standard or skill list.

Informal reading inventory (IRI) yields independent, instructional, and frustration reading levels, typically using a 95%/90% word accuracy criterion for independent/instructional.

Miscue analysis classifies errors by whether they are semantically, syntactically, or graphophonemically cued, revealing the cue systems a reader is over- or under-using.

Response to Intervention tiers: Tier 1 is core instruction for all, Tier 2 is targeted small-group intervention, Tier 3 is intensive individualized intervention; movement between tiers is data-driven.

Sheltered instruction (SIOP) supports English learners with content and language objectives, visuals, comprehensible input, and structured oral interaction rather than simplified content.

Dyslexia is a specific word-reading and spelling difficulty with a phonological core; it is not a visual reversal problem and does not imply low intelligence.

Differentiation adjusts process, product, or content based on readiness, interest, and learning profile; flexible grouping is reassigned based on ongoing data.