NBPTS Literacy: Reading-Language Arts cheat sheet

Literacy: Reading-Language Arts

• Five foundational reading components (National Reading Panel): phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension; each is assessed and taught separately but integrated in instruction.

• Phonemic awareness is oral and sound-based (no letters); phonics is print-based mapping of sounds to letters. A task asking students to segment spoken words is phonemic awareness, not phonics.

• Fluency has three measurable dimensions: accuracy, rate (typically words correct per minute), and prosody. Rate alone without accuracy or expression is an incomplete fluency measure.

• Running records and miscue analysis classify errors as semantic, syntactic, or graphophonic; a meaning-preserving substitution signals a reader using cueing systems strategically rather than failing to decode.

• The three cueing systems in a balanced literacy framework are semantic (meaning), syntactic (grammar/structure), and graphophonic (letter-sound/visual).

• Comprehension instruction aligned to research includes explicit strategy teaching, gradual release of responsibility (modeled, guided, independent), and text discussion; strategy drills without text application do not transfer.

• Vocabulary tiers: Tier 1 everyday words, Tier 2 high-frequency academic words across domains (highest instructional payoff), Tier 3 domain-specific low-frequency terms.

• Writing development stages: emergent (scribbling, mock letters), early (invented spelling, letter-name strategy), transitional (conventional spelling emerging, more fluent sentences), and fluent.

• Assessment decision rule: screening identifies risk, diagnostic pinpoints specific skill gaps, progress monitoring tracks response to intervention, and summative evaluates end-of-period achievement. Match the tool to the purpose.