MAP Reading cheat sheet

Phonological awareness is the umbrella skill (word, syllable, onset-rime, phoneme levels); phonemic awareness is the narrowest level and the strongest early predictor of later decoding skill.

Progression of phonemic tasks by difficulty: isolation and identification < blending < segmenting < deletion < substitution and manipulation of individual phonemes.

A phoneme is a contrastive speech sound, not a letter; English has roughly 44 phonemes but only 26 letters, so the mapping is many-to-many (digraphs, split digraphs, and single sounds spelled multiple ways).

Phonics instruction is systematic when letter-sound correspondences follow a defined scope and sequence; explicit synthetic phonics blends individual phonemes into words, while analytic phonics starts from whole words.

Word recognition develops along Ehri's phases: pre-alphabetic, partial alphabetic, full alphabetic, consolidated alphabetic; sight-word reading in the consolidated phase rests on orthographic mapping, not visual memorization.

Fluency-building indicators in word reading: accuracy first, then automaticity; a word read correctly but slowly still consumes attention that would otherwise go to comprehension.

Language comprehension draws on vocabulary breadth and depth, background knowledge, syntax and grammar, inferencing, and text-structure knowledge; listening comprehension and reading comprehension converge once decoding is automatic.

Simple View of Reading: reading comprehension = decoding x language comprehension; a weakness in either component alone depresses the product, so a profile must be interpreted as a two-factor pattern.

Oral reading fluency has three observable components: accuracy (words correct), automatic rate (words correct per minute), and prosody (expression, phrasing, adherence to punctuation).

WCPM is computed as total words read minus errors, divided by the passage word count, multiplied by 60; errors include substitutions, omissions, insertions, and mispronunciations that change meaning.

Self-corrections and repetitions are typically not counted as errors when the word is ultimately read correctly; hesitations longer than about three seconds are conventionally scored as errors.

Rate benchmarks are grade- and season-specific (fall, winter, spring), so a score is interpreted against a norm table rather than a single universal cutoff.

Risk categories from benchmark screening are usually expressed as at or above benchmark, strategic or some risk, and intensive or at risk, with cut scores derived from predicting a later comprehension outcome.

Prosody can be rated on a rubric (for example a four-point fluency scale) covering volume, phrasing, smoothness, and pace; flat, word-by-word reading signals comprehension resources being spent on decoding.

Literal comprehension checks after an oral reading ask for explicitly stated facts, sequence, and details; inferential questions tap a different construct and should not substitute for literal recall in a fluency check.

Repeated reading, paired reading, and performance reading with modeling are the evidence-based routines for building fluency; wide independent reading alone is insufficient for students below benchmark.

Screening is universal, brief, and administered to all students at fixed intervals; it identifies who needs further assessment and never diagnoses a disability.

Dyslexia risk screening emphasizes phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, letter-sound knowledge, and word and nonword reading; nonword reading isolates decoding from sight vocabulary.

Rapid automatized naming (RAN) deficits paired with phonological deficits indicate a double deficit, which is associated with more persistent reading difficulty than either deficit alone.

Developmental language disorder risk is flagged by oral language measures: vocabulary, sentence repetition, grammatical production and comprehension, and following multistep directions, in the presence of typical nonverbal ability.

A defining feature of DLD is persistence past the expected age of resolution; late talkers whose language difficulties resolve by about age four to five are not classified as DLD.

Dyslexia and DLD frequently co-occur but are dissociable: dyslexia is a word-level written language difficulty with intact oral language in the classic profile, while DLD is a spoken language difficulty that often, but not always, affects reading comprehension.

Screening decisions use cut scores with sensitivity and specificity trade-offs; a lower cut score raises specificity and reduces false positives, a higher one raises sensitivity and catches more at-risk students.

Progress monitoring after screening uses brief, equivalent alternate forms at a set cadence (often weekly or every few weeks) to judge response to intervention, distinct from the annual or seasonal screening benchmark.