Reading Development: Foundational Skills
Mr. Rick's classroom just received a new student from China. She speaks some English but her main language is Chinese. Her parents speak both Chinese and English in the home. Which accommodation would help her build her English oral language skills and ease the transition into an English-only classroom?
Bring material into the classroom that relates to her Chinese heritage.
Which of the following would be the best way to assess a student's knowledge of phonics?
Evaluate the student's spelling when they write, especially when it includes unfamiliar words.
How many phonemes are in the word "spit"?
4
Which of the following statements correctly describes the relationship between phonemes and graphemes?
A grapheme is a symbol used to identify a phoneme.
The following sets of words could be used to demonstrate which of the following principles?
A root word that ends in y is usually changed to i when a suffix is added onto the end.
How does a student's level of oral vocabulary impact their decoding and reading abilities?
A student with a large vocabulary is more likely to recognize whether or not they have decoded a word correctly.
Which of the following best describes the impact of decoding skills on readingcomprehension?
A student's ability to accurately and quickly decode words improves fluency and student comprehension.
While reading an unfamiliar passage for a diagnostic test, a teacher records the following errors made by a student reading at a normal pace. Based on the errors recorded, the student is struggling with which of the following while reading?
Adding consonants that are not there.
Which activity would fit in a unit focusing on enhancing student abilities in word recognition?
After studying some common prefixes, suffixes, and root words, play a game where students generate as many words as possible that use a specific root, prefix, or suffix.
Ms. Winski, a second-grade teacher, notices that her newest English language learner is struggling to communicate with his peers. Which option below would best encourage her new student to practice speaking to and interacting with his classmates?
Allow time before and after activities for students to chat with their deskmates.
Which of the following activities would best help a teacher develop a student's understanding of phonics?
Have the student use letter tiles to create words.
Follow-up activities are crucial to enhancing young students' listening skills. After listening to a story, which of the following activities would be most appropriate for a class with many English Language Learners?
Have the students perform a skit about the events in the story.
Which of the following strategies would not be effective when teaching a group of English Language Learners (ELLs) literacy strategies for irregularly spelled words?
Identify common words that rhyme with the new word.
In a kindergarten class, several students have mastered the letter-sound relationships for the consonant letters g, d, and b. In addition, the students have mastered the short vowel sound for the letter o. This group of students also consistently uses initial and final consonant sounds correctly when spelling words during writing time. In order to help this group of students develop along the continuum of knowledge and skills related to the alphabetic principle, the teacher should take which of the following steps?
In a small group, read simple, decodable texts containing the letter sounds students have mastered, modeling how the letter sounds combine to form words.
How does instruction regarding word families support spelling instruction?
It demonstrates that in words containing the same sounds made by a group of letters, the sounds will often be represented with the same spelling.
How should fluency practice for a struggling reader differ from fluency practice for a student who is on or above grade level?
It should use a text at the student's reading level regardless of how far below grade level that is.
Which of the following describes a way that spelling instruction can support the decoding skills of early readers?
Memorizing common letter patterns through spelling can then be applied to unfamiliar words with similar structures when reading
Which of the following statements about phonemic awareness is most accurate?
Phonemic awareness is an early indicator of students becoming strong readers.
Mrs. Morgan has been working to teach her students alphabetic principles. Monday, she began by describing the sound made by the letter s. Which of the following would be the most logical next step of instruction?
Point out examples of "s" in familiar words and names.
A teacher noticed that a number of her new kindergarten students are struggling with the difference between a letter, a word, and a sentence. Which of the following strategies would be best to improve the students' understand of print concepts? Select all answers that apply.
Point to and orally read words on signs, posters, calendars, etc. Read oversized books so students can watch the teacher point out the words.
In what way should phonetic instruction be different for ELL students than for native speakers?
Special focus should be given to sounds that are different or are not used in their native language.
A teacher is working to help her students learn the names and shapes of the letters in the alphabet. Which of the following activities would best support this goal?
The teacher names a letter and writes it on the board, and the children use playdough to form the shape of the letter at their table.
A small group of ELL students is struggling with recognizing how printed words and spoken language are related. Which activity below would best help the students develop this skill?
The teacher reading aloud a familiar story to the group and pointing out the text and punctuation marks as she reads.
Which of the following strategies would help a group of students develop an understanding of text directionality?
The teacher reads to the class daily from oversized books, discussing the front and back covers before beginning, and pointing to the words as she reads them.
Which of the following is true about consonant blends?
They blend two or more consonants while each letter retains its original sound.
An English language arts teacher has several English language learners from Mexico in her class. At the start of the year the ELLs were assessed, and the results determined that they all have strong literacy skills in Spanish. Because of this, which of the following should not need to be explicitly taught to these students? Select all answers that apply.
basic metacognitive strategies alphabetic awareness
Students will learn to read phonetically regular words in a simple to complex progression. Of the skills provided, which of the following skills would most likely be the earliest skill mastered?
blending onsets and rimes
A second-grade teacher passes out single syllable nouns (e.g. door, knob) to each student in the class. She asks the students to walk around the room until they find another student with a word that can combine with their own to form a new word (e.g. doorknob). This activity is most likely to help the students understand which of the following?
compound words
Which of the following skills is NOT assessed using a reading assessment focused solely on oral fluency?
comprehension
A first-grade teacher is planning a series of phonics lessons. Before beginning the lessons, the teacher administers a pre-test to each student on the skills that will be covered. After the lessons, the teacher administers a post-test to each student. The following is an example of one student's assessment. After examining this student's post-assessment data, the teacher decides to provide additional learning opportunities in which of the following areas?
consonant digraphs
A teacher recognizes that some of the English learners in her class get confused when they see multiple spellings of the same sound. What can the teacher do to help these students?
create a word wall in the classroom that categorizes words based on sound patterns
Which of the following activities is the best way for young students to demonstrate their phonics knowledge?
decode a word based on letter/sound relationships
For their morning work, a teacher has students dissect the word "disconnected." The students are required to break the word into a prefix, root word, and suffix. Which of the following skills will this help develop?
decoding
A second-grade student typically spells most words accurately in her writing and is able to read familiar words, but she struggles to read new words accurately. Which of the following would best support this student?
decoding skills
An ESL teacher presents an activity to her beginning-level ELLs in which she introduces predictable spelling patterns in word families to ELLs. Which of the following skills is this activity mainly helping the students develop?
decoding skills
Which of the following phonemic awareness skills would be the last skill a student should be expected to master?
deleting phonemes
Mastering which of the following skills would demonstrate that the student is most likely ready to move on to explicit phonics instruction?
deleting, adding, or replacing individual sounds in words
A student needs to be able to fluently read a text in order to refocus their attention on which of the following tasks?
determining the main idea
A kindergarten student is struggling to recognize individual sounds in words. What should be the teacher's first step in supporting the student's phonological development?
determining which level(s) of phonemic awareness the student is struggling with
A first-grade class has recently finished reading the story The Three Little Pigs. After reading, the teacher asks students to complete the organizer below with their table partners.
develop their oral language skills as they discuss the results of the experiment.
A preschool teacher asks her class to share their favorite foods. As the children share, she writes the foods they say onto the board. Next, she goes through the list with the class to see if there were any repeat foods and counts how many times each item was repeated. Which of the following best describes the purpose of this activity?
developing an awareness that speech corresponds to writing
Mrs. Smithers has just completed a beginning-of-the-year assessment of her student's reading fluency skills. The results revealed that she has students with reading skills ranging from significantly below grade-level to above grade-level. To accommodate these different skill levels, Mrs. Smithers should:
differentiate instruction, offering both remediation and enrichment.
A second-grade student has shown strength in memorizing sight words and reading common, familiar words in books, but she consistently struggles with unfamiliar words even if they are decodable. Based on her specific challenge, in which of the following skills does she require further instruction?
direct phonics instruction
A teacher has several Arabic speakers in her class with a beginning level of English proficiency. When reading aloud to her class, the teacher uses an interactive whiteboard to project the text onto a large screen in front of the class. Then, she uses a pen tool to point to each word as she reads. This main purpose of this is to demonstrate English:
directionality
After observing that a student is not a fluent reader, the teacher should first:
formally assess the student's reading fluency to identify possible causes.
A classroom teacher divides the class into pairs and gives each student a folder containing a picture of a recognizable person like a fireman or a doctor. They do not show the picture to their partner and describe the image in detail until their partner is able to correctly identify the person. Which of the following describes one of the goals of this lesson?
further developing oral language and listening skills
A kindergarten teacher incorporates the use of Big Books into the daily lesson, pointing to each word as she reads. Which of the following would this activity best reinforce? Select all answers that apply.
graphophonemic skills print orientation skills grapheme skills
During a group reading activity, the teacher periodically pauses and points out prefixes and suffixes for unfamiliar vocabulary words. The teacher helps students to identify parts of speech and word meanings. Which cueing system is the teacher using during this lesson?
graphophonic
Mr. Robins collects a short free-writing paragraph from students. While skimming a student's paper, Mr. Robins notices that there is a consistent misspelling of words that contain a long e. Instruction with which cueing system would benefit this student the most?
graphophonic
Phonics can be difficult for English language learners because English:
has a deep orthography.
Early childhood learners that have not developed phonological and phonemic awareness may: Select all answers that apply.
have a learning disability. be English Language Learners. have had less time in practicing the skill set.
A third-grade teacher administers a fluency benchmark halfway through the year and notices several students in the class are reading in the 80th percentile or above when it comes to Words Correct Per Minute (WCPM). However, when reading out loud, this same group of students reads without proper inflection or phrasing. Which of the following strategies should the teacher implement in order to help these students?
have students participate in reader's theatre several times per week
A teacher wants to develop reading fluency in his first-grade class. Which of the following would be the most effective activity to enhance the students' reading fluency?
having students reread stories that were used during a guided reading activity
A first-grade teacher can formally and informally assess the development of his/her students' phonemic awareness in all of the following ways except:
having the student read silently and write down certain syllables.
At the beginning of class, Mrs. Williams shares a paragraph with a student, asking her if she would read it aloud later in the class. Mrs. Williams suggests she reads through the paragraph before reading it aloud. Which of the following are likely reasons why the teacher asked her to pre-read the paragraph? Select all answers that apply.
improved accuracy improved prosody
Which of the following best represents a direct benefit of learning common spelling patterns?
improved accuracy when reading
Phonological awareness is the ability to identify:
individual words, sounds, and syllables.
A reading teacher writes the following groups of words on the board: eat want slow eating wanted slower eats wanting slowest wants slowed She organizes the class into pairs and assigns each pair a group of words, asking them to write a sentence using each word. What concept is the teacher most likely covering with this lesson?
inflectional morphemes
A first-grade teacher designed a word wheel where only the beginning letter of the word changes when students spin the wheel. This activity best assesses which of the following?
initial blends
A third-grade student reads below grade level, and the teacher is planning how to best support her fluency development within the upcoming week's lesson plans. Which of the following would best support this student?
instructing the student to "whisper read" a book on her independent reading level during independent reading time
A new science unit is being introduced and has many unfamiliar words. During introductory activities, the teacher reads a passage and pauses to have students repeat vocabulary words. They practice pronunciation and discuss the meaning before moving on. This method is referred to as:
interactive reading.
Which of the following would NOT be described as a sight word in a second-grade classroom?
missed
Which of the following activities best promotes students' understanding of how oral language relates to literacy?
modeling the writing of words or phrases
A teacher might ask students to compare the words go, goes, and undergo in order to support an understanding of:
morphemes.
Which of the following components of a writing system exist in all languages? Select all answers that apply.
morphology phonology orthography semantics
Which of the following is most important in promoting reading comprehension across all content areas?
oral reading fluency
Which of the following words contain a closed syllable? Select all answers that apply.
pan resign
When students take turns reading appropriate-level texts with a fellow student, which of the following strategies is being used?
partner reading
Which of the following words does not contain an example of a consonant digraph?
past
A kindergarten student is able to correctly identify all 26 letters and their sounds. She recognizes and creates rhymes, and can usually identify the first letter of objects or names when she hears the words spoken aloud. Despite these skills, she is still struggling to decode simple words, while most of the class has transitioned into using their decoding and sight-word skills to read simple books. The teacher is planning strategic reading intervention to support this student. Which of the following skills should the teacher plan to begin working on with this student?
phoneme blending
After a student has mastered letter-sound correspondences, what is a likely next step in their reading instruction?
phoneme blending
What type of sound awareness best describes the ability to recognize that "hand," "heart," and "happy" all begin with the same sound?
phoneme identification
Which of the following phoneme related skills would be taught last?
phoneme manipulation
A teacher divides her class into groups and ask the students to work together to identify the last sound in each group member's name. What skill has the teacher asked her students to practice?
phoneme segmentation
Which of the following competencies is demonstrated by identifying the four sounds that form the word "help"?
phoneme segmentation
When reading a text aloud for comprehension, a third-grade English learner makes several errors with inflectional endings. The teacher's best response would be to:
plan a lesson to explicitly teach specific rules related to the inflectional endings.
A second-grade teacher expects students to consistently read at home and also asks that they spend time reading aloud to an adult or older sibling. Which of the following is a skill the teacher hopes the students will further develop due directly to reading out loud?
reading fluency
A student reads the following sentence aloud. I went to the dentist yesterday. He asked me to open my mouth very wide. It did not hurt. Which of the following pronunciation mistakes represents an error decoding vowel digraphs?
reading mouth as moth
A teacher is preparing her class to independently read an article about a new telescope being built by a group of scientists. During their pre-reading activity, the teacher purposefully includes challenging or unfamiliar vocabulary like "Magellan," "precision," and "resolution" in both the class discussion about telescopes and their anticipation guide. Which of the following best explains the teacher's reason for incorporating these words into their pre-reading activities?
to encourage student recognition of the words and improve their ability to connect their oral vocabulary to their written vocabulary
A first-grade teacher calls each student to her desk individually, gives them a word, such as mop, and asks them to replace the first sound with a new sound, such as /h/. Students are then assessed on their ability to make the new word out of the given word and new sound, in this case, hop. Which of the following developing reading skills is the teacher evaluating by administering this assessment?
phonemic awareness
A kindergarten teacher reads the word map and asks her students to identify the last sound in the word. What skill is the teacher assessing?
phonemic awareness
A teacher uses the following instructional strategies: Says the following words: "cat," "bat," "tap," and "tag" and asks students to identify the last sound of each word Gives students the word "cat" and asks them what the word would be if the /c/ was replaced with /m/ What is the focus of this instruction?
phonemic awareness
Which of the following concepts involves understanding that spoken words consist of a sequence of individual sounds?
phonemic awareness
Which of the following is not a component of print concepts?
phonemic awareness
A student who is learning to read is struggling to recognize the three different sounds that make up the word "dog." This student needs intervention in the area of:
phonemic awareness.
While working one-on-one with a student, the teacher administers a nonsense word test. Which of the following skills is the teacher most likely trying to assess?
phonics
A first-grade teacher reads a Dr. Seuss book aloud and asks students to show a thumb up when they hear words that sound the same at the end. This activity best reinforces which of the following?
phonological awareness
The teacher reads a passage and asks students to listen for rhyming words. She instructs students to put their finger on their nose when they hear a rhyme on the page. Which of the following would this activity be used in assessing?
phonological awareness
Songs, poems, and children's stories that contain rhymes are important to literacy development because they contribute to:
phonological awareness.
Students are given this paper. Which cueing system are students using to complete this activity?
semantic
Which type of cueing system is being activated in the scenario below? A teacher creates a series of word lists like the example below, with the topic word at the top and descriptors below. Students are asked to read through the lists, draw a line through any terms that don't belong, and add any words they think are missing.
semantic
When ELL students hear phrases such as, "It's raining cats and dogs outside," or "This is just a drop in the bucket," they may be confused, as they probably need to have specific instruction in:
semantics.
A kindergarten teacher gives a small group of students four cards, each one numbered with a one, two, three, or four. Then, the group receives a bucket of plastic kitchen food (ex. egg, biscuit, banana, watermelon). The teacher models the activity by saying "bis-cuit," clapping once during the "bis-" part of the word, and once during the "-cuit" part. Then, the teacher places the piece of food under the correct number. Students conduct this process for the rest of the food on the table and sort each piece into the right category, one, two, three, or four. The teacher's main goal for this activity is for students to learn how to:
separate words into syllables.
In order to help her students understand that text has meaning, a prekindergarten teacher regularly reads aloud from big books, pointing to the words as she reads them. What other skill from the Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines does this activity support?
understanding print directionality
A preschool-aged child scribbles on a piece of paper and calls it her grocery list. On the back, she draws a picture of her and her mom in the grocery store. At the store, she pretends to read food items off the side containing the scribbles, asking her mom to buy various items. This behavior suggests that the child:
understands that text functions differently than pictures.
Which of the following words should a teacher use to demonstrate structural analysis for word identification?
unknown
Decoding is the ability to understand and use sound-letter relationships to pronounce written words. Before being able to decode students should first be able to:
use phonemic awareness and phonics.
A student with strong phonics knowledge is able to:
use relationships between symbols and sounds to read and write words.
To support vocabulary development, which of the following activities would be particularly helpful to English Language Learners when assigning a text related to a new instructional unit?
use visual images when pre-teaching unit vocabulary
Beyond word memorization, students must learn to read new words using which of the following skills? Select all answers that apply.
using context clues using structural cues such as prefixes, suffixes, and roots using decoding skills
An English language arts teacher is leading her class in a phonics lesson. She says a short sentence that includes one or more words that contain the phonics feature being targeted. She asks students to listen carefully and then write what they heard. The teacher notices that the Spanish-speaking ELLs struggle more than other students to spell the following word pairs: at/ate, bit/bite, and hop/hope. What are the ELLs struggling to distinguish between?
short and long vowels
Which is the first phonological awareness skill that students will most likely be able to do?
showing awareness that the word "ball" sounds like "fall" and "tall"
A first-grade teacher creates a fun, engaging story and writes the story on flashcards. The teacher writes unfamiliar words larger than the familiar words so they are easy for students to identify. As the teacher reads to the class, the teacher points to each word as he reads it. After reading through the story one time, the teacher reads the flashcards a second time and tells the students when he points to a word written in big letters to say the word along with him. Which of the following is this activity most likely to help first-graders learn?
sight words
Jairo and his family moved to the US last year from Spain. Jairo is having trouble with his English pronunciation. He does well with the decodable words, or words that are phonetically regular and can be blended or 'sounded out,' but struggles to remember the words that are irregular and have to be learned as whole words. His teacher, Mrs. Calihan, recommends that he practice this second category of words at home with his family. What are these words called?
sight words
Blocks with letters that are used by students to build words from the word wall would be effective for work with:
sight words.
Lisa is struggling to comprehend grade-level texts during independent reading and her oral reading is jerky and irregular. Mr. Harris wants to improve Lisa's reading comprehension. Which of the following instructional strategies should Mr. Harris focus on?
sight-word automaticity
While listening to a student read, a teacher records the following errors in pronunciation. Based on the errors in all three words, the student is struggling with which phonics pattern?
silent letters
When teaching decoding skills, what kind of words should a teacher use first out of the following choices?
single, closed-syllable words
A prekindergarten teacher is working with an ELL student who is in the early production stage of second language acquisition and uses their home language as the foundation of instruction. According to the Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines, which of the following instructional elements should the teacher incorporate to encourage the student's second language acquisition?
slowly increasing the amount of English language used in instruction
While evaluating a student's reading performance, Mr. Daniels identifies two problem areas. The student struggles to correctly read unfamiliar three-syllable words. The miscues from these words is causing comprehension issues after the fact. In order to help the student improve his comprehension, which activities should Mr. Daniels provide?
using context clues to decode for meaning
A first-grade student is struggling to decode words containing multiple syllables. While investigating what could be causing the problem, the teacher notices that she is able to read and spell single-syllable words accurately most of the time. What skill should the teacher revisit to help improve this student's decoding skills?
structural analysis
During a decoding exercise, a first-grade teacher noticed a student could not decode new words when particular suffixes were added to the word. This student would most benefit from which of the following instruction?
structural analysis
A student is attempting to determine the pronunciation and meaning of a word while reading a sentence. Which of the following could help with this unfamiliar word? Select all answers that apply.
structural analysis contextual analysis
Which of the following best describes the segment "able" in "unforgettable."
suffix
A second-grade teacher wants to improve his student's reading fluency. Which activity would be an effective way to achieve this goal?
supervised oral reading
Which of the following words contains a vowel digraph?
sweep
Through phonics instruction, students learn to analyze phonetically regular words in a simple to complex progression. Based on this understanding, which lesson topic listed below would be taught last?
syllable types
Which type of cueing system is being practiced in the scenario below? After writing a fiction paragraph about living on Mars, students are split into pairs to read their writing aloud to their partners. As the student reads, the partner is asked to listen for and note any places where the text sounds "off." Students are not to note any sections where a revision in vocabulary or organization might be beneficial, but to only listen for errors.
syntactic
Which cueing system uses the grammatical structure of language to create meaning?
syntactic cueing system
Which of these abilities is the weakest connection between strong oral language skills and strong writing abilities?
the ability to decode new words in a text
Which of the following is NOT a goal of teaching phonics and word recognition skills?
the ability to use metacognition to self-monitor reading comprehension
A prekindergarten teacher meets with small groups of students on a regular basis. During one small group lesson, the teacher reads an alphabet book focused on the letter p.Then, the teacher shows a set of flashcards of words that begin with the letter p. The teacher shows the first card, which has the letter p written in the upper left hand corner, a picture of a pig in the center, and the word pig written at the bottom. The teacher says "p," makes the /p/ sound, and says "pig" while pointing to the picture. Then, each student is invited to repeat the same sounds individually while looking at the card. This activity helps students learn which of the following developmental reading concepts?
the alphabetic principle
Which of the following syllables types is the last syllable in "star"?
the r-controlled syllable
Which of the following would NOT be considered when determining whether a student is a fluent reader?
the student's ability to infer unfamiliar word meanings
Which of the following best describes the alphabetic principle?
the understanding that words are composed of letters that represent sounds
A first-grade teacher is planning a series of phonics lessons. Before beginning the lessons, the teacher administers a pre-test to each student on the skills that will be covered. After the lessons, the teacher administers a post-test to each student. The following is an example of one student's assessment. What is the teacher's purpose in administering this assessment?
to determine how much students learned from the series of lessons
Which of the following are likely purposes of a spelling pre-assessment? Select all answers that apply.
to determine student grouping for small-group spelling instruction to guide whole-class spelling instruction
Multiple times a year a third-grade teacher administers a formal assessment of her students' oral reading fluency. While assessing a student's reading, she notices that the child performs well on the portion of the test that asks the student to read a paragraph, but struggles when reading many of the same words in list form. Which of the following would best describe a strength of this student?
using context clues to determine a word
A first-grade teacher is working with students to improve their automaticity of sight words. The class includes several students whose native language is not English. In order to help this group read sight words automatically and accurately, the teacher should first implement which of the following strategies?
utilize short, repetitive readings containing sight words as well as illustrations to match the events of the text
Teaching students to use contextual analysis when reading unfamiliar words is likely to help their accuracy by helping the student:
verify the accuracy of their reading by considering the word's meaning within the sentence.
Which of the following word sets would best support a lesson on structural analysis?
visit, revisit, visitor, visiting
A teacher notices that students are struggling to decode words such as "moon", "groan", and "boat". Which of the following areas of instruction should the teacher plan to support students' decoding skills?
vowel digraphs
A second-grade teacher assigns a spelling pretest early in the year to guide spelling instruction. The following is a portion of one student's spelling pretest. Based on this list, which area of spelling instruction would be most beneficial to this student?
vowel-consonant-e
An early childhood teacher would offer which scenario to assess a student's phonological awareness? Select all answers that apply.
"Syllable Segmentation": an activity in which the teacher has a student clap on every syllable of a word that is called aloud. "Stepping Sentences": an activity in which the teacher assigns groups of students a word and each group stands when their assigned word is called aloud, eventually forming a complete sentence. "Count the Words": an activity in which teacher says a short sentence aloud multiple times and the student places a number one, two, three, etc. on his/her desk depending on the number of words in the sentence.
How many phonemes are in the word "hat"?
3
How many phonemes are in the word "thought"?
3
Strategies that can be used to best build growth in word analysis and identification include all of the following except:
"popcorn" reading in which one student starts reading a passage in front of the class and another says "popcorn" and continues the reading.
The following sentence is missing several words. It can be ___(1)___ to find a moment to ___(2)___ your thoughts into the ___(3)___ when there are many people participating in a ___(4)___. A word with the prefix inter- would best fit in which of the following blanks?
(2)
Which of the following is one reasonable way for a teacher to assess a student's phonological awareness?
Ask the student to count the number of syllables in a word.
A teacher is teaching her first-grade students the skill of decoding. She prepares the following activity for her class. Setup: Seat students in a circle. Prepare a bag with letter cards. Step 1: Introduce students to the rime -it. Show students how to use rime cards and letter cards to make words, like sit, bit, hit. Step 2: Give each student a rime card. Step 3: Have students take turns reaching into the bag and removing a letter. Have each student place the letter at the front of the rime card and pronounce the word. What could the teacher do to modify the activity for the English language learners in the class?
Ask the students if the word is real or nonsensical, and if it is real, have them use it in a sentence.
A new student has arrived in Mrs. Turner's class. She is an English language learner and is showing some shyness and trouble communicating with both her classmates and Mrs. Turner. The student is doing well with written communication, so Mrs. Turner would like to focus some instruction on oral communication. Which strategy would be most beneficial for Mrs. Turner to use to encourage more oral communication skills?
Build in multiple partnering activities so the new student can meet and interact with her peers.
Which of the following best describes the relationship between the development of spelling and decoding skills?
Children generally develop decoding and spelling skills at the same time.
Mr. Davies has a diverse class with ELL students from China, Mexico, Germany, and France. He has noticed a pattern in which his ELL students from China struggle the most with decoding English words. What is the most likely cause of this?
Chinese languages are not represented by an alphabetic script.
Which of the following best describes the difference between a consonant digraph and a consonant blend?
Consonant digraphs form a new sound, whereas consonant blends retain the letters' original sounds while blending them together.
The words trying, writing, happening, heating demonstrate which of the following principles?
Depending on the ending letter of the root word, the addition of a suffix may impact the spelling of the root.
A teacher has determined her 2nd-grade student's reading level is below grade level due to comprehension issues related in part to fluency. The student is struggling with high frequency, irregular sight words. Which of the following would best address this issue?
Develop an individualized in-class plan focused on high frequency, irregular sight words.
What is the name of a common tool teachers use to guide their high-frequency word instruction?
Dolch list
A kindergarten teacher is creating a unit on tigers to focus on the letter "T". Which of the following activities best contributes to the students' understanding of this alphabetic principle?
Giving students a collection of pictures and having them label only the objects that begin with the letter "T".
Mrs. Howes recognizes that a few of her first grade students are struggling to spell basic first grade words like "back," "but," or "pig." In what way(s) could she help her students develop phonemic awareness and improve spelling skills? Select all answers that apply.
Have students generate a list of words in the same word family as their struggle word. Practice identifying phonemes one-on-one with the teacher.
Which of the following is the most appropriate way for a teacher to help students develop the ability to break words into individual sounds?
Have students practice breaking apart simple words of two or three letters.
Which of the following best describes a characteristic of a high frequency word?
None of the above
Which of the following is the most appropriate way for a teacher to help young students develop an understanding of print elements?
Provide direct and indirect instruction on concepts like punctuation, the progression of text, and the difference between letters, words, and sentences.
Maria recently moved from Mexico and began schooling in the US. She has been having trouble spelling words in English and is frustrated that one letter can have so many possible sounds. What is the best way for her teacher to help Maria with her phonetics?
Provide her with model reading activities, specifically readings containing high-frequency words.
Which of the following activities would best support a student's ability to decode multisyllabic words?
Provide practice matching prefixes, roots, and suffixes to create new words.
Mr. Blaschke wants to develop his students' fluency while reading. Which activity would best help him achieve this goal?
Read short excerpts of poetry, demonstrating how to pause and add proper inflection.
Mrs. Harper is assessing her students' word awareness. Which of the following activities would best demonstrate word awareness?
Reading a sentence aloud and asking the student how many words were in the sentence.
A third-grade teacher is facilitating literature circles for her class with books that tie into their current social studies unit. The class will be allowed to choose a title from a set of books that she has pre-selected. The teacher introduces each option by showing the front cover, reading the title, and reading the back of the book. Once students choose their book and begin reading it, they will be given opportunities to meet with other students who are reading the same book. All group members are encouraged to use direct quotes from the text to support the ideas they share with their group. Which of the following describes a reason the teacher encourages her students to read aloud from the text instead of allowing them to paraphrase the relevant information?
Reading aloud is shown to positively impact reading fluency.
How does oral language development affect reading comprehension?
Reading comprehension is enhanced by promoting oral language.
Which is an accurate statement about effective reading instruction?
Reading comprehension is increased when reading fluency is increased.
Which of the following statements accurately represents an aspect of phonological awareness related to literacy development?
Reading new words requires a student to be able to sound out words by breaking them into parts.
Mr. Fischer assigns his students to list ten commonly used words that can either stand alone or be combined with another word to make a new word. Which of the following concepts does this activity best promote?
making compound words
In what ways do small-group conversational activities help improve oral language development? Select all answers that apply.
Students are able to respond to each other in a low-stakes setting, which contributes to higher student involvement. Students can respond to each other and learn to formulate arguments and express different views.
Mrs. Spears wants to incorporate regular silent reading into her weekly schedule. Which of the following ways should Mrs. Spears incorporate this practice to provide the best conditions for the students to improve their individual reading skills?
Students have scaffolded silent reading for 20 minutes every day while Mrs. Spears consults with individual students about their reading progress.
Which of the following describes the best way for elementary students to learn decoding skills?
Students should practice decoding words in books that are at their reading level.
Which of the following best describes decoding?
Students sound out the phonemes of the word and associate the sound of the word to the correct definition.
Which of the following would not be one of the appropriate strategies to promote letter identification among first-grade students at the beginning of the school year?
Students write the alphabet in order every morning when they come into class.
A preschool aged child points to the sign that says "Target" and identifies the letters in the word, but tells her mom that the sign says "store." What does this demonstrate about the child?
The child has developed print awareness.
Mrs. Lewis is a bilingual teacher and frequently encourages her students' parents to talk a lot with their children at home whether during chores, daily tasks, or shopping to help build their children's vocabulary. A parent contacts Mrs. Lewis wondering how increased conversation will help their child read. Which of the following would be the most appropriate response by Mrs. Lewis?
The development of a student's language skills are intertwined, and increasing the student's vocabulary will allow students to recognize more words while reading
A teacher notices that a student has misspelled the words "pain" and "boat" as "pane" and "bote." Based on this observation of the student's spelling, which of the following would be a reasonable assumption for the teacher to make about the student's decoding skills?
The student may struggle to decode vowel digraphs.
When administering an oral reading fluency assessment, which of the following behaviors would indicate that a student has difficulties in the area of rate?
The student reads slowly and deliberately.
A second-grade teacher is starting a new science unit on living organisms and their environments. She seats students in pairs and assigns them an article and multiple-choice questions on the topic. That afternoon, she checks their work and notices most students missed a majority of the comprehension questions. Which of the following statements best describes why students were unsuccessful on the assignment?
The students were likely unfamiliar with the tier-three vocabulary words and concepts discussed in the article.
Which of the following interventions would be most appropriate for a student who continues to struggle to learn how to read grade-level texts fluently?
Working with a reading specialist daily to practice decoding skills and reading strategies.
Which of the following syllable types is the first syllable of the word "excellent"?
a closed syllable
A kindergarten teacher begins each class by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. The teacher has a poster with the words to the Pledge of Allegiance and taps each word as the class recites the Pledge. By tapping the word on the poster in correlation with reciting the word, the teacher is best demonstrating which of the following?
a concept of print
A second-grade teacher has both native English speakers and English Language Learners in the class. The teacher informally assesses each student for language skills. Which of the following should be selected for further evaluation by the teacher?
a native English speaker who cannot clearly verbalize ideas in conversations with peers
A teacher says aloud 2-3 words and asks the students to identify whether or not the words rhyme. Which of the following describes a student who would best benefit from this activity?
a student just beginning to develop phonological awareness
The teacher provides students with squares of carpet and asks them to trace the letter shapes onto the carpet with their finger. For which of the following students is this activity most appropriate?
a student struggling with correct letter formation
Which of the following students is demonstrating phonemic awareness?
a student who can listen to the word sit read aloud and identify that the first sound is /s/
Which of the following syllable types is the first syllable in "eating"?
a vowel team syllable
Which of the following syllable types is the last syllable in the word "rename"?
a vowel-consonant-e syllable
Which of the following is least important for reading comprehension?
accuracy when required to read aloud to class
Fluency is measured by which three criteria?
accuracy, prosody, and speed
The morphemes -ed, -er, -est, -ing, and -s are examples of: Select all answers that apply.
affixes. inflectional morphemes.
Which of the following is a reading difficulty that frequently contributes to fluency issues?
all of the above
Which of the following is a valid way to assess spelling?
all of the above
In which of the following ways could the teacher scaffold the paragraph writing activity to accommodate for a student in the beginning stage of English language proficiency?
allow the student to create an illustrated storyboard timeline of a person's life
A teacher writes the letter H on the board and makes the /h/ sound. She asks the class to name as many words as they can that start with the letter H. Which of the following is this activity most focused on improving?
alphabetic principle
While reviewing a student's ELA work, the teacher asks herself these questions: Is the textbook too difficult for this student to understand? Are there any students who do not understand sentence formation? Is the student encountering difficulty with more than one word out of every twenty? Which of the following is the teacher most likely trying to do?
analyze the student's errors to determine possible changes in instruction
In order to support his student's development of word recognition skills, the teacher should strive to develop their abilities in which of the following areas?
application of phonics generalizations
Which of the following methods could be used to test a student's decoding abilities?
asking a student to read a grade level paragraph aloud
Students in a kindergarten class participate in the following activities during daily circle time: singing nursery rhymes stomping out the number of syllables in animal names playing a game of I Spy to identify objects that rhyme with a given sound These activities will help students to:
build phonological awareness skills by playing with language in an engaging way.
A second-grade teacher reads a poem aloud to the class and has the students write all the rhyming words on their paper. In this poem, all the rhyming words end with the same spelling pattern. The students are then asked to underline the beginning letters of the rhyming words. Which of the following does this activity best promote? Select all answers that apply.
building on word families increasing spelling abilities recognizing segmentation
A third-grade class visits the library weekly. Approximately once a month, one student checks out her favorite book, along with other new books. She has now taken this book home for independent reading many times. How can the teacher best support this student's fluency development?
by allowing the student to continue periodically checking out and rereading the book she loves
How should a teacher strategically coordinate spelling instruction with decoding?
by linking the teaching of spelling rules with practice in decoding words that demonstrate the rule
A kindergarten teacher is beginning work on phoneme segmentation in her class. She has prepared a small-group activity in which she shows the group a picture of an object or an animal with a simple one-syllable name and asks the students to segment the word and identify the individual sounds. For example, if she shows them a picture of a bat, they would be expected to respond /b/ /a/ /t/. There are still several students who continue to struggle to isolate individual phonemes in words. How can she best support these students in the context of this activity?
by placing the students who are still struggling to isolate individual phonemes into one small group and asking them to identify just the first sound of each item pictured
A teacher says the word fit aloud. Next, the teacher asks the students to practice switching the initial, medial and final sounds with new ones. How does this activity promote the student's phonemic awareness?
by promoting their understanding of phoneme manipulation
A kindergarten student is falling behind as the class progresses through phonetic instruction. She has memorized most of the sound-to-letter pairings, but as the class prepares to move on to more complex letter combinations, the teacher is concerned that she will not be able to catch up without additional help. How should the teacher support this student's phonetic skills development?
by providing additional instruction and practice, either small-group or individualized, to ensure mastery of these skills
A third-grade teacher has identified a word identification issue with a student. The teacher listens to the student read aloud, marking the miscues or words that he is unable to decode in order to better plan intervention. The teacher marked the following words while listening to the student read aloud: south awful spoil toy painter real How can the teacher best provide intervention support for this student?
by providing direct instruction and practice for vowel teams
A first-grade student often confuses the capital letters I and T and the lowercase letters hand n. How should a teacher adapt reading instruction to support this student?
by using small-group instruction time to continue working on letter recognition
A kindergarten teacher is working on isolating initial phonemes with a small group of students. Two of the students are English Language Learners whose native language is Spanish. Which of the following approaches should the teacher take while working with these students?
choose words with common Spanish and English cognates
All of the following activities are likely to help kindergarten students develop familiarity with phonological processing EXCEPT:
encouraging students to look for cognates when reading and listening to texts.
A language arts teacher has students use a data notebook to monitor their reading fluency and progress. Each month the students set a new reading goal and monitor their progress towards that goal during the month, utilizing their data notebooks. Which of the following is the greatest benefit of this process?
encouraging students to self-monitor their reading progress
A first-grade class has recently attended a play at a local concert hall. After seeing the play, the students read a book that tells the story to the students using grade-level appropriate vocabulary. Because students already know the basic plot of the story, the teacher is able to pause often and have students practice reading and saying decodable words. Then, the teacher forms small table groups and gives students sentence strips. She asks the groups to write a short summary of the story by writing one sentence per paper strip. While walking around, the students ask the teacher how to spell several decodable words from the text. The teacher tells the students to sound out the words as they spell them. By asking the students to sound out the words, the teacher is:
encouraging students to use what they know about letter/sound correspondence in their writing.
Mr. Harper wants to assess his students' reading fluency by listening to each student orally read a section from a selected text. Which of the following would NOT be a good indicator for Mr. Harper to use in assessing the students' reading fluency?
how clearly students are able to pronounce words according to the norms of standard English
A first-grade teacher is using the strategy of phoneme-grapheme mapping to help students master necessary phonics skills. The teacher reads students short, predictable texts focused on a particular letter sound, such as short i or short o. At the end of one week of reading a particular short text, the teacher presents a small group of students with the chart below. The teacher calls out one target word from the books at a time while students write the word and separate the phonemes on the chart. The students are told to put only one sound in each box. Considering the fundamentals of phonics instruction, these activities help students to understand:
how to effectively decode and encode text while reading and writing.
A group of second-grade students has recently mastered identifying and decoding words containing VC patterns, such as -ow and -ar. The teacher would like to provide enrichment in the next area of phonics instruction while other students in the class continue working on VC patterns. Which of the following skills would come next on the continuum of word-reading skills described in the second grade Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR)?
identify and decode words containing VCe patterns
A student is having a difficult time reading the word "slippery" and soon after asks for help with the word "underneath." Which of the following strategies would best support this student in learning to decode these and other multisyllabic words independently?
identify the different syllables of the word by circling them and then sounding out the word by syllables
A prekindergarten teacher is evaluating her unit plans for the remainder of the school year. While planning, the teacher refers to the lists of skills that prekindergarten students are expected to be able to demonstrate prior to kindergarten. Which of the following skills would NOT be on the teacher's list?
identifying and blending phonemes
An early elementary class is using Elkonin boxes to work on phonemic awareness skills. The teacher instructs the students to put a chip in the box for each phoneme in the word. The teacher says a word out loud at the front of the room and then pauses for students to complete their boxes. During the activity, she notices students making the two mistakes shown below. These Elkonin box responses show the students are struggling with:
identifying consonant digraphs as one sound.
A kindergarten teacher is planning to read the book Pete the Cat: Five Little Pumpkins, by James Dean, to the class and ask some text-dependent questions. The teacher has several English Language Learners in the classroom and wants to ask developmentally appropriate questions. In the book, five pumpkins sit on a gate, fly in the air, and trick or treat, among other fall activities. The book talks about each pumpkin, from number one to number five, and each one's unique characteristics. At the end of the story, the pumpkins are shown walking away from the reader, ready to have fun. On one page of the text, the pumpkins are scared because the wind has blown out the candles. The picture in the book shows just the pumpkins' scared eyes and the lights out all around them. The teacher says, "All we can see are the pumpkins' eyes. How do you think they are feeling right now?" A student answers, "Sad. It dark." This response is expected of a student at what level of English proficiency?
intermediate
Research has analyzed many predictors of students' success in learning to read in early grades. This research has found that which of the following abilities are the best predictors of good readers?
knowledge of letters and phonemic awareness skills
Sometimes reading difficulties are known not to be the outcome of lack of opportunities in education or limited intellect. Recent educational research has found that these difficulties are most often the result of what instead?
lack of skills in phonological processing
Which of the following skills is not part of phonological awareness?
letter awareness
Which of the following would an elementary teacher be assessing when they require students to identify select letters on a newspaper?
letter identification
Teachers of young children often read nursery rhymes and books with rhymes which help to promote phonological awareness by teaching children to:
listen for common sounds at the end of words and make predictions about those sounds.
A second-grade resource reading teacher is working with her students on nonfiction text. When they encounter an unfamiliar word, she encourages them to use different techniques such as sounding out the word, looking for known prefixes or suffixes, and determining meaning within context. What other technique might be helpful when encountering a new word?
looking at nearby pictures for hints
Which of the following would be the most appropriate activity to support kindergarten students' letter-sound understanding?
making a letter sound while tracing the letter with a pencil and paper
A kindergarten teacher is planning to read the book Pete the Cat: Five Little Pumpkins, by James Dean, to the class and ask some text-dependent questions. The teacher has several English Language Learners in the classroom and wants to ask developmentally appropriate questions. In the book, five pumpkins sit on a gate, fly in the air, and trick or treat, among other fall activities. The book talks about each pumpkin, from number one to number five, and each one's unique characteristics. At the end of the story, the pumpkins are shown walking away from the reader, ready to have fun. The teacher turns to the page in the book where the pumpkins are flying and says, "What are the pumpkins doing?" When calling on students, the teacher should expect a student with a beginning level of oral language proficiency to respond by:
pointing to the flying pumpkin in the book while the teacher holds it open.
A teacher partners students into groups of three during a unit on oral communication. Each trio is given a double-sided flashcard with a situation and scenario to improvise. Front Situation: Discussing a new video you watched on YouTube. Scenario: Person A is himself. Person B is his best friend. Back Situation: Discussing a new video you watched on YouTube. Scenario: Person A is himself. Person B is Person A's grandmother/grandfather. Two group members improvise a conversation based on either the front or back scenario while the third member sits and listens. After a few minutes, the teacher asks the class to flip the card over and repeat the activity with the new scenario. The teacher asks the third, non-speaking group member to write down any differences between the two conversations. As person C is listening, he is listening for which type of cue?
pragmatic
Which of the following best describes the segment "pre" in "prescribe."
prefix
Which of the following best describes the segment "un" in "unbelievable."
prefix
In the word unreliableness, the underlined part is the:
prefix.
Mrs. Morrell has noticed some of her kindergarten students continue to struggle with print concepts. Which of the following are ways she could support student understanding? Select all answers that apply.
prioritize opportunities for students to observe her reading provide direct instruction on punctuation
A student has shown proficiency in the ability to read a test with appropriate inflection. Which of the following skills has the student demonstrated?
prosody
Which of the following would best promote students' knowledge about how printed words represent specific sounds?
provide labels for commonly referred to items around the classroom
A teacher is providing direct instruction of the alphabetic principle. She introduces the letter S by writing it on the board and telling the students the sound the letter makes. What would be the most effective instructional next step?
provide multisensory practice with the letter to reinforce the letter-sound correspondence
Children will often develop an awareness of many print concepts and form a basic understanding of the alphabetic principle intuitively through text interactions and being read to even before beginning school. Which of the following would be the best way for a kindergarten teacher to support a new student who has not yet developed an awareness of text directionality?
providing direct instruction on text directionality and pointing to words as they are read when reading aloud to the student
The words car, stir, swirled, curtain, and remember would all be relevant in a lesson focused on which of the following concepts?
r-controlled vowels
A student who is struggling with phoneme blending would be unable to:
read the phonemes /th/ and /irst/ and correctly say "thirst."
Which of the following is an important component of choral reading? Select all answers that apply.
reading aloud hearing the teacher model oral reading
An elementary classroom contains several English Language Learners with different native language backgrounds. The teacher gives these students a series of word sort activities featuring various word endings (such as -ed, -ing, -er, and -est). This type of activity shows students how to:
recognize and use inflectional word endings they are unfamiliar with
A kindergarten student can name letters quickly and accurately and is beginning to sound out simple words. What skill should her teacher be working on in addition to these two skills?
recognizing some words by sight
Sally has an extensive oral vocabulary but is having difficulty in learning how to read, due to a reading disability. How is Sally's extensive oral vocabulary most likely going to help her as she learns decoding techniques for reading?
recognizing the meaning of a word after sounding out the word
A three-year-old prekindergarten student is noticeably struggling with his oral skills compared with the other students in his class, so the teacher begins more formal observations to document his oral language skills. Which of the following skills should the teacher NOT expect the three-year-old to demonstrate when speaking?
regularly talking about the past and future
The teacher begins by asking a student in the class to share the first letter of their name. She repeats the letter, writes the letter on the board, then says the student's name with extra emphasis on the first sound. Next, she asks the class to practice making the sound with her, pointing to the letter on the board each time they make the sound. Which of the following best represents the skill focus for this activity?
reinforcing the relationship between phonemes and letters
A student who is struggling with phoneme substitution would be unable to:
replace the letter /o/ in "dog" with /i/ and correctly say "dig."
English Language Learners may:
require direct, explicit instruction in phonological and phonemic awareness.
Students who read below grade level and are working to improve their fluency should: Select all answers that apply.
reread books that they have already enjoyed. read books at their current independent reading level. practice reading aloud.
At the beginning of the year, during open house, a preschool teacher always welcomes her class by reading aloud one of her favorite books. She holds the book up for everyone to see the words and pictures, and she uses her finger to move along the text as she reads. She then encourages parents to also track their progress through books at home by tracing the line of text as they read. Which of the following is the teacher's reason for this suggestion?
to help students develop an understanding of print orientation
Which of the following statements describes the purpose of having a student repeatedly read aloud?
to increase the student's fluency and reading rate
Students in a kindergarten class have recently learned how to decode words that end with -at. Their teacher writes the word mat on a chart and asks the students to suggest other words that end with the -at sound while listing them on the paper underneath. After a few minutes, they have the following list of words: mat bat flat cat sat that What is the most likely goal of this activity?
to reinforce spelling and decoding skills
Even though her students cannot yet read, a preschool teacher labels each of their backpack hooks with their names, labels commonly used items around the room, and has an assortment of books available for them to access independently. Which of the following best explains why this teacher has prioritized making her classroom a print rich environment?
to support and encourage student understanding of the forms and functions of printed language
Which of the following is the best definition of a compound word?
two complete words that have joined together as one word with a new meaning
Vowel digraphs are defined as:
two vowels that make only one sound.
A teacher has created a word wall to help the English language learners in her class. On this wall, she has written some common affixes. Every time a student finds a word containing this affix in their reading, she encourages them to write this word on a sticky note and add this to the wall. This activity helps English language learners with which of the following?
word analysis
A kindergarten teacher reads a story in a big book aloud to the class. Once she has completed the story, she rereads the last page of the book and asks the class to clap once for each word. They repeat this activity a few times as students begin to grasp the idea. Which of the following skills is the teacher promoting with this activity?
word awareness
A first-grade teacher creates a fun, engaging story and writes the story on flashcards. The teacher writes unfamiliar words larger than the familiar words so they are easy for students to identify. As the teacher reads to the class, the teacher points to each word as he reads it. After reading through the story one time, the teacher reads the flashcards a second time and tells the students when he points to a word written in big letters to say the word along with him. Which of the following reading skills is this activity most promoting?
word recognition
When learning to decode, which type of words should be taught first?
words that follow the consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) pattern
