FoRT Practice Test questions 1-68

A preschool teacher is reading a story to his class. As he reads, he holds the book so the children can see the words and pictures while his finger follows the line of print. This activity would contribute to the children's reading development primarily by: A. promoting their development of letter recognition skills. B. helping them recognize phonemes that occur frequently in print. C. developing their awareness of left-to- right directionality. D. promoting their understanding of letter-sound correspondence.

C. By following the line of print with his finger while reading, the teacher provides students with a visual demonstration that print is read from left to right.

Which of the following strategies would be most effective in promoting second graders' decoding of multisyllable words? A. giving students opportunities to read literature that offers repeated exposure to predictable text B. prompting students to sound out the individual phonemes that compose multisyllable words C. encouraging students to compare the parts of new multisyllable words with known single-syllable words D. reinforcing students' recognition of high-frequency multisyllable words using drills and flashcards

C. By the second grade, students have typically learned to read a wide variety of syllable patterns in single-syllable words. Since most of the syllables in multisyllable words follow the same patterns as those in single-syllable words, the primary challenge for students just learning to decode multisyllable words is learning to recognize the words as a series of discrete syllables. This recognition allows students to apply their prior knowledge of syllable patterns to decoding longer words. The strategy described in C is effective because it focuses students' attention on recognizing the component syllables in these words.

A preschool child draws a stick figure and makes some unintelligible scribbles around it. When she shows it to her teacher, she points to the scribbles and says, "This says 'I love mommy.'" This behavior suggests that the child most likely: A. is ready to learn the concept of letter- sound correspondence. B. is beginning to develop awareness that words are made of distinct phonemes. C. has a basic understanding of the alphabetic principle. D. has grasped the idea that the function of print is distinct from that of pictures.

D. By pointing to the letter-like scribbles when reporting to the teacher what the page "says"—the verbal message encoded on the page—the child distinguishes between print and other graphic material. This suggests that the child understands that the function of print is to encode an utterance that can be decoded as meaningful speech.

A teacher holds up a series of familiar objects, asking students to name each object and isolate the final sound they hear. This type of activity would be most appropriate for a student who: A. needs more development with phonemic awareness skills. B. needs to increase reading fluency and comprehension. C. lacks automaticity in word recognition. D. has difficulty sounding out phonetically regular one-syllable words.

: A. In the activity described, students are asked to isolate and pronounce separately the final sound, or phoneme, of a familiar word. Learning to isolate the final sound in a word is a step toward mastering phonemic segmentation, an important phonemic awareness skill that supports literacy development in English.

Which of the following first-grade students has attained the highest level of phonemic awareness? A. a student who, after hearing the word hot and the sound /ĭ/, can substitute /ĭ/ for /ŏ/ to make the word hit B. a student who can orally segment the word wonderful into won-der-ful C. a student who, after hearing the words fish and fun, can identify that they both begin with the same phoneme, /f/ D. a student who can orally segment the word train into its onset and rime

A, because Phonemic awareness, the ability to distinguish and manipulate the phonemes in spoken words, is a type of phonological awareness. Reading research indicates that phonological and phonemic awareness skills develop along a continuum from basic to higher-level skills, and that phoneme substitution is a more difficult, or higher-level, skill. Substituting the sound /ĭ/ for /ŏ/ in the word hot to make the word hit is an example of phoneme substitution.

Read the passage below; then answer the question that follows. For the second time that week, Saul forgot to wash his hands after working on his painting. He had gotten so involved filling in the ocean in his picture that he had barely even heard the teacher telling everyone it was time to put away their easels and wash up for lunch. He had put his supplies away, but, still thinking about the ocean, he had gone straight to his desk. Now he saw that he was leaving blue-paint handprints on his desk, on his shirt, on his books—even on his lunchbox. Estella looked over at him and joked, "Hey, Saul! You're the new King Midas! Only you turn everything to blue!" Saul rolled his eyes at her as he got back up to go to the sink. This passage would be most suited for helping students: A. recognize a literary allusion. B. analyze story elements. C. predict future events. D. analyze an author's point of view.

A. A literary allusion is when an author refers indirectly to an earlier literary work by using a name, word, or phrase closely associated with that literary work. In this passage, the character Estella refers to King Midas, a character of Greek legend who was given the power to turn everything he touched to gold. While a teacher could use this passage to analyze perhaps one story element, such as character

Which of the following sentences contains a pair of italicized words that differ from one another by one phoneme? A. He took off his cap so that he could take a nap. B. She works at a bank that is located near the bank of a river. C. She told him not to buy a ticket because she had already bought one. D. His face looked pale after he carried the pail of water for a mile.

A. A phoneme is a phonological unit of language, a discrete speech sound in a particular language that native speakers of the language recognize as sufficient to distinguish between two phonologically similar but separate words. For example, the speech sounds /k/ and /n/ are phonemes in English because native English speakers who hear the pair of spoken forms /kăp/ and /năp/ regard them as distinct words.

Which of the following describes an implicit strategy for extending and reinforcing students' phonics skills? A. encouraging students to look for particular words and word parts in environmental print B. having students sort sets of familiar words into their designated word families C. asking students to sound out new words that follow a common regular spelling pattern D. guiding students to spell new multisyllable words using known words and word parts

A. An implicit instructional strategy is one in which the learning goal of the instruction or activity is not explicitly stated or directly taught. Implicit strategies for teaching phonics do not directly present students with information about phonics patterns but rely on students to notice—incidentally and independently— the phonics patterns represented in whole words they are learning to read. Since the focus of the activity in A is words and word parts—not explicitly identified phonics patterns but larger units—students who extend and reinforce their phonics knowledge during this activity will do so because they independently discern phonics patterns among the uncontrolled set of words they encounter in environmental print.

A teacher can most effectively support first graders' development of rapid automatic word recognition by first teaching students how to: A. apply consistent phonics generali- zations in common words. B. use context cues to determine the meanings of words. C. identify the constituent parts of multisyllable words. D. look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary

A. Automaticity is the rapid recognition of a word without conscious attention to the decoding process. Research indicates that accurate decoding skills are a prerequisite to the development of, and readiness to benefit from instruction in, automatic word recognition. Applying consistent phonics generalizations to decode common words is a foundational decoding skill appropriate for beginning readers at the first-grade level.

A third-grade class includes some struggling readers. The teacher would like the whole class to read historical novels as part of an interdisciplinary unit on Native Americans of the Northeast. Which of the following activities is likely to help promote the struggling readers' comprehension of the novels? A. Before reading these novels, the teacher preteaches key vocabulary and develops the students' schema related to the stories. B. During reading, the students stop after reading each chapter and try to write a summary of the chapter in their own words. C. After reading these novels, the teacher helps the students create a story map of the main events and characters in their stories. D. During reading, the students read their stories aloud by taking turns reading specific pages.

A. By the middle grades, students learn most new vocabulary through reading. Since struggling readers tend to read less than peers who are skilled readers, preteaching key vocabulary is essential to promoting these students' comprehension of a text. A schema represents a person's background knowledge about a particular concept, event, or situation. Readers activate relevant schema to make sense of what they are reading. Most third graders, and particularly struggling readers, are likely to lack sufficient schema to support their comprehension of novels that rely strongly on content-area knowledge.

A fifth-grade teacher is about to begin a new unit on weather and climate. Which of the following types of vocabulary words from the unit would be most appropriate for the teacher to preteach? A. words that are conceptually challenging B. high-frequency, phonetically irregular words C. multisyllable words D. high-frequency words with multiple meanings

A. Conceptually challenging words, especially those associated with a new content-specific unit of study, are not likely to be in students' oral vocabularies, let alone in their reading vocabularies. To support students' reading comprehension of content-area texts associated with the unit, it is critical to introduce students to key concepts and associated vocabulary in both their oral and written forms prior to reading

Before beginning a new content-area reading passage, a fourth-grade teacher asks students to think of words related to the topic of the text. The teacher writes the words on the board and then asks the students to suggest ways to group the words based on meaningful connections. The teacher also encourages them to explain their reasons for grouping particular words together. This series of activities is likely to promote the students' reading development primarily by helping them: A. extend and reinforce their expressive and receptive vocabularies related to the text's topic. B. infer the meaning of new vocabulary in the text based on word derivations. C. strengthen and extend their understanding of the overall structure of the text. D. verify word meanings in the text by incorporating syntactic and semantic cues into their word analysis.

A. Grouping words related to a text based on conceptual categories and the words' associative meanings helps deepen students' understanding of the vocabulary. Discussing and justifying connections among the words further enhances students' understanding of the words and promotes retention of new words.

A second-grade teacher uses the following handout to guide the class through an activity. Look at the word fair in these two sentences: • It isn't fair that Juan got an extra scoop of ice cream. • Simon and Ling went to the fair and rode on the merry-go-round. How are these words the same? How are they different? Can you think of sentences that show two different ways in which each of the following words can be used? saw spell root run play fly kind seal This activity would best promote students' ability to: A. identify and decode common homographs. B. use structural cues to identify the meaning of words. C. cluster new vocabulary together into meaningful groups. D. find and use synonyms for common words.

A. Homographs are words that are spelled the same way but have different meanings. For example, the words saw, meaning the cutting tool, and saw, meaning the past tense of the verb to see, have different origins and meanings, but they are spelled the same way. The activity in the box promotes students' awareness of the characteristics of homographs. Drawing students' attention to the fact that two words can be spelled the same way but have completely different meanings would not contribute to their understanding of structural analysis

Which of the following strategies would be most effective in promoting kindergarten children's ability to recognize and name letters of the alphabet? A. The teacher says the name of a letter while the children each trace its shape on a cutout letter. B. The teacher posts the entire alphabet around the room in several different formats. C. The teacher reads aloud to the children from books that contain mostly words that follow regular phonics patterns. D. The teacher emphasizes the initial sounds of words when reading to the children.

A. Letter naming entails an ability both to distinguish between letters and to associate particular letter shapes with their names. The activity described in A simultaneously activates visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and tactile sensory pathways in learning letter shapes and associating these shapes with their names. Research suggests that such multisensory techniques are effective for this purpose.

The most important reason for putting the book in the classroom library is to promote the students': A. love of reading by facilitating their access to a story that they have already heard, understood, and enjoyed. B. understanding of the alphabetic principle by introducing them to letter-sound correspondence. C. oral language development by providing them with the opportunity to imitate the teacher's reading of a text. D. use of metacognitive strategies by allowing them to practice self- monitoring when reading silently.

A. Reading aloud to children is a research-based strategy for promoting students' interest in reading and in books. Providing students with access to a book that the teacher has already read aloud and discussed with them is likely to foster their love of reading because the teacher has provided various scaffolds for comprehending the story, and thus they are likely to experience some level of success in reading it independently. The other responses are incorrect because simply providing access to the book is not likely to contribute to the students' knowledge of the alphabetic principle

During weekly independent reading time, fifth-grade students read high-interest literature and record their thoughts, reactions, and questions in a teacher-student dialogue journal. The dialogue journal activity is likely to promote the students' reading proficiency primarily by: A. encouraging students' active construction of meaning with a text and developing their literary response skills. B. increasing students' reading fluency and facilitating their rapid automatic word recognition. C. expanding students' vocabulary knowledge and providing them with extensive, varied reading experiences. D. promoting students' appreciation for literary genres and exposing them to the various features of literary texts.

A. Since each student in the class is likely to be reading different texts during independent reading, dialogue journals can be an effective strategy for teachers to use to both monitor and promote students' comprehension of these texts. Typically, teachers make comments and ask questions in the journals to help students clarify their thinking about a text and/or to facilitate their ability to make personal connections to it.

he words enjoyable, maneuverable, corruptible, and convertible best illustrate which of the following principles? A. The spelling of a suffix can vary depending on its root word. B. The accented syllable of a root word can shift when certain suffixes are added to it. C. The addition of a suffix can alter the spelling of its root word. D. The pronunciation of a suffix can change when added to certain root words.

A. The four words presented contain the same derivational suffix, which has two variant spellings, -able and -ible. The correct spelling of the suffix in a particular word depends on the root of the word.

A fifth-grade student reads the sentence, "After playing with her friends all day, Kaylee did her science homework, her geography project, and her composition in one fell swoop." The student asks the teacher for help understanding what is meant by the phrase one fell swoop. The teacher can best help the student understand this idiomatic expression by: A. discussing with the student more examples of the phrase used in context. B. directing the student to look up different meanings of fell and swoop in the dictionary. C. helping the student create a tree diagram of the structure of the phrase. D. asking the student to find other sentences in the text that use the words fell and swoop.

A. The phrase one fell swoop is an idiom. An idiomatic expression is a sequence of words that has a specific meaning beyond the sum of the meanings of the component words. In addition to explaining the idiom's specific meaning, the most effective way to promote a student's understanding of a new idiom is to provide the student with several examples of the idiom used in comprehensible contexts.

A kindergarten teacher wants to promote students' understanding of the alphabetic principle. Which of the following would be the most effective first step in a sequence of instruction designed to achieve this goal? A. Talk with students about selected consonants using a series of posters that each feature one consonant and contain pictures of items whose initial phoneme demonstrates that consonant's sound. B. Have students trace both lowercase and uppercase letters of the alphabet and then practice reproducing the letters on their own. C. Talk with students about the title, beginning, middle, and end of a story and point to these parts while reading the story aloud from a big book. D. Put labels on several familiar objects in the classroom and regularly read the labels aloud to the students.

A. Understanding the alphabetic principle entails the recognition that letters and letter patterns used in writing an alphabetic language correspond to the sounds in the spoken words of the language. The activity described in A would promote understanding of the relationship between letters and the initial sounds in familiar words. Focusing on the initial phoneme in these words reflects an understanding that segmenting an initial consonant is a relatively easy phonemic awareness skill that beginning readers have likely mastered and thus is appropriate to use in early instruction on the alphabetic principle.

Use the information below to answer the three questions that follow. Before reading aloud a book about a farm to a group of beginning readers, a first-grade teacher has the students brainstorm words and concepts related to farms. Next, she reads the text aloud from a big book, pointing to the words as she reads. After discussing the story with the students, she puts the book in the classroom library and encourages the students to read it on their own. 55. The students are most likely to be successful in their independent reading of the book if: A. they have previously heard and can recognize the text's key words. B. the text does not include compound sentences. C. they come from homes where silent reading is extensively modeled. D. the text deals with fictional rather than factual material.

A. Vocabulary knowledge is a primary factor affecting reading comprehension. In addition to understanding a text's key vocabulary words, the reader must also be able to recognize those words in print. The factors described in responses B, C, and D are not as significant as vocabulary knowledge in contributing to students' ability to read a text independently.

As students begin to read, the ability to blend phonemes orally contributes to their reading development primarily because it helps students: a) recognize and understand sight words in a text b) use knowledge of letter-sound correspondence to decode words c) guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from their context d) divide written words into onsets and rimes

B, because phonemic blending is the ability to combine a sequence of speech sounds together to form a word. Beginning readers use their skill in phonemic blending and their knowledge of letter-sound correspondence to sound out and blend the sounds of simple printed words.

A kindergarten teacher could best determine if a child has begun to develop phonemic awareness by asking the child to: a) count the number of words the child hears in the sentence as the teacher says the sentence b) say the word cat, then say the first sound the child hears in the word c) point to the correct letter on an alphabet chart as the teacher names specific letters d) listen to the teacher say boat and coat, then identify whether the two words rhyme

B, because segmenting the first sound in a spoken word is one of the first phonemic awareness skills to develop and therefore B is an effective informal procedure for assessing phonemic awareness in the beginning stages.

A second-grade teacher reads a trade book aloud to the class. Which of the following postreading activities would be most likely to promote the students' comprehension of the story by enhancing their literary analysis skills? A. encouraging the students to identify the key vocabulary words in the story B. helping the students make a concept map of the main events of the story C. asking the students to reread the story silently and respond to literal comprehension questions D. having the students "freewrite" about the story in their journals

B. A concept or story map is a strategy for visually organizing key elements of a story such as characters, setting, and main events. At the second-grade level, literary analysis involves learning how to retell a main event from a story heard or read and to ask questions about important characters, settings, and events in a story. Creating a concept map of the main events of a story would help promote each of these literary analysis skills. The other responses are incorrect because having students identify important vocabulary from the story

Which of the following statements best describes how oral vocabulary knowledge is related to the process of decoding written words? A. A reader applies decoding skills to unfamiliar written words in order to increase his or her oral vocabulary knowledge. B. A reader's oral vocabulary knowledge allows the reader to derive meaning as he or she decodes written words. C. A reader must have extensive oral vocabulary knowledge in order to learn decoding processes. D. A reader's oral vocabulary knowledge is dependent on his or her development of strong decoding skills.

B. A reader uses decoding skills to derive the correct pronunciation of a phonically regular word, but the phonological form alone does not prompt understanding of the word's meaning. To understand the word's meaning, the reader must already have the word in her or his oral vocabulary.

Students in a third-grade class are studying different forms of transportation that are used around the world. As part of this unit of study, they work together to create a semantic map of words associated with transportation, including words that they have recently learned (e.g., barge, rickshaw). This activity is most likely to promote students' vocabulary development by: A. showing them how structural analysis can be used to determine the meaning of new vocabulary. B. helping them to categorize, visualize, and remember new vocabulary. C. guiding them to discover the multiple meanings of new vocabulary. D. providing them with frequent, varied reading experiences using the new vocabulary.

B. In content-area subjects, concept building and vocabulary building are reciprocal and closely interdependent processes. Helping students construct a semantic map of words associated with a particular content-area topic such as transportation both deepens and broadens their understanding of the topic. It also provides them with a framework for making connections among related words (e.g., barge, rickshaw). Creating the visual display of the semantic map, in which related words are literally grouped together, also aids students' recall of the connections among the words. The other responses are incorrect because teaching students how to use structural analysis

A teacher shows a student pictures of familiar objects. As the teacher points to the first picture, she asks the student to name the object in the picture. Next, she asks the student to count on his fingers the number of sounds he makes as he says the word again. This activity is most likely to promote which of the following? A. understanding of the alphabetic principle B. phonemic awareness skills C. development of letter-sound correspondence D. word identification skills

B. In the activity described, the student is prompted to say a word and then count the number of sounds, or phonemes, in the word as he pronounces the word again. By focusing attention on the individual component sounds of the word, the student is practicing phonemic segmentation, an important phonemic awareness skill in the continuum of phonological awareness skills.

At the end of each school day, a preschool teacher encourages the children to talk about the day's events. As the children describe each event, the teacher writes it on large block paper. Afterward, the teacher reads the list back to the class. This activity would contribute to the children's literacy development primarily by promoting their: A. basic understanding of the alphabetic principle. B. awareness that speech can be represented by writing. C. basic understanding of word boundaries. D. awareness of the relationship between syllables and the spoken word.

B. In the activity described, the teacher demonstrates to preschool children that their spoken utterances can be recorded verbatim in writing and that this written record can later be decoded in spoken form.

A kindergarten teacher asks a small group of students to repeat after her. First, she says the word grape and then pronounces it as gr and ape. Next, she says the word take and then pronounces it as t and ake. This activity is likely to promote the students' phonemic awareness primarily by: A. helping them recognize distinct syllables in oral language. B. encouraging them to divide words into onsets and rimes. C. teaching them how to distinguish between consonants and vowels. D. promoting their awareness of letter- sound correspondence.

B. In the activity described, the teacher provides direct instruction in segmenting single- syllable words into onset and rime—that is, into the initial consonant sounds of the word (the onset) and the rest of the word (the rime). Promoting student mastery of onset-rime segmentation prepares students for learning phonemic awareness skills

Which of the following oral language activities would best promote the phonological processing skills of a student who is an English Language Learner? A. Read aloud in English and ask the student to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words. B. Identify phonemes that are used in spoken English but not in the student's primary language. C. Help identify words that sound the same in English and in the student's primary language. D. Give feedback immediately after the student makes pronunciation errors in spoken English.

B. Phonological processing skills rely on the ability of the listener to detect and discriminate between phonemes of a language. While there are approximately 100 speech sounds, or phonemes, used in human language, only a portion of these is used in any given language, and the set varies across languages. English Language Learners frequently have difficulty detecting the phonemes of a new language that do not occur in their primary language, and thus activities focused on identifying these phonemes would be effective for promoting the phonological processing skills of this student

When learning letter-sound correspondence, beginning readers are likely to require the most instruction in decoding which of the following? A. ship B. dime C. hot D. best

B. Reading research indicates that beginning readers benefit most from phonics instruction that is systematic—presented according to the increasing complexity of linguistic units. In the continuum of beginning phonics instruction, silent e pattern words (CVCe) such as dime are taught after CCVC words

An English Language Learner pronounces tigers as tiger when reading the following sentence aloud. They saw tigers at the zoo. Which of the following actions is most appropriate for the teacher to take first in response to the student's miscue? A. guide the student in reading lists of nouns with and without plural -s on the end B. verify that the student understands that tigers means more than one tiger C. provide the student with independent practice in adding plural -s to singular nouns D. provide a picture card to determine whether the student can identify a tiger

B. Since there is often a discrepancy between an English Language Learner's receptive and productive language skills, the student may in fact recognize the omitted element but simply not pronounce it, may not have the element in his or her oral vocabulary, or may have difficulty decoding the element. To assess the source of the error and respond appropriately, the teacher must first determine whether the missing element is in the student's oral vocabulary.

Pointing out the title, beginning, middle, and end of a book to a group of preschool children before reading the book aloud to them contributes to their reading development primarily by promoting their: A. understanding of text directionality. B. development of book-handling skills. C. understanding of the concept of schema. D. development of literal comprehension strategies.

B. The instruction the teacher provides before reading aloud, in conjunction with how the teacher holds and proceeds through the book during reading, helps beginning readers learn how to hold a book with the front cover facing up and the spine on the left, and then how to move through the pages from front to back.

A teacher can best help sixth graders to draw inferences from informational text by asking them to complete which of the following statements? A. In my opinion . . . B. The passage suggests . . . C. In comparison . . . D. The author's first point is . .

B. To draw an inference from a text is to derive a conclusion that is not stated explicitly in the text but rather is suggested by facts or premises presented.

The following sentence is missing several words. (1) unusual (2) of spices (3) the soup an (4) flavor. A word with the suffix -tion would fit best in which of the blanks in the sentence? A. (1) B. (2) C. (3) D. (4)

B. Words ending with the derivational suffix -tion are nouns (e.g., combination, addition). The syntax of English determines the word orders that are possible (i.e., grammatically correct) in sentences. For example, articles and adjectives precede the nouns they modify. In the sentence, unusual is an adjective, so blank 1 would most likely represent an article (e.g., the, an), and blank 2 would most likely represent a noun. Therefore, blank 2 is an appropriate placement for a word ending in -tion.

Phonemic awareness contributes most to the development of phonics skills in beginning readers by helping them: a) recognize different ways in which one sound can be represented in print b) count the number of syllables in a written word c) identify in spoken language separate sounds that can be mapped to letters d) understand the concept of a silent letter

C, because English is an alphabetic language - that is, a language in which the letters and letter patterns in written words can be mapped to the phonemes of the spoken words.

Which of the following students is demonstrating the specific type of phonological awareness known as phonemic awareness? a) a student who, after beings shown a letter of the alphabet, can orally identify its corresponding sound(s) b) a student who listens to the words sing, ring, fling, and hang and can identify that hang is different c) a student who, after hearing the word hat, can orally identify that it ends with the sound /t/ d) a student who listens to the word Massachusetts and can determine that it contains four syllables

C, because phonemic awareness is the recondition that spoken words are made up of phonemes - the discrete speech sounds of language. Identifying the final sound (phoneme) in a word, C demonstrates phonemic awareness.

My family went to the circus last weekend. I liked the clowns the best. They were very funny. A student makes several miscues when reading these sentences aloud. Which of the following miscues represents an error in decoding consonant blends? A. omitting circus B. pronouncing clowns as clones C. saying bet for best D. shortening funny to fun

C. A consonant blend is a sequence of two or more consonants in a word, each of which represents a separate phoneme. For example, the sequence of consonants at the end of the word best represents the sequence of phonemes /s/ and /t/. A student who says bet for best is omitting the letter s, an error in decoding the consonant blend at the end of the word. The other responses are incorrect because these miscues are unrelated to decoding consonant blends.

Which of the following students demon- strates variation in reading development that would require intervention focused on explicit phonics instruction? A. a kindergarten student who can recite the alphabet from memory but has difficulty distinguishing individual phonemes in words B. a first-grade student who can easily decode nonsense words but has limited comprehension of the meaning of text C. a second-grade student who is adept at using context cues to identify words but has difficulty sounding out the letters in unfamiliar words D. a third-grade student who can read most grade-level text fluently but has difficulty with unfamiliar irregular low-frequency words

C. A second-grade student who lacks the fundamental skill of sounding out letters has phonics skills well below grade level and is at significant risk for reading failure. Thus, an appropriate intervention for this student would be explicit phonics instruction.

A fifth-grade class is about to read a play about the life of Harriet Tubman called "Travels on the Railroad." Which of the following prereading activities would best promote students' comprehension of the text? A. introducing the common elements of plays as a genre and looking at sections of a printed play together as a class B. asking students to predict what will happen in the first act based on the play's title and on a list of the play's main characters C. asking students to share what they already know about Harriet Tubman and the time period during which she lived D. encouraging small groups of students to create and perform their own short skits about the same subject

C. Activating students' prior knowledge related to a text is one of the most powerful strategies for promoting their comprehension of the text.

Sixth-grade students have just finished reading a chapter in a novel and are getting ready to write an entry in their response journals. The teacher could most effectively develop students' literary response skills by assigning which of the following journal prompts? A. What new vocabulary words did you learn when reading this chapter? List and define the new words from the chapter. B. What happened in the chapter? Describe two or three events from the chapter. C. What do you think is the main idea or theme of the novel? Relate specific events in this chapter to the theme you suggest. D. Which characters are mentioned in this chapter? List each of the characters.

C. At the secondary level, formal literary response involves developing a thesis and providing evidence from the text to support the thesis. To help sixth graders learn how to construct an effective literary response to a text, the teacher should provide opportunities, such as prompted writing in response journals, to develop a thesis related to a text (e.g., identifying a main idea or theme of the text), and then to support their thesis by citing evidence from the text.

A second-grade teacher writes several sentences on the board, covering up one word in each sentence. She uncovers the first letter of the first covered word and asks students to guess the word before she uncovers it completely. She then follows the same procedure with the next sentence. In the example shown below, the students have completed sentences 1 and 2 and are currently working on sentence 3. 1. Paul likes to play football. 2. Elephants are the largest land animals. 3. We went to the m last Friday. This activity is most likely to promote the students' word identification skills by helping them: A. use syllabication as a decoding strategy. B. apply phonics generalizations to decode multisyllable words. C. use semantic and syntactic cues to help identify words. D. apply common consonant-vowel patterns to decode unfamiliar words.

C. In the activity described, students are asked to identify a hidden word in a printed text with only minimal information about its spelling—that is, knowing only the first letter of the word. Since students know numerous words beginning with a given letter of the alphabet, phonic analysis is insufficient to identify the single word represented in the text. Using contextual cues—considering the semantic and syntactic context in which the word fits (i.e., would the word make sense in this sentence?)—in combination with the first letter, provides students with a basis for narrowing the set of possible words. Thus, this activity is most likely to promote contextual analysis skills that support accurate decoding.

A first-grade teacher designs the following activity. 1. Divide students into pairs. 2. Have students sit back-to-back. 3. Give one student in each pair a picture of a familiar object to describe to his or her partner. 4. The partner tries to name the object based on the description. This activity is likely to contribute to students' literacy development primarily by: A. helping them begin to make connection between print and the spoken word. B. fostering their ability to work independently of teacher guidance. C. promoting their oral language development and listening comprehension. D. encouraging them to practice speaking skills

C. In the activity described, the students must convey the identifying features of an object using oral language alone. This prompts the students to use descriptive language and synonyms to try to evoke a mental image of the object in the minds of their partners. Conversely, the partners must listen attentively and focus carefully on these oral language clues to visualize and make accurate deductions about the objects.

Instruction in structural analysis is likely to promote upper elementary students' reading comprehension primarily by: A. facilitating their ability to use phonics generalizations to decode words. B. enhancing their familiarity with the text structures and features used in different genres. C. equipping them with strategies for understanding the meanings of unfamiliar multisyllable words. D. increasing their knowledge of key vocabulary found in content-area textbooks.

C. In the context of reading, structural analysis is the process of recognizing the morphemic structure of words. Readers who recognize component morphemes (i.e., base words, prefixes, suffixes, and inflections) in unfamiliar, morphologically complex words can use this knowledge to support decoding or to derive the likely meaning of the words.

. A sixth-grade student encounters the following sentence in a short story. She experienced a sense of déjà vu as she walked down the street of the strange new city. The student asks the teacher about the meaning of déjà vu in the sentence. The teacher could best respond by advising the student to take which of the following steps? A. Make note of the word in a vocabulary log, and then study the word after finishing the story. B. Use context cues in the sentence to guess the meaning of the word, and then try out that meaning in the sentence. C. Look up the word in the dictionary, and then paraphrase the sentence using the dictionary definition. D. Break the word into its component parts, and then compare the parts to the meanings of similar known words.

C. Stopping to consult a dictionary is generally disruptive to the reading process; however, in some situations, as with the sentence shown in the box, consulting a dictionary is the only effective method for determining the meaning of an unfamiliar term encountered in a text. Also, paraphrasing the sentence by substituting the dictionary definition for the unfamiliar term is a good method for both reinforcing understanding of the new term and returning the reader to the flow of the story. The other strategies given would not be effective in this particular situation.

A text includes the word indefensible, which is unfamiliar to some students in a fourth- grade class. Which of the following strategies for teaching the word would be most effective in both clarifying the meaning of the word and extending the students' vocabulary development? A. Have the students enter the word in their ongoing list of new vocabulary words and then look up its definition independently. B. Explain the meaning of the word to the students before they read the text. C. Discuss the meanings of other words having the same affixes or root and then ask the students to try to "construct" the word's meaning. D. Ask the students to paraphrase the sentence that contains the word by substituting a synonym for the word.

C. Teaching students to use structural analysis and their knowledge of familiar English morphemes (i.e., the root defense and the affixes in- and -ible) to deduce the meaning of a new word containing these morphemes provides students with a powerful independent word-learning strategy. This strategy immediately extends students' understanding of both the target word and other words that contain these morphemes

The theoretical basis for including the brainstorming activity in this lesson is that having the students share their knowledge of farms prior to the reading will: A. give the teacher an opportunity to assess and compare the students' oral language skills. B. develop the students' understanding of basic concepts about print. C. facilitate the students' comprehension of the story through schema building. D. prepare the students to benefit from phonics activities related to the text.

C. The brainstorming activity described in the stimulus paragraph (on page A-55) is designed to activate students' prior knowledge and build background knowledge (schema) to facilitate their reading comprehension of the story.

A preschool child picks up an unfamiliar book, opens it to the end, points to the text, and begins to "pretend read" the story. These behaviors suggest that the child most likely: A. has well-developed book-handling skills. B. knows where individual words begin and end. C. has developed an understanding that print carries meaning. D. understands the concept of print directionality

C. The child's behavior, "pretend reading" when pointing to the text or printed portion of a page in a book, indicates an understanding that printed text represents meaningful language.

Asking students to listen to a word (e.g., same) and then tell the teacher all the sounds in the word is an exercise that would be most appropriate for students who: A. have a relatively low level of phonological awareness. B. are beginning to develop systematic phonics skills. C. have a relatively high level of phonemic awareness. D. are beginning to master the alphabetic principle

C. The procedure described—presenting students with a spoken word and having them say all the sounds in the word—is an example of a phoneme-segmentation task. Reading research indicates that phonological and phonemic awareness skills develop along a continuum from basic to higher-level skills, and effective instruction targets skills at a student's current level of development. Segmenting phonemes is a relatively high-level phonemic awareness skill; thus, this exercise would be most appropriate for students who have already achieved a relatively high level of phonemic awareness

As a second-grade teacher reads his students a fable about a fox and a rabbit, he stops at key points and asks himself questions aloud such as, "I wonder why the fox said that?" or "I wonder what the rabbit will do next?" Rather than answering the questions, he tells the students that he will hold the questions in his mind and think of possible answers as the story progresses. He also invites the students to pose their own questions as they listen. This activity is useful in illustrating for students that: A. texts generally have only one correct interpretation. B. oral reading fluency facilitates comprehension. C. readers interact with text and construct meaning as they read. D. readers need to recall story events in a sequential order.

C. The teacher is using a think-aloud to model how to use metacognition and questioning as strategies for promoting reading comprehension—that is, constructing meaning while reading.

Which of the following principles is best illustrated by the words watched, wanted, and warned? A. Spelling is often the best predictor of the pronunciation of a suffix. B. Open syllables are usually pronounced with a long vowel sound. C. The spelling of a suffix is often more reliable than its pronunciation. D. The second letter of a consonant blend is usually pronounced as the onset of the following syllable.

C. The words listed all contain the regular past-tense inflection -ed. The ending is spelled the same way in all three cases, but the ending is pronounced differently in each word. In the word watched, the -ed ending is pronounced [t]. In the word wanted, the -ed ending is pronounced [ĕd]. In the word warned, the -ed ending is pronounced [d].

A third-grade class that includes several English Language Learners is about to read a text about water sports. Which of the following teaching strategies would be most effective in promoting the English Language Learners' comprehension of the text? A. Have the students look up unknown English words using bilingual dictionaries and then make vocabulary lists in both languages. B. Pair English Language Learners with native speakers of English and have the native speakers explain any unknown vocabulary. C. Activate students' prior knowledge about the topic and provide visual aids such as illustrations to clarify new vocabulary. D. Give students a list of new vocabulary with definitions and ask the students to try to construct their own sentences using the words.

C. Two of the most effective instructional strategies for promoting English Language Learners' comprehension of a content-area text are activating the students' prior knowledge of the text's content and contextualizing new concepts and vocabulary through the use of visuals, demonstrations, and/or hands-on activities. To contextualize new vocabulary related to water sports, the use of visuals such as illustrations and photographs would be the most effective (and efficient) strategy to use and would also activate any prior knowledge the students had regarding the topic. The strategies described in A, B, and D are not likely to be particularly effective in promoting English Language Learners' comprehension of the text because they neither build nor activate background knowledge related to the topic, and they do not help contextualize new vocabulary for learners.

The ability to divide words containing major phonograms into onsets and rimes would best help a first-grade reader decode which of the following words? a) itch b) girl c) learn d) stick

D, because a phonogram is a common spelling pattern used to spell the rime of a group of single syllable words. Major phonograms appear in a significant number of words that are useful to students in the beginning stages of learning to read and spell.

A second-grade teacher has students pull two single-syllable nouns from a hat (e.g., bulb, light) and asks them to form words by putting the words together (e.g., lightbulb). Students then draw pictures to illustrate their new words and write short stories using the new words. This activity is likely to be most effective for helping students: A. use visualization as a reading comprehension strategy. B. apply knowledge of phonics generalizations. C. use context cues to identify unfamiliar words. D. understand the concept of compound words

D. A compound word is a word composed of two base words, and the meaning of a compound word is related to the meaning of these component parts. Combining two words to form a single new word illustrates the concept of compound words.

A sixth-grade teacher gives students several persuasive essays that present contrasting opinions on a current social issue. The teacher then asks students to consider the following questions as they read the texts. 1. What is the author's opinion on the issue? 2. How might the author's background influence his or her opinion? 3. What evidence does the author use to support his or her opinion? These questions are likely to be most effective for helping students: A. monitor comprehension of informational texts. B. identify the theme in expository texts. C. draw inferences from informational texts. D. analyze point of view in expository texts

D. A persuasive essay is an expository text in which an author takes a stand on an issue and tries to persuade readers by presenting an argument and evidence to support that stand. The teacher's questions are designed to help students analyze the authors' points of view by identifying an author's opinion as presented in an argument, evaluating how effectively the author supports the argument, and considering factors that may have influenced the author's opinion.

After reading a historical novel about the U.S. Civil War, students in a sixth-grade class each bring in an object that, to them, represents the book. The students share the different objects and discuss ways in which each object might represent the book. This activity is most likely to promote students' reading development by helping them: A. determine the author's main point of view. B. understand the plot structure and overall chronology of the book. C. analyze the author's use of figurative language. D. create personal interpretations about the book.

D. By asking students to select an object that represents the book to them and discuss ways in which the object represents the book, the teacher prompts the students to think about what ideas or feelings the book evoked in them as they read.

A beginning reader can sound out and write phonetically regular one- and two-syllable words. When reading sentences or longer texts, however, the student frequently has poor comprehension. Which of the following is the first step the teacher should take in order to promote this student's reading proficiency? A. Evaluate the student's ability to apply grade-level-appropriate phonics generalizations. B. Evaluate the level of the student's phonemic and phonological awareness. C. Ascertain the degree to which the student uses syntactic cues. D. Ascertain the level of the student's vocabulary development.

D. For a student to comprehend a text during reading, the student must be able to decode each word and then connect the decoded word to a word in his or her oral vocabulary. Research has shown that if a reader is not familiar with at least 90 percent of the words in a text, comprehension breaks down. Therefore, a student who has a very limited oral vocabulary may be able to apply accurate decoding skills when reading an extended text but still not be able to make sense of the text

Which of the following sets of words would be most effective to use when introducing students to the concept of structural analysis? A. late, great, wait, eight B. afraid, obtain, explain, remain C. swim, swims, swam, swum D. pretest, retest, tested, testing

D. In the context of reading, structural analysis is the process of recognizing the morphemic structure of words. Typically, structural analysis is introduced to students in the early elementary grades as a strategy for identifying words with inflections or simple affixes that are in students' oral vocabulary. The list in D features a phonically regular base word and affixes that are appropriate for beginning readers.

A preschool teacher shows a group of children pictures of everyday objects. Below each picture is printed the letter of the alphabet that corresponds to the word's initial sound. As the teacher points to each picture, she names the object, then she points to the letter underneath it and says the sound it makes. The teacher invites the children to repeat the sound with her. This activity is likely to contribute to the children's reading development primarily by: A. illustrating the concept of word boundaries. B. focusing on auditory discrimination skills. C. introducing the concept of onset and rime. D. demonstrating that phonemes are represented by letters.

D. In the series of steps described (i.e., pronouncing a word, pointing to the letter that represents the initial sound of the word, and saying the sound the letter makes), the teacher demonstrates that familiar words have component sounds that can be pronounced in isolation, and that letters of the alphabet represent the component sounds (phonemes) of spoken words in print.

A kindergarten teacher hangs labels on key objects in the classroom, puts up posters that include words and captions, and always has a big book on display for the children's use. This kind of classroom environment is most likely to help promote children's: A. recognition that words are composed of separate sounds. B. recognition of high-frequency sight words. C. development of automaticity in word recognition. D. development of an awareness of print.

D. Print awareness encompasses a developing understanding of print concepts and the writing system, an understanding of relationships between oral language and print, and familiarity with ways that literate adults interact with and make use of printed materials and writing. The classroom described includes several elements that can be effectively used to promote print awareness at the kindergarten level. The presence of printed labels, posters, and big books provides exposure to print and the teacher can use these materials to model print functions. Big books can be used effectively as part of explicit instruction in print concepts and book-handling skills.

A second-grade teacher notices that one of her students lacks fluency when reading aloud. The first thing the teacher should do in order to help this student is assess whether the student also has difficulties with: A. predicting. B. inferring. C. metacognition. D. decoding.

D. Reading fluency is integral to reading comprehension. The key indicators of reading fluency are accuracy, rate, and prosody. In the primary grades, the most common factor disrupting fluency is weak decoding skills, which most directly affects reading accuracy but affects the other indicators as well (e.g., by causing a slow rate or resulting in choppy reading).

Which of the following best describes the relationship between word decoding and reading comprehension in a beginning reader's development? A. Decoding skills and reading comprehension skills tend to develop independently of one another. B. Reading comprehension skills directly facilitate the development of decoding skills. C. Development of decoding skills is secondary to the development of reading fluency and comprehension skills. D. Rapid automatic decoding skills help facilitate development of reading fluency and comprehension.

D. Reading research has shown that accurate decoding skills are a prerequisite to effective development of word-reading automaticity, which, in turn, is foundational to the development of reading fluency—that is, reading text accurately, at a rate that supports comprehension, and with speech-like phrasing and expressiveness. Furthermore, convergent research suggests that a lack of automatic decoding skills is a frequent cause of comprehension difficulties among students in the primary grades.

Which of the following provides the best rationale for incorporating spelling instruction into a first-grade reading program? A. Spelling promotes phonemic awareness by teaching students to break words into onsets and rimes. B. Spelling facilitates vocabulary development by introducing students to new words. C. Spelling simplifies the reading process by focusing students on a limited set of decoding rules. D. Spelling supports word recognition by helping students learn and retain common phonics patterns.

D. Research has shown that the development of spelling and phonics skills is reciprocal; when instruction in these two skills is aligned, development of each skill area is reinforced and enhanced. Thus, learning the spelling patterns of words reinforces learning of their phonics patterns and supports word recognition.

Explicit phonics instruction is most appropriate for a student who has demonstrated which of the following phonological awareness skills? A. being aware that a word is made up of one or more phonemes B. being able to separate a word's onset and rime C. being aware that words can be divided into syllables D. being able to segment and blend a word's phonemes

D. Research indicates that phonemic awareness skills, particularly phonemic blending (i.e., combining a sequence of speech sounds to form a word), are prerequisite skills to effective phonics instruction

Having kindergarten children practice tracing the letters of the alphabet in sand is most appropriate for children who are having difficulty: A. internalizing the alphabetic principle. B. recognizing that print carries meaning. C. understanding the relationship between spoken and written language. D. developing letter formation skills.

D. The activity described has children use arm movements and highly textured material to heighten their awareness of letter shapes and the sequence of strokes for forming letters. The activity is effective for students who are having difficulty with letter formation because it simultaneously activates visual, kinesthetic, and tactile sensory pathways in learning letter shapes and associating these shapes with their names. Research suggests that such multisensory techniques are effective for this purpose.

In which of the following sentences is context most helpful in understanding the italicized word? A. Tulip trees are ubiquitous in Virginia and in some other parts of the United States as well. B. John's friends surreptitiously planned a housewarming party for him soon after he had moved in. C. Mary is magnanimous in all of her dealings with people, even when she does not know a person well. D. Peter's mother was adamant that he should attend college, but his father did not seem to care.

D. This sentence provides a reader with both syntactic and semantic clues as to the meaning of the italicized word adamant. First, the coordinating conjunction but sets up a comparison between the two independent clauses, which immediately alerts the reader that the meaning of the second clause contrasts the meaning of the first clause. Next, the meaning of the second clause is simple and clear—Peter's father did not seem to care whether or not Peter attended college. Thus, we now know that Peter's mother must have felt very strongly that he should attend. Indeed, someone who is adamant about something is unshakable or unmovable in his or her belief. In the other responses, the contexts do not provide adequate clues for the reader to deduce the meaning of the italicized words. In fact, a reader could substitute a variety of words for the italicized word