MTEL Foundations of Reading

22. 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) 2 b) 1 c) 4 d) 3

A) 2

35. 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) encouraging students' active construction of meaning with a text and developing their literary response skills.

42. A fifth-grade class is about to begin reading a text about the European exploration of North America. Before they begin, the teacher has the students brainstorm what they already know about the topic. After reading the text, she encourages them to share any additional information that they may have thought of as they were reading. These activities are likely to promote the students' comprehension primarily by: a) encouraging them to connect new information to prior knowledge of the topic. b) helping them determine the author's purpose and point of view. c) helping them analyze the text in terms of main ideas and supporting details. d) encouraging them to use context cues to make appropriate inferences.

A) encouraging them to connect new information to prior knowledge of the topic.

47. If a standardized test is said to lack reliability, the test: a) gives fluctuating scores in different administrations. b) has poor predictive value relative to students' classroom performance. c) is not measuring what it is supposed to measure. d) has not proven to be useful as an instructional intervention.

A) gives fluctuating scores in different administrations.

32. 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) oral language development by providing them with the opportunity to imitate the teacher's reading of a text. c) understanding of the alphabetic principle by introducing them to letter-sound correspondence. d) use of metacognitive strategies by allowing them to practice self-monitoring when reading silently.

A) love of reading by facilitating their access to a story that they have already heard, understood, and enjoyed.

20. Which of the following sets of words would be most effective to use when introducing students to the concept of structural analysis? a) pretest, retest, tested, testing b) late, great, wait, eight c) swim, swims, swam, swum d) afraid, obtain, explain, remain

A) pretest, retest, tested, testing

41. Skimming is likely to be the most effective strategy for accomplishing which of the following reading tasks? a) previewing a chapter in a content area textbook b) studying specific facts for a content area exam c) evaluating the validity of information on an Internet Web site d) synthesizing information from various sources for a research report

A) previewing a chapter in a content area textbook

50. An advantage of using assessment tools such as portfolios and scoring rubrics is that they: a) promote student participation in self-assessment activities. b) provide more objective results than do multiple-choice tests. c) offer more reliable assessment data. d) ensure consistency among different evaluators.

A) promote student participation in self-assessment activities.

43. A sixth-grade class is working on an Internet research project about various natural resources and their uses. The teacher could best support students' effective use of the Internet for their research by: a) providing students with a checklist of questions that prompt critical evaluation of information on Web sites. b) encouraging students to search for Web sites that are easy to navigate and that contain familiar vocabulary. c) teaching students to employ a variety of search engines to locate relevant Web sites. d) giving students a list of Web sites that have been preapproved based on the sites' reading levels.

A) providing students with a checklist of questions that prompt critical evaluation of information on Web sites.

33. 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) readers interact with text and construct meaning as they read. b) oral reading fluency facilitates comprehension. c) texts generally have only one correct interpretation. d) readers need to recall story events in a sequential order.

A) readers interact with text and construct meaning as they read.

49. One of the most important purposes of a standardized Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) is: a) to establish a student's independent, instructional, and frustration reading levels. b) to analyze how a student's silent reading comprehension is influenced by oral reading fluency. c) to determine how a student uses semantic, syntactic, and other text cues to deduce a word's meaning. d) to establish how prior knowledge and text organization influence a student's reading comprehension.

A) to establish a student's independent, instructional, and frustration reading levels.

18. A second-grade teacher writes several sentences on the board, covering up one word (shown with an underline) 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 semantic and syntactic cues to help identify words. b) apply phonics generalizations to decode multisyllable words. c) use syllabication as a decoding strategy. d) apply common consonant-vowel patterns to decode unfamiliar words.

A) use semantic and syntactic cues to help identify words.

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

B) Rapid automatic decoding skills help facilitate development of reading fluency and comprehension.

23. Which of the following principles is best illustrated by the words watched, wanted, and warned? a) The second letter of a consonant blend is usually pronounced as the onset of the following syllable. b) The spelling of a suffix is often more reliable than its pronunciation. c) Spelling is often the best predictor of the pronunciation of a suffix.

B) The spelling of a suffix is often more reliable than its pronunciation.

9. 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 emphasizes the initial sounds of words when reading to the children. b) The teacher says the name of a letter while the children each trace its shape on a cutout letter. c) The teacher posts the entire alphabet around the room in several different formats. d) The teacher posts the entire alphabet around the room in several different formats.

B) The teacher says the name of a letter while the children each trace its shape on a cutout letter.

45. Which of the following types of assessments would best provide information about the comparative reading proficiency of students in an elementary school? a) a diagnostic portfolio b) a norm-referenced survey test c) a test of vocabulary development d) a reading miscue inventory

B) a norm-referenced survey test

2. A kindergarten teacher could best determine if a child has begun to develop phonemic awareness by asking the child to: a) listen to the teacher say boat and coat, then identify whether the two words rhyme. b) ay 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) count the number of words the child hears in a sentence as the teacher says the sentence.

B) ay the word cat, then say the first sound the child hears in the word.

13. When learning letter-sound correspondence, beginning readers are likely to require the most instruction in decoding which of the following? a) best b) dime c) hot d) ship

B) dime

17. 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) encouraging students to compare the parts of new multisyllable words with known single-syllable words c) prompting students to sound out the individual phonemes that compose multisyllable words d) reinforcing students' recognition of high-frequency multisyllable words using drills and flashcards

B) encouraging students to compare the parts of new multisyllable words with known single-syllable words

25. 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) strengthen and extend their understanding of the overall structure of the text. b) extend and reinforce their expressive and receptive vocabularies related to the text's topic. c) verify word meanings in the text by incorporating syntactic and semantic cues into their word analysis. d) infer the meaning of new vocabulary in the text based on word derivations.

B) extend and reinforce their expressive and receptive vocabularies related to the text's topic.

7. 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) knows where individual words begin and end. b) has developed an understanding that print carries meaning. c) understands the concept of print directionality. d) has well-developed book-handling skills.

B) has developed an understanding that print carries meaning.

8. 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 beginning to develop awareness that words are made of distinct phonemes. b) has grasped the idea that the function of print is distinct from that of pictures. c) is ready to learn the concept of letter-sound correspondence. d) has a basic understanding of the alphabetic principle.

B) has grasped the idea that the function of print is distinct from that of pictures.

44. A third-grade teacher has been conducting a series of ongoing assessments of a student's oral reading. Shown below is a sentence from a text, followed by a transcription of a typical example of the student's oral reading performance. Text: Her boots crunched through the snow. Student: Her boats crucked throw the snow. After reading the sentence, the student paused and then reread it without the teacher's prompting and self-corrected the errors. Based on this information, the teacher could best meet this student's needs by adjusting instruction in order to: a) promote the student's ability to track print. b) improve the student's decoding skills. c) enhance the student's oral vocabulary development. d) develop the student's ability to self-monitor comprehension.

B) improve the student's decoding skills.

12. 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 to increase reading fluency and comprehension. b) needs more development with phonemic awareness skills. c) has difficulty sounding out phonetically regular one-syllable words. d) lacks automaticity in word recognition.

B) needs more development with phonemic awareness skills.

36. 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) predict future events. b) recognize a literary allusion. c) analyze story elements. d) analyze an author's point of view.

B) recognize a literary allusion.

30. 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. The students are most likely to be successful in their independent reading of the book if: a) the text does not include compound sentences. b) they have previously heard and can recognize the text's key words. c) they come from homes where silent reading is extensively modeled. d) the text deals with fictional rather than factual material.

B) they have previously heard and can recognize the text's key words.

3. 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) use knowledge of letter-sound correspondence to decode words.

29. 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) high-frequency words with multiple meanings b) words that are conceptually challenging c) multisyllable words d) high-frequency, phonetically irregular words

B) words that are conceptually challenging

37. 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) During reading, the students read their stories aloud by taking turns reading specific pages. b) During reading, the students stop after reading each chapter and try to write a summary of the chapter in their own words. c) Before reading these novels, the teacher preteaches key vocabulary and develops the students' schema related to the stories. d) After reading these novels, the teacher helps the students create a story map of the main events and characters in their stories.

C) Before reading these novels, the teacher preteaches key vocabulary and develops the students' schema related to the stories.

38. 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 comparison... b) The passage suggests... c) The author`s first point is... d) In my opinion...

C) The author`s first point is...

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

C) a student who, after hearing the word hat, can orally identify that it ends with the sound /t/

39. 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) draw inferences from informational texts. b) identify the theme in expository texts. c) analyze point of view in expository texts. d) monitor comprehension of informational texts.

C) analyze point of view in expository texts.

11. 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) introducing the concept of onset and rime. c) demonstrating that phonemes are represented by letters. d) focusing on auditory discrimination skills.

C) demonstrating that phonemes are represented by letters.

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

C) encouraging students to look for particular words and word parts in environmental print

31. 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) prepare the students to benefit from phonics activities related to the text. b) develop the students' understanding of basic concepts about print c) facilitate the students' comprehension of the story through schema building. d) give the teacher an opportunity to assess and compare the students' oral language skills.

C) facilitate the students' comprehension of the story through schema building.

40. A third-grade teacher periodically reads aloud from a chapter in content-area textbooks and describes his thought processes as he reads. Following is an example: "'The moon does not shine on its own. The sun's light reflects off the moon.' Hmm. I'm imagining that the sun is like a flashlight shining on the moon in the dark. 'As the moon rotates, only the part that faces the sun is visible from the Earth.' I'm not quite sure what "visible" means, but it sounds kind of like vision, which I know has to do with eyes. It probably means the part that we can see from the Earth. Now, that makes me wonder— why do we see different amounts of the moon at different times? Let's see if the next part of the chapter explains this . . ." This practice is most likely to promote students' reading proficiency by: a) giving them an example of fluent oral reading. b) exposing them to new vocabulary in context. c) modeling for them metacognitive comprehension strategies. d) summarizing for them the main ideas of an expository text.

C) modeling for them metacognitive comprehension strategies.

19. Use the information below to answer the question that follows. A teacher poses the following question to fourth-grade students. What words can you think of that have the word "act" in them? Using student responses, the teacher creates the following categories on the board with act in the middle. acts acted acting reactactor enactactive overact action interact inactiveactivity deactivate actual transaction actually act enactment activate activation activism playact This technique is likely to be most helpful for enhancing the students' awareness of: a) Greek roots b)compound words c) morphemic structure d) syllable patterns

C) morphemic structure

5. 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) development of letter-sound correspondence b) word identification skills c) phonemic awareness skills d) understanding of the alphabetic principle

C) phonemic awareness skills

26. 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) promoting their oral language development and listening comprehension.

4. 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) girl b) learn c) stick d) itch

C) stick

21. 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) provide a picture card to determine whether the student can identify a tiger c) verify that the student understands that tigers means more than one tiger d) provide the student with independent practice in adding plural -s to singular nouns

C) verify that the student understands that tigers means more than one tiger

46. Considerations of validity in test construction relate most closely to: a) how a particular examinee's test performance relates to a preestablished standard. b) how a particular examinee's test performance compares to the performance of other examinees. c) whether the test questions effectively measure their specified content. d) whether the test results are likely to be repeatable with a similar examinee test group.

C) whether the test questions effectively measure their specified content.

28. 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) Ascertain the degree to which the student uses syntactic cues. b) Evaluate the level of the student's phonemic and phonological awareness. c) Evaluate the student's ability to apply grade-level-appropriate phonics generalizations. d) Ascertain the level of the student's vocabulary development.

D) Ascertain the level of the student's vocabulary development.

6. 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) Help identify words that sound the same in English and in the student's primary language. c) Give feedback immediately after the student makes pronunciation errors in spoken English. d) Identify phonemes that are used in spoken English but not in the student's primary language.

D) Identify phonemes that are used in spoken English but not in the student's primary language.

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

D) The spelling of a suffix can vary depending on its root word.

48. Which of the following informal assessment results provides the clearest indication that a kindergarten child has attained a beginning level of phonemic awareness? a) The student can delete the second "word" or syllable in compound words. b) The student can substitute phonemes in the medial position of single syllable words. c) The student can clap the "beats" or syllables of familiar multi-syllable words. d) The student can identify the beginning sound of single-syllable words.

D) The student can identify the beginning sound of single-syllable words.

15. A teacher can most effectively support first graders' development of rapid automatic word recognition by first teaching students how to: a) use context cues to determine the meanings of words. b) look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary. c) identify the constituent parts of multisyllable words. d) apply consistent phonics generalizations in common words.

D) apply consistent phonics generalizations in common words.

34. 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: determine the author's main point of view. a) determine the author's main point of view. b) analyze the author's use of figurative language. c) understand the plot structure and overall chronology of the book. d) create personal interpretations about the book.

D) create personal interpretations about the book.

10. 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) developing letter formation skills.

27. 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) asking the student to find other sentences in the text that use the words fell and swoop. b) helping the student create a tree diagram of the structure of the phrase. c) directing the student to look up different meanings of fell and swoop in the dictionary. d) discussing with the student more examples of the phrase used in context.

D) discussing with the student more examples of the phrase used in context.