WFORT Test Prep

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

A. The spelling of a suffix is often more reliable than its pronunciation. CorrectCorrect! 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].

Which of the following text features are students likely to find most useful when previewing informational texts such as library books for a research project? Select one: A. table of contents B. bibliography C. glossary D. index

A. table of contents CorrectCorrect! A table of contents shows how the content of a text is organized and provides clues to the types of information the reader is likely to find in each section. Skimming a text's table of contents provides a reader with a quick and effective preview of the text's content. This allows a reader to determine whether the text might be useful for a particular research project.

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? Select one: A. (1) B. (2) C. (3) D. (4)

B. (2) CorrectCorrect! 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.

Which of the following informal assessment results provides the clearest indication that a kindergarten child has attained a beginning level of phonemic awareness? Select one: A. The student can delete the second "word" or syllable in compound words. B. The student can identify the beginning sound of single-syllable words. C. The student can substitute phonemes in the medial position of single-syllable words. D. The student can clap the "beats" or syllables of familiar multisyllable words.

B. The student can identify the beginning sound of single-syllable words. CorrectCorrect! Phonemic awareness is a specific type of phonological awareness involving the ability to distinguish the separate phonemes in a spoken word. Identifying the beginning sound of a single-syllable word is typically one of the earliest phonemic awareness skills developed.

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: Select one: A. promoting their development of letter recognition skills. B. developing their awareness of left-to- right directionality. C. promoting their understanding of letter-sound correspondence. D. helping them recognize phonemes that occur frequently in print.

B. developing their awareness of left-to- right directionality. CorrectCorrect! 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.

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? Select one: A. development of letter-sound correspondence B. phonemic awareness skills C. word identification skills D. understanding of the alphabetic principle

B. phonemic awareness skills CorrectCorrect! 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.

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? Select one: A. word identification skills B. phonemic awareness skills C. development of letter-sound correspondence D. understanding of the alphabetic principle

B. phonemic awareness skills CorrectCorrect! 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.

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: Select one: A. understand the plot structure and overall chronology of the book. B. determine the author's main point of view. C. create personal interpretations about the book. D. analyze the author's use of figurative language.

C. create personal interpretations about the book. CorrectCorrect! 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 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: Select one: A. metacognition. B. predicting. C. decoding. D. inferring.

C. decoding. CorrectCorrect! 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 describes an implicit strategy for extending and reinforcing students' phonics skills? Select one: 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 CorrectCorrect! 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 this activity 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: Select one: A. look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary. B. use context cues to determine the meanings of words. C. identify the constituent parts of multisyllable words. D. apply consistent phonics generalizations in common words.

D. apply consistent phonics generalizations in common words. CorrectCorrect! 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 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? Select one: A. high-frequency words with multiple meanings B. multisyllable words C. high-frequency, phonetically irregular words D. words that are conceptually challenging

D. words that are conceptually challenging CorrectCorrect! 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.

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: Select one: A. have a relatively high level of phonemic awareness. B. are beginning to master the alphabetic principle. C. are beginning to develop systematic phonics skills. D. have a relatively low level of phonological awareness.

A. have a relatively high level of phonemic awareness. Correct! 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.

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? Select one: A. Look up the word in the dictionary, and then paraphrase the sentence using the dictionary definition. B. Break the word into its component parts, and then compare the parts to the meanings of similar known words. C. Use context cues in the sentence to guess the meaning of the word, and then try out that meaning in the sentence. D. Make note of the word in a vocabulary log, and then study the word after finishing the story.

A. Look up the word in the dictionary, and then paraphrase the sentence using the dictionary definition. CorrectCorrect! 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.

Which of the following provides the best rationale for incorporating spelling instruction into a first-grade reading program? Select one: A. Spelling supports word recognition by helping students learn and retain common phonics patterns. 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 promotes phonemic awareness by teaching students to break words into onsets and rimes.

A. Spelling supports word recognition by helping students learn and retain common phonics patterns.

Which of the following strategies would be most effective in promoting kindergarten children's ability to recognize and name letters of the alphabet? Select one: 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 emphasizes the initial sounds of words when reading to the children. D. The teacher reads aloud to the children from books that contain mostly words that follow regular phonics patterns.

A. The teacher says the name of a letter while the children each trace its shape on a cutout letter. CorrectCorrect! Letter naming entails an ability both to distinguish between letters and to associate particular letter shapes with their names. The activity described in this response 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.

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

A. a second-grade student who is adept at using context cues to identify words but has difficulty sounding out the letters in unfamiliar words . CorrectCorrect! 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 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 past 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: Select one: A. analyze point of view in expository texts. B. monitor comprehension of informational texts. C. identify the theme in expository texts. D. draw inferences from informational texts.

A. analyze point of view in expository texts. CorrectCorrect! 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.

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: Select one: A. awareness that speech can be represented by writing. B. basic understanding of the alphabetic principle. C. awareness of the relationship between syllables and the spoken word. D. basic understanding of word boundaries.

A. awareness that speech can be represented by writing. CorrectCorrect! 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 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: Select one: A. demonstrating that phonemes are represented by letters. B. introducing the concept of onset and rime. C. focusing on auditory discrimination skills. D. illustrating the concept of word boundaries.

A. demonstrating that phonemes are represented by letters. CorrectCorrect! 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.

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

A. developing letter formation skills. CorrectCorrect! 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.

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: Select one: A. development of book-handling skills. B. development of literal comprehension strategies. C. understanding of text directionality. D. understanding of the concept of schema.

A. development of book-handling skills. CorrectCorrect! 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.

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

A. dime CorrectCorrect! Reading research indicates that beginning readers benefit most from phonics instruction that is systematic—presented according to the increasing complexity of linguistic units.

Frequent oral reading to kindergarten children using appropriate and expressive intonation and voices is likely to promote the students' reading development primarily by: Select one: A. fostering their engagement in and love of reading. B. improving their aural discrimination skills. C. explicitly modeling phonological concepts such as word boundaries. D. explicitly teaching letter-sound correspondence.

A. fostering their engagement in and love of reading. CorrectCorrect! Promoting young children's motivation to engage in literacy-related tasks is an essential component of an effective kindergarten reading program. Research has shown that reading aloud to students promotes their vocabulary development as well as their interest in books and reading. Using expressive voices makes the activity even more engaging.

If a standardized test is said to lack reliability, the test: Select one: A. gives fluctuating scores in different administrations. B. has not proven to be useful as an instructional intervention. C. has poor predictive value relative to students' classroom performance. D. is not measuring what it is supposed to measure.

A. gives fluctuating scores in different administrations. CorrectCorrect! Reliability indicates the degree to which a test yields consistent results over successive administrations. If a test yielded fluctuating results, it would be considered to have low reliability.

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: Select one: A. has developed an understanding that print carries meaning. B. knows where individual words begin and end. C. has well-developed book-handling skills. D. understands the concept of print directionality.

A. has developed an understanding that print carries meaning. CorrectCorrect! 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.

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? Select one: A. helping the students make a concept map of the main events of the story B. asking the students to reread the story silently and respond to literal comprehension questions C. encouraging the students to identify the key vocabulary words in the story D. having the students "freewrite" about the story in their journals

A. helping the students make a concept map of the main events of the story CorrectCorrect! 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.

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: Select one: A. helping them to categorize, visualize, and remember new vocabulary. B. guiding them to discover the multiple meanings of new vocabulary. C. showing them how structural analysis can be used to determine the meaning of new vocabulary. D. providing them with frequent, varied reading experiences using the new vocabulary.

A. helping them to categorize, visualize, and remember new vocabulary. CorrectCorrect! 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.

A second-grade teacher administers spelling inventories periodically to help assess students' phonics knowledge. The following shows one student's performance on a spelling inventory at the beginning of the school year (Table 1) and again several months later (Table 2). Table 1: set-set star-ster drive-driv peach-pech turn-tarn join-joyn Table 2: set-set star-star drive-drive peach-peche turn-turn join-joyn The student's performance on the second administration of the spelling inventory (Table 2) indicates that the student made the most improvement in which of the following areas? Select one: A. long and r-controlled vowels B. short vowels and diphthongs C. digraphs and blends D. initial and final consonants

A. long and r-controlled vowels CorrectCorrect! Patterns of improvement across the assessments suggest the student has learned two conventional spelling patterns. First, by correctly spelling star and turn in the second assessment, the student demonstrates progress in spelling words with r-controlled vowels. Second, by learning to use the VCe long- vowel pattern to spell the words drive and peach, the student demonstrates knowledge of a conventional spelling pattern for long vowels. Although the student's spelling of peach in the second assessment is incorrect, it nevertheless demonstrates progress in learning conventional spelling patterns used in English.

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's light does not shine on it's own. The sun's light reflects off the moon.' Hmmm I'm imagining that the sun is like a flashlight shining on the moon in the dark..." This practice is most likely to promote students' reading proficiency by: Select one: A. modeling for them metacognitive comprehension strategies. B. exposing them to new vocabulary in context. C. giving them an example of fluent oral reading. D. summarizing for them the main ideas of an expository text.

A. modeling for them metacognitive comprehension strategies. CorrectCorrect! Metacognitive reading comprehension strategies prompt students to think about their thinking as they read a text. The teacher models two powerful metacognitive strategies: visualizing to support comprehension and self-questioning to clarify understanding and to set a purpose for further reading.

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 a web on the board. This technique is likely to be most helpful for enhancing the students' awareness of: Select one: A. morphemic structure. B. compound words. C. syllable patterns. D. Greek roots.

A. morphemic structure. CorrectCorrect! The web shown shows a circle with the base word act in the center and connected to four word lists that are categorized according to different morphological processes—clockwise, adding suffixes or inflectional endings, adding prefixes, adding both, and creating compound words. Thus, the chart illustrates an analysis of morphemes according to type and how these types of morphemes are combined, promoting an understanding of the morphemic structure in words.

Which of the following sets of words would be most effective to use when introducing students to the concept of structural analysis? Select one: 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 CorrectCorrect! 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 this response features a phonically regular base word and affixes that are appropriate for beginning readers.

As students begin to read, the ability to blend phonemes orally contributes to their reading devlopment primarily because it helps students: Select one: A. use knowledge of letter-sound correspondence to decode words. B. divide written words into onsets and rimes. C. guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from their context. D. recognize and understand sight words in a text.

A. use knowledge of letter-sound correspondence to decode words. CorrectCorrect! Phonemic blending is the ability to combine a sequence of speech sounds (phonemes) 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.

Two proficient readers are answering postreading comprehension questions about a chapter in a content-area textbook. The first student demonstrates exceptional recall of details from the chapter but has difficulty answering questions about the gist of the chapter. The second student can give an outstanding summary of the chapter but has difficulty remembering specific facts from the chapter. Which of the following best explains the most likely reason for the students' varied understanding of the text? Select one: A. The first student is more proficient than the second student at using metacognitive comprehension strategies to make sense of the text. B. Each student applied different reading comprehension skills when reading the text. C. The second student is more proficient at reading for literal understanding than for inferential understanding. D. Each student brought a unique set of prior experiences to the reading of the text.

B. Each student applied different reading comprehension skills when reading the text. CorrectCorrect! Many factors contribute to reading comprehension. Skilled readers use different comprehension strategies to achieve different purposes. For example, the first student described in this item may have skimmed the chapter to look for specific words or phrases mentioned in the comprehension questions, while the second student may have scanned the chapter for main ideas but did not dwell on individual terms or facts.

Which of the following strategies is likely to be most effective in promoting reluctant readers' interest in independent reading outside of school? Select one: A. Encourage parents to give their children simple external rewards for at-home reading, such as an extra helping of a favorite treat. B. Encourage students and parents to read books together on a regular basis, either silently or aloud, and discuss their personal responses to each chapter or key event. C. Calculate numerical scores based on the number and difficulty level of the books students read at home and integrate the score into students' report card grade for reading. D. Recommend that parents make their children's daily television-watching time contingent on their reading a specified number of pages first.

B. Encourage students and parents to read books together on a regular basis, either silently or aloud, and discuss their personal responses to each chapter or key event. CorrectCorrect! Reluctant readers are often reluctant to read independently at home because they have experienced some level of difficulty in reading. Encouraging students to read with a proficient reader, such as a parent or guardian, and to discuss key events in the text helps scaffold and support their comprehension of the text. Sharing personal responses to books with a partner also underscores that reading can be a highly social and enjoyable act; this in turn promotes positive dispositions toward reading.

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

B. He took off his cap so that he could take a nap. CorrectCorrect! 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 best describes the relationship between word decoding and reading comprehension in a beginning reader's development? Select one: A. 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. C. Reading comprehension skills directly facilitate the development of decoding skills. D. Development of decoding skills is secondary to the development of reading fluency and comprehension skills.

B. Rapid automatic decoding skills help facilitate development of reading fluency and comprehension. CorrectCorrect! 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 is the most important reason for a fourth-grade teacher to assign trade books as a component of reading instruction? Select one: A. The simplified syntax and controlled vocabulary typical of children's literature provide scaffolding for students who are struggling readers. B. Reading a variety of genres helps students develop an understanding of how to approach the structures and features of different texts. C. Reading a variety of texts helps to promote students' development of phonological and phonemic awareness skills. D. The themes typical of children's literature tend to help facilitate students' development of literal comprehension skills.

B. Reading a variety of genres helps students develop an understanding of how to approach the structures and features of different texts. CorrectCorrect! Trade books are books marketed to a general audience, as opposed to books developed for specialized audiences. Children's trade books cover a range of topics and include both fiction and nonfiction texts. Wide reading of trade books provides students with exposure to many genres and helps them begin to develop an awareness of the structural differences between genres.

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

B. The passage suggests . . . CorrectCorrect! 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.

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? Select one: A. What new vocabulary words did you learn when reading this chapter? List and define the new words from the chapter. B. What do you think is the main idea or theme of the novel? Relate specific events in this chapter to the theme you suggest. C. Which characters are mentioned in this chapter? List each of the characters. D. What happened in the chapter? Describe two or three events from the chapter.

B. What do you think is the main idea or theme of the novel? Relate specific events in this chapter to the theme you suggest. CorrectCorrect! 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.

Which of the following types of assessments would best provide information about the comparative reading proficiency of students in an elementary school? Select one: A. a diagnostic portfolio B. a norm-referenced survey test C. a reading miscue inventory D. a test of vocabulary development

B. a norm-referenced survey test CorrectCorrect! Norm-referenced tests are designed specifically for the purpose of comparing students' performance. Norms are statistics that describe the test performance of a representative sample group.

As a first-grade teacher reads a big book to a group of students, the teacher points to the beginning consonants of selected words and accentuates the sound the initial letter makes. This activity is most likely to promote the students': Select one: A. ability to blend the sounds in words. B. ability to isolate individual sounds in words. C. awareness of multisyllable words. D. structural analysis skills.

B. ability to isolate individual sounds in words. CorrectCorrect! The activity described contributes to students' beginning reading development in a number of ways, including reinforcing their phonemic awareness (i.e., their ability to distinguish the separate phonemes in a spoken word), their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences, and their understanding of the alphabetic principle.

A third-grade teacher observes that students who read aloud fluently also demonstrate greater comprehension of expository texts. The best explanation for this is that fluent readers: Select one: A. have well-developed skills for decoding any level of text word by word. B. are able to focus their full attention and cognitive resources on the meaning of a text. C. possess a self-awareness that allows them to use metacognitive skills efficiently. D. have already developed the base of background knowledge typically covered by textbooks.

B. are able to focus their full attention and cognitive resources on the meaning of a text. CorrectCorrect! Research has shown that fluent readers have higher levels of comprehension than readers who lack fluency. By the third grade, fluent readers have developed automaticity in decoding, which allows them to focus on the meaning of what they are reading rather than on expending all their effort and energy on decoding each individual word letter by letter.

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? Select one: 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 share what they already know about Harriet Tubman and the time period during which she lived C. 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 D. encouraging small groups of students to create and perform their own short skits about the same subject

B. asking students to share what they already know about Harriet Tubman and the time period during which she lived CorrectCorrect! Activating students' prior knowledge related to a text is one of the most powerful strategies for promoting their comprehension of the text.

Which of the following strategies would be most effective in promoting second graders' decoding of multisyllable words? Select one: 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 cognition of high-frequency multisyllable words using drills and flashcards D. prompting students to sound out the individual phonemes that compose multisyllable words

B. encouraging students to compare the parts of new multisyllable words with known single-syllable words CorrectCorrect! 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 this answer is effective because it focuses students' attention on recognizing the component syllables in these words.

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: Select one: A. helping them analyze the text in terms of main ideas and supporting details. B. encouraging them to connect new information to prior knowledge of the topic. C. encouraging them to use context cues to make appropriate inferences. D. helping them determine the author's purpose and point of view.

B. encouraging them to connect new information to prior knowledge of the topic. CorrectCorrect! Having students brainstorm what they already know about a topic prior to reading a text helps them activate schema that will support their comprehension of the text. Afterward, encouraging students to identify and discuss additional information they have gained through reading the text helps them connect prior learning to new knowledge, which both deepens and broadens their schema related to the topic.

A fifth-grade class silently reads an informational text. In subsequent informal assessments, several students demonstrate poor overall comprehension of the text as well as lack of understanding of key vocabulary. The teacher could most appropriately address these students' needs by adjusting future instruction in which of the following ways? Select one: A. emphasizing reading activities that focus on narrative texts B. introducing a text's key vocabulary and concepts prior to engaging the students in silent reading C. providing the students with explicit instruction in test-taking strategies D. using informational texts that are written at the students' independent reading level

B. introducing a text's key vocabulary and concepts prior to engaging the students in silent reading CorrectCorrect! Informational texts introduce vocabulary and concepts that are likely to be unfamiliar to many students in an elementary classroom. For students to read and comprehend such a text independently, the teacher first needs to build the students' schema regarding the topic, which includes developing their knowledge of relevant concepts and vocabulary.

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: Select one: A. teaching students to employ a variety of search engines to locate relevant Web sites. B. providing students with a checklist of questions that prompt critical evaluation of information on Web sites. C. encouraging students to search for Web sites that are easy to navigate and that contain familiar vocabulary. D. giving students a list of Web sites that have been preapproved based on the sites' reading levels.

B. providing students with a checklist of questions that prompt critical evaluation of information on Web sites. CorrectCorrect! Determining whether a given Web site contains reliable information is an important step in conducting research on the Internet. Having students question the validity of content they read on a Web site will build this skill, promoting their ability to conduct more effective and bias-free research.

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: Select one: A. readers need to recall story events in a sequential order. B. readers interact with text and construct meaning as they read. C. oral reading fluency facilitates comprehension. D. texts generally have only one correct interpretation.

B. readers interact with text and construct meaning as they read. CorrectCorrect! 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.

Electronic reading books are advantageous for beginning or struggling readers primarily because this type of computer software: Select one: A. helps students develop familiarity with reading from a computer screen. B. scaffolds learning by providing a high level of interactivity. C. provides students with models of good reading practices and habits. D. minimizes the focus on written text by using sound effects and voices to convey meaning.

B. scaffolds learning by providing a high level of interactivity. CorrectCorrect! Electronic books can offer many scaffolds to beginning or struggling readers, including providing the opportunity to hear the pronunciation or the definition of an unfamiliar word in the text or to listen to the whole text read aloud by a proficient reader.

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. (The lines on either side of a word in sentences 1 and 2 denote that this word was uncovered; in sentence 3, the lines denote which part of the word is still covered.) 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: Select one: A. apply common consonant-vowel patterns to decode unfamiliar words. B. use semantic and syntactic cues to help identify words. C. apply phonics generalizations to decode multisyllable words. D. use syllabication as a decoding strategy.

B. use semantic and syntactic cues to help identify words. CorrectCorrect! 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 fifth-grade teacher plans to have students read a chapter about the American Revolutionary War from their social studies textbook. The following is an excerpt from the chapter. "The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17th, 1775. At the time the American Army occupied the area from Cambridge to the Mystic River. American troops gathered in the Cambridge common on the evening of June 16, 1775, and set out for Bunker Hill. Upon reaching Bunker Hill, however, officers decided to move to Breed's Hill, a smaller hill closer to Boston." The teacher asks students to locate and mark places mentioned in the chapter on a map as they read. This activity is most likely to help students: Select one: A. paraphrase content to make the text more understandable. B. use visualization to facilitate their comprehension of the text. C. connect elements in the text to their background knowledge. D. identify the text's main ideas and supporting details.

B. use visualization to facilitate their comprehension of the text. CorrectCorrect! The passage mentions several sites or landmarks with which students may be unfamiliar. Locating and marking these sites on a map would improve the students' ability to visualize the direction of the troop movements mentioned in the passage.

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? Select one: A. provide a picture card to determine whether the student can identify a tiger B. verify that the student understands that tigers means more than one tiger C. guide the student in reading lists of nouns with and without plural -s on the end D. provide the student with independent practice in adding plural -s to singular nouns

B. verify that the student understands that tigers means more than one tiger CorrectCorrect! 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.

In which of the following sentences is context most helpful in understanding the italicized word? Select one: 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. Peter's mother was /adamant/ that he should attend college, but his father did not seem to care. D. Mary is /magnanimous/ in all of her dealings with people, even when she does not know a person well.

C. Peter's mother was adamant that he should attend college, but his father did not seem to care. Correct Correct! 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.

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

C. A reader's oral vocabulary knowledge allows the reader to derive meaning as he or she decodes written words. CorrectCorrect! 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.

Which of the following best describes the primary advantage of having a student read a passage silently and then provide a "retelling" as a means of assessing the student's comprehension, rather than having the student answer questions? Select one: A. A retelling can provide information about the student's inferential comprehension skills, which questioning cannot provide. B. The procedure involved in retelling tends to be more familiar to a wider range of students, including English Language Learners. C. A retelling is open-ended and requires the student to construct a description of the passage more independently of the examiner. D. The results of a retelling are more objective and easier to quantify than the results of direct questioning.

C. A retelling is open-ended and requires the student to construct a description of the passage more independently of the examiner. CorrectCorrect! Having a young student provide a "retelling" (or having an older student construct a summary) of a text removes clues or scaffolds from the assessment that teacher questions often provide and ensures that a student's responses are based solely on his or her reading of the text.

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? Select one: A. Give students a list of new vocabulary with definitions and ask the students to try to construct their own sentences using the words. B. Have the students look up unknown English words using bilingual dictionaries and then make vocabulary lists in both languages. C. Activate students' prior knowledge about the topic and provide visual aids such as illustrations to clarify new vocabulary. D. 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. CorrectCorrect! 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.

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? Select one: A. Explain the meaning of the word to the students before they read the text. B. Have the students enter the word in their ongoing list of new vocabulary words and then look up its definition independently. 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. 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. CorrectCorrect! 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 words enjoyable, maneuverable, corruptible, and convertible best illustrate which of the following principles? Select one: A. The pronunciation of a suffix can change when added to certain root words. B. The accented syllable of a root word can shift when certain suffixes are added to it. C. The spelling of a suffix can vary depending on its root word. D. The addition of a suffix can alter the spelling of its root word.

C. The spelling of a suffix can vary depending on its root word. CorrectCorrect! 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 first-grade teacher encourages beginning readers to "write" their own captions beneath their drawings. This practice is most likely to lead to which of the following? Select one: A. The students' overall reading proficiency will be adversely affected by any spelling errors that go uncorrected. B. The students will tend to develop strong automatic word recognition skills from their interaction with print. C. The students' development of phonics knowledge will be reinforced as they experiment with their own phonetic spellings. D. The students will tend to lose interest in writing because of their frustration with their lack of mastery of the English spelling system.

C. The students' development of phonics knowledge will be reinforced as they experiment with their own phonetic spellings. CorrectCorrect! Research has shown that students' understanding of the alphabetic principle is enhanced and reinforced by having opportunities to apply their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences in both reading and writing—the latter by using phonetic spellings.

In order to select a trade book that emphasizes predictability, a teacher should ensure that: Select one: A. the concepts in the text are at an appropriate level of difficulty for the target student(s). B. the length of the text is not likely to exceed the attention span of the target student(s). C. a phrase, rhyme, or sentence is repeated throughout the text. D. the text includes some pictures or illustrations.

C. a phrase, rhyme, or sentence is repeated throughout the text. CorrectCorrect! Reading aloud predictable texts to prealphabetic and emergent readers is an effective way to promote young children's motivation to read and their development of concepts of print. The portion of the text that is predictable is generally a phrase, rhyme, or sentence that is repeated throughout the text, much like the refrain of a song. This repeated text is easy for young children to learn quickly, which allows them to "read" along with the teacher.

Which of the following students is demonstrating the specific type of phonological awareness known as phonemic awareness? Select one: A. a student who, after being 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. a student who, after hearing the word hat, can orally identify that it ends with the sound /t/ Phonemic awareness is the recognition that spoken words are made up of phonemes--the discrete speech sounds of a language. Identifying the final sound (or phoneme) in a word, such as the /t/ in the word hat, demonstrates phonemic awareness.

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

C. a student who, after hearing the word hot and the sound /ĭ/, can substitute /ĭ/ for /ŏ/ to make the word hit Correct! 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.

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

C. being able to segment and blend a word's phonemes CorrectCorrect! 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.

Use the information below to answer the question that follows. A sixth-grade teacher has students work in small groups to begin to develop a KWL chart before they read a textbook chapter about the human brain. Using a KWL chart in this way is most likely to help the students: Select one: A. synthesize information from various sections of the chapter. B. visualize the terms and concepts in the chapter. C. connect their background knowledge to information in the chapter. D. identify main ideas and supporting details in the chapter.

C. connect their background knowledge to information in the chapter. CorrectCorrect! The first two columns in a KWL chart prompt students to think about what they already know about a topic and what else they want to learn about it. These are effective prereading activities because the first helps activate students' prior text-related knowledge, which activates relevant schema to support comprehension, and the second encourages students to set a purpose for their reading, which promotes engagement with the text and enhances comprehension. The third column in a KWL chart prompts students to reflect on what they have learned from the text. In this way, completing the chart facilitates students' ability to make connections between their current background knowledge and new information from the text.

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: Select one: A. increasing students' reading fluency and facilitating their rapid automatic word recognition. B. promoting students' appreciation for literary genres and exposing them to the various features of literary texts. C. encouraging students' active construction of meaning with a text and developing their literary response skills. D. expanding students' vocabulary knowledge and providing them with extensive, varied reading experiences.

C. encouraging students' active construction of meaning with a text and developing their literary response skills. CorrectCorrect! 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.

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: Select one: A. teaching them how to distinguish between consonants and vowels. B. helping them recognize distinct syllables in oral language. C. encouraging them to divide words into onsets and rimes. D. promoting their awareness of letter-sound correspondence.

C. encouraging them to divide words into onsets and rimes. 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.

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: Select one: A. infer the meaning of new vocabulary in the text based on word derivations. B. verify word meanings in the text by incorporating syntactic and semantic cues into their word analysis. C. extend and reinforce their expressive and receptive vocabularies related to the text's topic. D. strengthen and extend their understanding of the overall structure of the text.

C. extend and reinforce their expressive and receptive vocabularies related to the text's topic. CorrectCorrect! 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.

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 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: Select one: A. prepare the students to benefit from phonics activities related to the text. B. 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. D. develop the students' understanding of basic concepts about print.

C. facilitate the students' comprehension of the story through schema building. CorrectCorrect! The brainstorming activity described in the stimulus paragraph is designed to activate students' prior knowledge and build background knowledge (schema) to facilitate their reading comprehension of the story.

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: Select one: A. is ready to learn the concept of letter-sound correspondence. B. has a basic understanding of the alphabetic principle. C. has grasped the idea that the function of print is distinct from that of pictures. D. is beginning to develop awareness that words are made of distinct phonemes.

C. has grasped the idea that the function of print is distinct from that of pictures. CorrectCorrect! 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 second-grade teacher uses the following handout to guide the class through an activity. 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 the following words can be used? saw, spell, root, run, play, fly, kind, seal This activity would best promote students' ability to: Select one: A. find and use synonyms for common words. B. use structural cues to identify the meaning of words. C. identify and decode common homographs. D. cluster new vocabulary together into meaningful groups.

C. identify and decode common homographs. CorrectCorrect! 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.

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

C. identify in spoken language separate sounds that can be mapped to letters CorrectCorrect! 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. Phonemic awareness, the recognition of the phonemes in spoken words, and the ability to segment and blend phonemes are critical to learning to apply knowledge of these letter patterns and letter-sound correspondence (i.e., phonics knowledge) to decode and encode printed words.

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: Select one: A. lacks automaticity in word recognition. B. has difficulty sounding out phonetically regular one-syllable words. C. needs more development with phonemic awareness skills. D. needs to increase reading fluency and comprehension.

C. needs more development with phonemic awareness skills. CorrectCorrect! 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.

Skimming is likely to be the most effective strategy for accomplishing which of the following reading tasks? Select one: A. evaluating the validity of information on an Internet Web site B. synthesizing information from various sources for a research report C. previewing a chapter in a content-area textbook D. studying specific facts for a content- area exam

C. previewing a chapter in a content-area textbook CorrectCorrect! Skimming involves a quick, superficial reading of a text to get an overall impression of the material. This would be an appropriate and effective strategy for previewing a textbook chapter.

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

C. promoting their oral language development and listening comprehension. CorrectCorrect! 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.

Read the sentence below; then answer the question that follows. 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? Select one: A. shortening funny to fun B. omitting circus C. saying bet for best D. pronouncing clowns as clones

C. saying bet for best CorrectCorrect! 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.

Use the information below to answer the question that follows. 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: Select one: A. they come from homes where silent reading is extensively modeled. B. the text does not include compound sentences. C. they have previously heard and can recognize the text's key words. D. the text deals with fictional rather than factual material.

C. they have previously heard and can recognize the text's key words. CorrectCorrect! 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.

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

C.Identify phonemes that are used in spoken English but not in the student's primary language. CorrectCorrect! 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.

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? Select one: A. Evaluate the level of the student's phonemic and phonological awareness. B. Evaluate the student's ability to apply grade-level-appropriate phonics generalizations. C. Ascertain the degree to which the student uses syntactic cues. D. Ascertain the level of the student's vocabulary development.

D. Ascertain the level of the student's vocabulary development. CorrectCorrect! 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.

Considerations of validity in test construction relate most closely to: Select one: A. how a particular examinee's test performance compares to the performance of other examinees. B. how a particular examinee's test performance relates to a preestablished standard. C. whether the test results are likely to be repeatable with a similar examinee test group. D. whether the test questions effectively measure their specified content.

D. whether the test questions effectively measure their specified content. CorrectCorrect! Validity is the degree to which a test measures what it is intended to measure.

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? Select one: A. During reading, the students stop after reading each chapter and try to write a summary of the chapter in their own words. B. After reading these novels, the teacher helps the students create a story map of the main events and characters in their stories. C. During reading, the students read their stories aloud by taking turns reading specific pages. D. Before reading these novels, the teacher preteaches key vocabulary and develops the students' schema related to the stories.

D. Before reading these novels, the teacher preteaches key vocabulary and develops the students' schema related to the stories. CorrectCorrect! 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 fourth-grade English Language Learner is new to a school. Assessments suggest that the student can read orally with accuracy on grade level; however, the student's comprehension of grade-level textbooks fluctuates widely. Which of the following steps would be most appropriate for the teacher to take first in order to determine the cause of the student's difficulty? Select one: A. Determine whether the student has a specific learning disability that affects language processing. B. Assess the student's word analysis and decoding skills. C. Assess the student's level of first-language literacy. D. Determine whether the student has adequate vocabulary and background knowledge to support comprehension of the textbooks.

D. Determine whether the student has adequate vocabulary and background knowledge to support comprehension of the textbooks. CorrectCorrect! Vocabulary and background knowledge are critical components of reading comprehension, providing the foundation of the schema a student uses to construct meaning from the text. An English Language Learner's English vocabulary is likely to have gaps, particularly with respect to content-area topics that are not typical subjects of everyday conversations. An English Language Learner may be familiar with a content-area topic, but he or she may lack the relevant English vocabulary needed to comprehend an English- language text about that topic.

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? Select one: A. Put labels on several familiar objects in the classroom and regularly read the labels aloud to the students. 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. 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

D. 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. CorrectCorrect! 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 this response 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.

Which of the following criteria would be most important to consider when selecting "leveled texts" for use in assessments and guided reading with beginning-level readers? Select one: A. The texts should emphasize use of literary language and dialogues. B. The texts should feature a range punctuation and context-specific vocabulary. C. The texts should require readers to use problem-solving to connect text to illustrations. D. The texts should use repeated words and natural oral language structures.

D. The texts should use repeated words and natural oral language structures. CorrectCorrect! Beginning readers need lots of practice reading a variety of texts written at their independent reading levels to reinforce their knowledge of phonics and sight words already taught, build their automaticity, and improve their reading fluency. Leveled texts are series of texts constructed using controlled vocabulary and syntactic structures. Within a particular level, the texts share many of the same vocabulary words and follow basic syntactic structures, both of which gradually increase in difficulty in successive levels. Matching students to appropriate-level texts is key to providing them with effective practice opportunities.

Which of the following children is most in need of immediate intervention? Select one: A. a preschool child who has limited book-handling skills B. a first-grade student who requires reading texts that have a high degree of "predictability" C. a kindergarten child who has limited ability to correlate alphabet letters with the sounds they make D. a second-grade student who is beginning to track print

D. a second-grade student who is beginning to track print CorrectCorrect! Print tracking is a concept of print that students generally master in kindergarten or by the beginning of first grade. A second-grade student who is just beginning to track print is substantially behind grade-level standards and would require intensive intervention.

Which of the following types of activities would be most important to include on a daily basis when planning reading instruction for first graders who are developing as beginning readers? Select one: A. activities that emphasize listening to and producing rhyming, alliteration, and similar forms of wordplay B. activities that introduce students to basic concepts about print C. activities that emphasize memorization of lists of grade- level-appropriate sight words D. activities that promote students' development of decoding and other word analysis skills

D. activities that promote students' development of decoding and other word analysis skills CorrectCorrect! Phonics and other word analysis skills, such as learning common inflectional endings and the orthographic rules governing their addition to words, are critical skills that promote beginning readers' development of proficiency in decoding. These skills in turn support students' development of reading fluency and comprehension. Daily, systematic, differentiated instruction and practice in these essential skills are necessary to ensure all students in a first-grade class develop into proficient readers.

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: Select one: A. recognition of high-frequency sight words. B. recognition that words are composed of separate sounds. C. development of automaticity in word recognition. D. development of an awareness of print.

D. development of an awareness of print. CorrectCorrect! 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 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: Select one: A. asking the student to find other sentences in the text that use the words "fell" and "swoop". 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. 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. CorrectCorrect! 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 fifth-grade teacher gives students a reading guide to complete as they read an informational text. The reading guide contains several questions to answer and a chart to complete, as well as comprehension aids for potentially challenging vocabulary and passages. This activity is likely to be most effective for achieving which of the following instructional purposes? Select one: A. supporting students' development of reading fluency B. fostering students' motivation to read cooperatively C. teaching students to adjust their reading rate based on text difficulty D. encouraging students to interact with the text

D. encouraging students to interact with the text CorrectCorrect! Reading guides such as the one described compel students to interact with the content of a text as they read so they can complete the activities in the guide. Such guides can also provide scaffolding for students to enhance their comprehension by clarifying challenging vocabulary and passages.

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

D. equipping them with strategies for understanding the meanings of unfamiliar multisyllable words. CorrectCorrect! 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 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 reads "Her boots crucked through 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: Select one: A. enhance the student's oral vocabulary development. B. develop the student's ability to self- monitor comprehension. C. promote the student's ability to track print. D. improve the student's decoding skills.

D. improve the student's decoding skills. CorrectCorrect! The student's oral reading performance in this sample strongly suggests a lack of foundational knowledge in phonics and sight words. The miscues indicate serious decoding difficulties with various phonics elements, including lack of automaticity in decoding common vowel digraphs (reading boats for boots), common consonant digraphs (reading ck for ch), and complex consonant clusters (reading crucked for crunched). The student also misread a high-frequency sight word (through) that should have been mastered by the end of second grade.

An English Language Learner reads academic texts fluently in her primary language but is struggling to understand her content-area textbooks in English. This student would likely benefit most from engaging in which of the following activities? Select one: A. receiving reading comprehension instruction with texts written in her primary language B. reading texts in her primary language that cover the same material as her English textbooks C. translating textbook reading assignments from English into her primary language D. learning to use metacognitive reading strategies with English text

D. learning to use metacognitive reading strategies with English text CorrectCorrect! The student reads academic texts well in her primary language, so she likely has both adequate background knowledge in the content areas and basic reading skills. The student would benefit from using metacognitive strategies such as self-monitoring to connect what she has already learned in the primary language with the content presented in the English textbooks.

An advantage of using assessment tools such as portfolios and scoring rubrics is that they: Select one: A. provide more objective results than do multiple-choice tests. B. offer more reliable assessment data. See Types of Formal and Informal Reading Assessments for more information. C. ensure consistency among different evaluators. D. promote student participation in self- assessment activities.

D. promote student participation in self- assessment activities. CorrectCorrect! Typically, the development of student work portfolios involves students in selecting and self-assessing some or all of the materials that are included in their individual portfolios. Students can use scoring rubrics to self-assess and guide their work.

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: Select one: A. use visualization as a reading comprehension strategy. B. use context cues to identify unfamiliar words. C. apply knowledge of phonics generalizations. D. understand the concept of compound words.

D. understand the concept of compound words. CorrectCorrect! 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.

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: Select one: A. analyze story elements. B. analyze an author's point of view. C. predict future events. D. recognize a literary allusion.

D. recognize a literary allusion. CorrectCorrect! 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.

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

D. say the word cat, then say the first sound the child hears in the word. CorrectCorrect! Phonemic awareness, a type of phonological awareness, is the recognition that spoken words are made up of phonemes, the discrete speech sounds of a language. Segmenting the first sound in a spoken word is one of the first phonemic awareness skills to develop, and therefore saying the first sound one hears in a word is an effective informal procedure for assessing phonemic awareness in the beginning stages.

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? Select one: A. girl B. learn C. itch D. stick

D. stick CorrectCorrect! A phonogram is a common spelling pattern used to spell the rime of a group (or "family") of single-syllable words (e.g., the phonogram -ick which is pronounced /ĭk/ and appears in the words brick, lick, and stick). Manor phonograms appear in a significant number of words that are useful to students in the beginning stages of learning to read and spell.

A fifth-grade teacher plans to have students read a chapter about the American Revolutionary War from their social studies textbook. The following is an excerpt from the chapter. "The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17th, 1775. At the time the American Army occupied the area from Cambridge to the Mystic River. American troops gathered in the Cambridge common on the evening of June 16, 1775, and set out for Bunker Hill. Upon reaching Bunker Hill, however, officers decided to move to Breed's Hill, a smaller hill closer to Boston." Based on this excerpt from the chapter, which of the following graphic organizers would best promote students' awareness of the chapter's text structure? Select one: A. Venn diagram B. semantic map C. outline D. timeline

D. timeline CorrectCorrect! The text structure of this passage is chronological, focusing on when troop movements took place leading up to the battle. Timelines are the most effective form of graphic organizer for conveying a chronology of events.

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

D. to establish a student's independent, instructional, and frustration reading levels. CorrectCorrect! Standardized Informal Reading Inventories (IRIs) are administered individually to students to establish the students' reading levels. The results of this type of assessment provide evidence to guide the selection of reading materials for students for instruction and/or interventions and to guide students in their selection of materials for independent reading.

A third-grade teacher administers the following informal reading assessment to individual students. Test one: reading aloud a list of words Test two: reading aloud a short passage One student performs significantly better on the second part of the test than on the first. Which of the following is the best assessment of this student's reading performance? Select one: a. The student is proficient at using syntactic cues to identify words but is not yet skilled at using semantic cues. b. The student can decode single-syllable words but has not yet learned how to decode multisyllable words. c. The student is proficient at using context cues to help identify words but has weak word decoding skills. d. The student understands letter-sound correspondence but has limited awareness of syllable structure.

c. The student is proficient at using context cues to help identify words but has weak word decoding skills. CorrectCorrect! All of the words that appear in the word list also appear in the passage. A student who has difficulty reading these words in isolation, but succeeds in reading the words in the passage, must use information available only in the text to support word identification. A reader who can recognize most of the words in a passage can use the context of an unfamiliar word to deduce the syntactic category (e.g., noun, verb, adjective) and some semantic information about the unfamiliar word.