ELAR Content

1. A teacher is developing instructional activities to promote all literacy development of a small group of young children who are English Language Learners. The teacher plans an activity in which the students tell stories in English while the teacher writes what the students say. Which of the following guidelines would be most important for the teacher to follow when writing the stories told by the English Language Learners?

• Have the student pause after each sentence and listen as the teacher reads aloud what the student has dictated so far.

• Reinforce the students’ understanding of the relationship between written and oral language by making sure that students see the teacher writing down their exact words.

• Paraphrase the dictated stories as necessary to clarify the main ideas and improve students’ use of English vocabulary or syntax.

• Strengthen the students’ understanding of the reading process by having them close their eyes to visualize the story as the teacher reads the dictated narratives aloud.

Which of the following is not a characteristic of emergent writers?

• dictating an idea or a complete story

• using initial sounds

• using pictures and scribbles.

• using conventional spelling

A fourth-grade teacher wants to acquire computer software that will help students develop and format a class newspaper containing graphics as well as text. Which of the following types of software would be most appropriate for this purpose?

• word processing software

• desktop publishing software

• spreadsheet software

• Web authoring software

A sixth -grade teacher is leading a class discussion about a magazine advertisement for breath mints. The advertisement features a photograph of two people seated at a small table on a café patio, engaged in conversation. Behind them, a snow-capped mountain range stands against a clear blue sky. The photograph's caption reads, "For fresh breath, all the time." Which of the following questions would best help the teacher informally assess students' ability to interpret visual images?

• Do you think many people would be likely to buy this product after seeing this magazine advertisement?

• Do you think that a different type of photograph would be more appropriate for this advertisement?

• Why do you think the creator of the advertisement chose this background for the photograph?

• Why do you think people buy the breath mints that are featured in this advertisement?

A third-grade teacher is planning instructional activities to promote students' reading fluency. Which of the following activities would be most effective in helping third-grade students read aloud in a natural, fluid, and expressive manner?

• timing students' oral readings to demonstrate how reading rate affects continuity of expression

• reviewing with students a variety of word-identification strategies to improve automatic word recognition

• having students participate in Readers Theater and other choral reading activities

• scheduling daily read-aloud activities that include peer feedback on the reader's intonation and inflection

Ms. Cunningham displays on the overhead a short story written without any punctuation or capitalization. The students are then paired and assigned the task of adding punctuation and capitalization to the story. Once completed, the stories are shared with the whole class. The teacher then leads the class in a discussion about how the meaning of the story is affected by the revisions. This activity is intended to be used for:

• developing the writer’s voice.

• understanding writing conventions.

• recognizing word choice.

• identifying sentence fluency.