PECT Module 2

A teacher is planning instruction to promote four-year-olds' development of skills related to Pennsylvania's PreK–4 learning standard about reading, analyzing, and interpreting text. With children at this developmental level, which of the following approaches to a read-aloud activity would be most appropriate for the teacher to use to develop the children's conceptual understanding of fact and opinion?

• having the children identify characters who demonstrate examples of faulty reasoning in a fable

• asking the children to decide which statements related to an article in a children's nature magazine are true or false

• helping the children tell one thing they learned from a nonfiction text

• showing the children how to differentiate between essential and nonessential information in a nonfiction children's picture book

A fourth-grade teacher would like to promote reluctant readers' independent reading. Which of the following teacher strategies is likely to be most effective in achieving this goal?

• engaging students in discussions about their interests and working with the library media specialist to locate appropriate-level books on these topics

• reading aloud a variety of books from the classroom library on a regular basis and engaging students in discussions related to the read-alouds

• creating attractive displays of both fiction and nonfiction books and magazines in the classroom library and regularly inviting students to browse the displays

• providing opportunities for students to visit the school's library media center and to learn about the center's resources and organization

A third-grade teacher regularly models for students how to paraphrase a portion of a text and how to pose and respond to questions that clarify or follow up on information presented in a text. These practices promote students' literacy development primarily by:

• supporting their development of dispositions and attitudes that help create a purposeful, literate environment in the classroom

• enhancing their knowledge of the organizational structure of different types of text

• promoting their development of self-monitoring skills that support reading and learning across the curriculum

• fostering their ability to make connections between the reading curriculum and their lives

A first-grade teacher explains that he is going to read a story aloud and he wants students to consider how the story makes them feel. Afterward, he prompts the students to recall and discuss specific words and phrases the author used to evoke particular feelings. This oral language activity supports students' literacy development primarily by helping the students:

• retell a story's key events accurately

• make and verify predictions about a story

• connect key events in a story to their own lives

• develop an awareness of a story's tone

A kindergarten teacher has placed many signs around the classroom, including simple written directions (e.g., Please hang up coats!) and labels for objects (e.g., clock, Teacher's chair). During daily activities, the teacher regularly points to and reads aloud relevant signs. The teacher has also created a classroom library filled with age-appropriate books and has incorporated relevant signs and books into all the learning centers. These strategies are most effective in addressing which of the following goals related to effective instruction in emergent literacy?

• creating a print-rich environment

• providing guided and independent skills practice

• encouraging independent reading

• infusing reading activities across the curriculum

At the beginning of the school year, a kindergarten teacher establishes a variety of classroom roles that rotate on a daily basis. The roles include Calendar Helper and Star of the Day. The Calendar Helper identifies and announces the day of the week, the date, and the day's weather, with teacher support if needed. The Star of the Day shares an object, talking briefly about the item and then answering

three questions about it from classmates and/or the teacher. Regularly performing these types of classroom roles directly benefits students' emergent literacy development primarily by enhancing the students':

• self-confidence and comfort level in front of their peers

• ability to use a range of expressive language skills

• knowledge of content vocabulary across the curriculum

• personal responsibility and perseverance with tasks

In keeping with Pennsylvania's PreK–4 learning standards in language arts, which of the following writing skills would be most appropriate to include in language arts instruction at the first-grade level?

• revising writing by adding details or missing information

• focusing writing for a particular audience

• revising writing by varying sentence length and structures

• using transition words to clarify ideas in writing

A teacher delivering standards-based literacy instruction grounded in scientific- based reading research is most likely to use the results of reading assessments for which of the following purposes?

• using formal and informal assessments to place students into the most appropriate reading group for a given school year

• using ongoing informal assessments to continually plan and modify individual students' reading goals and instruction

• using formal standardized assessments to diagnose each student's reading difficulties at the beginning of the school year

• using comprehensive summative reading achievement assessments on a weekly to biweekly basis to monitor students' progress

A group of primary-grade teachers is reviewing potential core instructional materials for teaching beginning-reading skills. The most important selection criteria for the teachers to consider would be to ensure that the materials:

• include clear, appealing visual supports such as illustrations

• are linked to a variety of online teacher resources

• include supplemental assessments and learning activities

• are aligned with relevant state learning standards

Which of the following words contains a diphthong?

• anchor

• boiled

• measure

• truths