A third-grade teacher periodically reads aloud from a chapter in content-area textbooks and describes his thought processes as he reads. Following is an example:

"'The moon does not shine on its own. The sun's light reflects off the moon.' Hmm. I'm imagining that the sun is like a flashlight shining on the moon in the dark. 'As the moon rotates, only the part that faces the sun is visible from the Earth.' I'm not quite sure what "visible" means, but it sounds kind of like vision, which I know has to do with eyes. It probably means the part that we can see from the Earth. Now, that makes me wonder— why do we see different amounts of the moon at different times? Let's see if the next part of the chapter explains this . . ."

This practice is most likely to promote students' reading proficiency by:

• exposing them to new vocabulary in context.

• comprehension strategies.

• giving them an example of fluent oral reading.

• summarizing for them the main ideas of an expository text.

Skimming is likely to be the most effective strategy for accomplishing which of the following reading tasks?

• evaluating the validity of information on an Internet Web site

• previewing a chapter in a content-area textbook

• synthesizing information from various sources for a research report

• studying specific facts for a content- area exam

Answer explanation

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. The other responses are incorrect because evaluating the validity of information on a Web site (A), synthesizing information from a variety of sources for research purposes (C), and studying facts for a content-area exam (D) all require a more careful reading of textual materials

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:

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

• giving students a list of Web sites that have been pre-approved based on the sites' reading levels.

• encouraging students to search for Web sites that are easy to navigate and that contain familiar vocabulary.

• teaching students to employ a variety of search engines to locate relevant Web sites.

Answer explanation

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. B is incorrect because giving students a list of pre-approved Web sites does not promote their independent research skills. Encouraging them to rely only on user-friendly Web sites (C) could lead students to ignore Web sites that contain valuable, objective information. Employing a variety of search engines (D) does not necessarily lead to more effective research, since different search engines are likely to identify a similar list of potential Web sites.

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:

• possess a self-awareness that allows them to use metacognitive skills efficiently.

• have already developed the base of background knowledge typically covered by textbooks.

• have well-developed skills for decoding any level of text word by word.

• are able to focus their full attention and cognitive resources on the meaning of a text.

Answer explanation

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. Achieving reading fluency does not necessarily mean that students know how to use metacognitive skills (A) or that they have already developed background knowledge at the level of a textbook (B). Having fluency also does not mean that a third-grade student is skilled enough to decode any level of text (C).

A fifth-grade teacher gives students a reading guide for an informational text that they will be reading independently. The reading guide contains various activities, including prompting students to summarize certain passages, to explain relationships between concepts according to specific information in the text, and to determine the meaning of domain-specific words based on appositives or appositive phrases embedded in the text. This reading guide is likely to be most effective for achieving which of the following instructional purposes?

• developing students' ability to read the text evaluatively

• encouraging students to read and interact closely with the text

• supporting students' development of prosodic reading skills

• teaching students to adjust their reading rate based on text complexity

Answer explanation

Reading guides such as the one described compel students to reread a complex academic text multiple times so they can complete the activities in the guide, which are specifically designed to help the students interact with the content and language of the text. A is incorrect because the activities do not focus on developing students' evaluative comprehension skills. C is incorrect because use of such a guide would not promote development of prosodic reading, since it is a silent reading activity that does not involve explicit or implicit teacher modeling of or instruction in prosodic reading. A text-based reading guide would not teach students how to adjust their reading rate based on text difficulty (D) because it focuses on just one specific text.

Two proficient readers are answering post-reading 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?

• The first student is more proficient than the second student at using metacognitive comprehension strategies to make sense of the text.

• Each student applied different reading comprehension skills when reading the text.

• The second student is more proficient at reading for literal understanding than for inferential understanding.

• Each student brought a unique set of prior experiences to the reading of the text.

Answer explanation

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. A is incorrect because the first student had difficulty answering questions about the gist of the chapter, so it is likely that that student did not apply metacognitive strategies to enhance understanding during reading. The second student was able to construct a strong summary of the chapter, which suggests an ability to use inferential skills, so C is incorrect. While background knowledge and experiences have a strong influence on reading comprehension (D), this factor cannot explain why the students focused on such different levels of the text.

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?

• translating textbook reading assignments from English into her primary language

• receiving reading comprehension instruction with texts written in her primary language

• learning to use metacognitive reading strategies with English text

• reading texts in her primary language that cover the same material as her English textbooks

Answer explanation

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. A, B, and D all focus on primary-language materials. While these strategies may be helpful in supporting the students' ongoing conceptual development with regard to specific content, they do not promote the students' ability to comprehend content-area textbooks in English.

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 17, 1775. At the time, the American army occupied the area from Cambridge to the Mystic River. American troops gathered in 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?

• outline

• Venn diagram

• timeline

• semantic map

Answer explanation

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. Outlines (A) and semantic maps (D) are well suited to passages that are organized into different sections or categories of related content. Venn diagrams (B) visually display similarities and differences between two or more related topics.

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 17, 1775. At the time, the American army occupied the area from Cambridge to the Mystic River. American troops gathered in 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:

• use visualization to facilitate their comprehension of the text.

• paraphrase content to make the text more understandable.

• connect elements in the text to their background knowledge.

• identify the text's main ideas and supporting details.

Answer explanation

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. B, C, and D are not skills that would be scaffolded, facilitated, or reinforced by having the students consult maps.

A third-grade teacher has been conducting a series of ongoing assessments of a student's oral reading. Shown below is a sentence from a text, followed by a transcription of a typical example of the student's oral reading performance.

Text: Her boots crunched through

the snow.

Student: Her boats crucked throw the

snow.

After reading the sentence, the student paused and then reread it without the teacher's prompting and self-corrected the errors. Based on this information, the teacher could best meet this student's needs by adjusting instruction in order to:

• enhance the student's oral vocabulary

  development.

• develop the student's ability to self-

  monitor comprehension.

• improve the student's decoding

  skills.

• promote the student's ability to track

  print.

Answer explanation

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. Conversely, this oral reading sample provides no evidence that the student has difficulty tracking print (D). And, by self-correcting his or her errors without prompting, the student demonstrates both understanding of the text's vocabulary (A) and the ability to self-monitor for comprehension (B).