Foundations of Reading 090 Subarea 1: 1-11 Obj 1; 12-21 Obj 2

1. Which of the following students is demonstrating the specific type of phonological awareness known as phonemes awareness?

• A. a student, 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 magazine and can determine that it contains three syllables

Answer explanation

Correct Response: C. 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 (C) demonstrates phonemic awareness.A, B, and D are incorrect because the skills described (identifying the sound corresponding to a letter, recognizing rhyming words, and counting syllables in a word, respectively) can be performed without the ability to distinguish separate phonemes in a spoken word.

2.   A kindergarten teacher could best determine if a child has begun to develop phonemic awareness by asking the child to:

 

• A. count the number of words the child hears ina sentence as the teacher says the sentence.

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

• C. point to the correct letter on an alphabet chart as the teacher names specific letters.

•  C. listen to the teacher say boat and coat, then identify whether the two words rhyme.

Answer explanation

Correct Response: B. 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 B is an effective informal procedure for assessing phonemic awareness in the beginning stages. A, C, and D are incorrect because performing the tasks described (counting words,recognizing letters and letter names, recognizing rhyming words) does not require phonemic awareness.

3. As students begin to read, the ability to blend phonemes orally contributes to their reading development primarily because it helps students:

• A. recognize and understand sight words in a text.

• B. use knowledge of letter-sound correspondence to decode words.

• C. guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from their context.

• D. divide written words into onsets and rimes.

Answer explanation

 

 

Correct Response: B. Phonemic blending is the ability to combine a sequence of speech sounds (phonemes) together toform 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. A, C, and D are incorrect because they describe literacy skills that are unrelated to phonemic blending.

4. A teacher holds up a series of familiar objects,asking students to name each object and isolate the final sound they hear. This type of activity would be most appropriate for a student who:

• A. needs help developing phonemic segmentation skills.

•   B. is performing below grade-level benchmarks in reading fluency.

• C. lacks automaticity in word recognition.

• D. has difficulty sounding out phonetically regular one-syllable words.

Answer explanation

Correct Response: A. 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.

B, C, and D are incorrect because they are related to decoding print, which is not addressed in this activity.

5. Phonemic awareness contributes most to the development of phonics skills in beginning readers by helping them:

• A. recognize different ways in which one sound can be represented in print.

• B. count the number of syllables in a written word.

• C.  identify in spoken language separate sounds that can be mapped to letters.

• D. understand the concept of a silent letter.

Answer explanation

Correct Response: C. 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 ofthese letter patterns and letter-sound correspondences (i.e., phonics knowledge) to decode and encode printed words. A and D are incorrect because they describe characteristics of phonics that are not related to phonemic awareness. B is incorrect because counting syllables in a written word does not require phonemic awareness.

6. Which of the following first-grade students has attained the highest level of phonemic awareness?

 

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

• B. a student who can orally segment the word wonderful into won-der-ful

• C. a student who, after hearing the words fish and fun, can identify that they both begin with the same phoneme, /f/

• D. a student who can orally segment the word train into its onset and rime

Answer explanation

Correct Response: A. 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. B andD are incorrect because phonemic awareness is not required to perform the phonological awareness skills described. C is incorrect because recognizing alliterative words—words that begin with the same phoneme—is a phonological awareness skill that precedes development of advanced phonemic awareness skills, including phoneme substitution.

7. 7. 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:

 

• A.  have a relatively low level of phonological awareness.

• B. are beginning to develop systematic phonics skills.

• C. have a relatively high level of phonemic awareness.

• D. are beginning to master the alphabetic principle.

Answer explanation

Correct Response: C. 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 ofphonemic awareness (C). For this reason, A is incorrect. B and D are incorrect because these responses describe skills at later stages of literacy development.

8. 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:

• A. helping them recognize distinct syllables in oral language.

• B. encouraging them to divide words into onsets and rimes.

• C. teaching them how to distinguish between consonants and vowels.

• D. promoting their awareness of letter- sound correspondence.

Answer explanation

Correct Response: B. 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.A is incorrect because the segmenting activity focuses on single-syllable words and does not help students distinguish syllable boundaries. C is incorrect because the segmenting activity does not focus on phonemes, so it does not helpstudents distinguish between different types of phonemes (e.g., vowels and consonants). D is incorrect because the activity is oral and does not present students with information about how the sounds in spoken words relate to the letters in printed words.

9. 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 and the number of sounds he makes as he says the word again. This activity is most likely to promote which of the following?

 

• A.  understanding of the alphabetic principle

• B. phonemic awareness skills

•    C. development of letter-sound correspondence

• D. word identification skills

Answer explanation

Correct Response: B. 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 and C, which concern the recognition of letter-sound relationships, are incorrect because the activity described does not require the student to use letter knowledge. D is incorrect because theactivity does not require the student to use word identification skills, which concern decoding printed words.

10. A beginning-level English Language Learner can consistently blend individual phonemes to make simple English words composed of two or three phonemes but is having difficulty blending the sounds of familiar single-syllable words composed of four phonemes (e.g., clip, trap, spin). Which of the following questions would be most important for the first-grade teacher to consider when addressing the needs of this student?

 

 

          

• A. Are the target words in the student's oral vocabulary in English?

• B. Does the student's primary language have consonant blends?

• C. Can the student distinguish between short and long vowel sounds in English?

• D. Do the target words have cognates in the student's primary language?

Answer explanation

Correct Response: B. 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. Also, each language has its own constraints on permissible phoneme combinations (e.g., consonant clusters, vowel sequences). For example, English allows consonant blends such as [kl], [tr], and [sp] both in initial and medial positions in words, while some languages do not allow them at all or do not allow them in the initial position, which is where they appear in the sample words clip,trap, and spin. English Language Learners frequently have difficulty detecting in a new language phonemes or phoneme combinations that do not occur in their primary language. A and D are incorrect because the student does not need tounderstand the meaning of a word or know a cognate of the word in the primary language in order to segment or blend the word's phonemes. C is incorrect because the example words contain only short vowel sounds.