Foundations of Reading 190 Sub-Area1: 25-34 Obj 3; 35-45 Obj 4

25. Which of the following sets of words would be most effective to use when introducing students to the concept of structural/morphemic analysis?

• late, great, wait, eight

• afraid, obtain, explain, remain

• swim, swims, swam, swum

• pretest, retest, tested, testing

Answer explanation

Correct Response: D. 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 inflectional endings and common derivational prefixes and suffixes that are in students' oral vocabulary. The list in Option D features a phonically regular base word and affixes that are appropriate for beginning readers. The words pretest and retest both include a common prefix, while tested and testing include inflectional endings. Option A is incorrect because the words in this list contain only one morpheme and therefore are not useful for demonstrating structural analysis. Option B is incorrect because the list features words that contain prefixes and roots that are inappropriate for beginning instruction in structural analysis. Option C is incorrect because this list features a base word (swim) with irregular past tense forms (swam, swum). Such forms are inappropriate for introducing beginning readers to structural/morphemic analysis because the morpheme for past tense is indicated by a spelling change rather than by the more typical addition of an inflectional ending.

26. A second-grade teacher frequently conducts spelling inquiry workshops with students to deepen their understanding of various orthographic guidelines. For example, in one inquiry, the teacher gives students a set of words that follow the silent-e syllable pattern and that include the inflectional ending -ing, -ed, or -s. Students work with a classmate to sort the base words according to whether the word drops the silent e when adding the inflection. After sorting the words, the students must analyze each list to generate a rule describing the conditions that require an e-drop. The following is a completed chart by one pair of students. Some pairs of students, such as the pair whose work is shown, correctly sort the words, but they still cannot generate an orthographic rule for when to drop the silent e. The teacher could best support these students by prompting them to:

• explain how different types of morphemes come together to create more complex words

• examine the consonant/vowel patterns of the base words and suffixes on both sides of the chart

• describe what feature all the base words had in common before an inflectional suffix was added

• identify all the long-vowel and short-vowel pattern words on either side of the chart

Answer explanation

Correct Response: B. Option B is correct because this strategy focuses students' attention on the phonics elements that affect the words' spelling: the final silent e in all of the base words and the initial letter of the inflections. When inflections begin with a vowel (i.e.,-ed, -ing), the silent e in the base word is dropped. In contrast, when the inflection begins with a consonant (i.e., the inflection -s) the e-drop rule does not apply. Options A, C, and D are incorrect because these strategies do not focus on a contrast between the two sets of words that could explain when an e-drop takes place. The sets of words on both sides of the chart have exactly the same morphological structure (A) and include exactly the same base words (C). Option D is incorrect because, while most of the words in the table contain a long-vowel sound, identifying the vowel- sound patterns of the words in the table would not help a student to generate the target spelling rule. The base word live (pronounced with short-vowel sound) is also an example of the target spelling pattern because it contains a final silent e which is dropped when adding the vowel

suffix -ing.

27. A second-grade teacher wants to ensure that students become automatic in recognizing the orthographic patterns they are explicitly taught during decoding instruction. According to evidence-based best practices, which of the following instructional strategies best promotes students' automatic recognition of a new orthographic pattern to support proficient reading?

• providing instruction in the new orthographic pattern implicitly when it arises in the context of reading a shared text or it appears in a text selected for comprehension instruction

• providing practice with phoneme-grapheme mapping and various reading and spelling activities that focus on words containing the new orthographic pattern

• emphasizing the use of the three-cueing systems, especially context clues, to decode words that contain the new orthographic pattern

• emphasizing a tactile-kinesthetic approach when introducing new words that follow the new orthographic pattern

Answer explanation

Correct Response: B. Option B is correct because this strategy provides students with extensive practice focused on accurately encoding and decoding the newly learned orthographic patterns in word context. Evidence indicates that such practice strengthens the orthographic representation of the words in the students' mental lexicon and helps build automatic word recognition or automaticity, the ability to recognize words without conscious effort. Evidence also suggests that once new orthographic knowledge develops, a reader can more readily apply it to unfamiliar words in context. Option A is incorrect because evidence does not support implicit instruction as an effective method to achieve automatic word recognition. In addition, implicit instruction would not provide students with enough practice to develop automaticity. Option C is incorrect because scientific evidence indicates that this strategy, also known as the three-cueing systems, is the way poor readers attempt to read unfamiliar words in print; whereas, proficient readers use decoding to identify unfamiliar words. In addition, emphasizing context clues as a word-identification strategy distracts students from attending to the words' orthographic forms, which is necessary for developing automatic word recognition. The process of decoding or sounding out words is essential to a reader's acquisition of new orthographic knowledge, and the development of automaticity is essential for achieving sufficient fluency to support reading comprehension. Option D is incorrect because the strategy does not directly facilitate the decoding and encoding processes necessary for applying orthographic knowledge automatically.

28. Which of the following instructional strategies would be most effective in promoting students' decoding of multisyllable words that are not multimorphemic?

• giving students opportunities to read literature featuring predictable text containing multisyllable words

• teaching students how to divide multisyllable words into syllables according to common syllable types

• prompting students to sound out and blend the individual phonemes that compose multisyllable words

• developing and reinforcing students' recognition of high-frequency multisyllable words using flash cards

Answer explanation

Correct Response: B. Option B is correct because the syllables in multisyllable words that are not multimorphemic (i.e., words that do not contain affixes) follow the same syllable types as those in single-syllable words (e.g., closed, open, r-controlled, vowel team). Thus, teaching students to recognize multisyllable words as a series of syllables allows them to apply their prior knowledge of syllable types to decode longer words accurately and efficiently. This strategy also supports them in applying syllable-division strategies to unfamiliar words. Option A is incorrect because reading predictable text is typically used with emergent readers and is not appropriate for teaching decoding of multisyllable words. Option C is incorrect because sounding out multisyllable words letter by letter is not an efficient strategy for decoding longer words. In addition, it does not encourage students to apply syllable-division strategies. Option D is incorrect because simply practicing memorizing high-frequency multisyllable words using flash cards does not provide students with a strategy for accurately decoding unfamiliar multisyllable words encountered in texts.

29. A teacher is working with a group of learners who exhibit the following characteristics.

The students can accurately read single-syllable words that feature closed, open,

and silent-e syllables; and vowel-team syllables that make a long-vowel sound.

The students can accurately read multisyllable words that feature closed and

open syllables.

Which of the following sets of words includes appropriate types of syllables to provide the students with practice applying their knowledge of syllable types to read decodable multisyllable words?

• treadmill, healthy, pleasant

• council, county, avoid

• table, pickle, candle

• reveal, combine, explain

Answer explanation

Correct Response: D. Option D is correct because these regular words feature syllables with which the students are familiar. The word reveal includes an open syllable and a basic vowel- team syllable that makes a long vowel sound. The word combine includes a closed syllable and a silent-e syllable. And the word explain includes a closed syllable and a vowel-team syllable that makes a long vowel sound. Options A, B, and C are incorrect because the words in these lists feature phonics elements that the students have not learned yet. Options A and B feature advanced vowel teams. The vowel team in treadmill, healthy, and pleasant (A) makes a short vowel sound, while the vowel teams in council, county, and avoid (B) make diphthongs. Meanwhile, the words in Option C end in a consonant + le syllable, which is a syllable type that the students have not learned yet.

30. A group of first-grade students has mastered reading single-syllable words that follow the closed-syllable patterns VC, CVC, CVCC, and CCVC. The teacher would like to expand students' reading development by teaching them how to read two-syllable words that consist of closed syllables, such as picnic, muffin, trumpet, pretzel, invent, and frantic. The teacher could best promote the students' accurate, efficient reading of this type of word by teaching them to use which of the following decoding strategies?

• Look at the vowels in a target word; if they are separated by two consonants, divide the word between the consonants (e.g. muf/fin), and then read each syllable from left to right.

• Look for recognizable single-syllable words within a target word (e.g. muff in muffin, ant in frantic), and then use that word as a starting point to decode the longer word.

• Sound out each of the letters of a target word from left to right, continuing to the end of the word, and then go back and blend the letter-sounds into recognizable syllables.

• Sound out and blend the first two letters in a target word; if you recognize the word, then stop, but if not, proceed to the next set of letters until you recognize the word.

Answer explanation

Correct Response: A. Option A is correct because the strategy is based on a common syllable- boundary pattern in English (VC/CV). For this reason, the strategy is effective with most two- syllable words containing two medial consonants with a vowel on either side. Options B, C, and D are incorrect because these decoding strategies are not consistent with the syllable structure of English words and therefore are not reliably accurate or efficient strategies for decoding multisyllable words. In addition, they do not build on the students' skill in recognizing single- syllable words that follow a closed-syllable pattern. Furthermore, Option D is incorrect because this strategy promotes guessing based on incomplete decoding, which would undermine the students' development of accurate decoding skill.

31. A fourth-grade student tries to decode the word accumulate in a science article by using syllabication skills. In order to read the individual syllables of the word after dividing them correctly, the student would need to be proficient in decoding which of the following syllable types?

• silent e, closed, vowel team

• vowel team, consonant + le, silent e

• closed, open, silent e

• open, silent e, vowel team

Answer explanation

Correct Response: C. Option C is correct because the word accumulate consists of the following syllable types: the first syllable of the word is closed; the second and third syllables are open, and the final syllable of the word is a silent-e syllable. Options A, B, and D are incorrect because the word accumulate does not contain a syllable with a vowel team. Furthermore, Option B is incorrect because the word accumulate does not contain a consonant + le syllable.

32. 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 the following web on the board. This technique is likely to be most helpful for enhancing the students' awareness of:

• morphemic structure

• compound words

• syllable patterns

• Greek roots

Answer explanation

Correct Response: A. The web 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 from left, adding suffixes or inflectional endings, adding prefixes, adding both, and creating compound words. Thus, the chart illustrates how to categorize multimorphemic words according to morpheme type and how these types of morphemes are combined, which promotes students' awareness of the morphemic structure of words. Option B is incorrect because only a single compound word is presented in the web, which is insufficient to illustrate and promote understanding of this word type. Option C is incorrect because syllable patterns are not the focus of analysis. Option D is incorrect because the only root word in the web, the base word act, is derived from the Latin word actus and is not a Greek root.

33. Which of the following words that the students generated contains a derivational suffix?

A third-grade teacher uses word matrices as a strategy for teaching structural or morphemic analysis skills. The teacher models for students how to create and use a word matrix to generate related words by combining a base word or root with one or more affixes. Following is a word matrix for the base word move. The teacher supports students in generating the following list of words using this matrix: moves, moving, moved, mover, movement, movements, remove, removes, removing, removed, remover, unmoving, and unmoved.

• moves

• moving

• moved

• mover

Answer explanation

Correct Response: D. Option D is correct because the word mover contains the derivational suffix -er, which, when affixed to a verb, creates a noun with the general meaning "someone who performs the action of the verb" (e.g., a mover is someone who causes something to move). A derivational suffix alters the meaning of a base word and almost always changes the grammatical class of the word (e.g., from verb to noun). Options A, B, and C are incorrect because they have inflectional morphemes that mark person (A) or tense (B and C) in a verb. Inflections are a very limited class of grammatical morphemes that do not change a base word's part of speech or alter its fundamental meaning, but indicate grammatical attributes or functions, such as number, mood, person, tense, or case.

34. Two students in the class with a learning disability are successful in generating multimorphemic words when presented with a familiar base word and a simple suffix (e.g., -s, -ed). However, when presented with a familiar prefix, base word or root, and suffix, they cannot generate any new words, with or without the support of the matrix. Which of the following strategies for differentiating the lesson would be most appropriate for supporting the students' development in structural or morphemic analysis?

A third-grade teacher uses word matrices as a strategy for teaching structural or morphemic analysis skills. The teacher models for students how to create and use a word matrix to generate related words by combining a base word or root with one or more affixes. Following is a word matrix for the base word move. The teacher supports students in generating the following list of words using this matrix: moves, moving, moved, mover, movement, movements, remove, removes, removing, removed, remover, unmoving, and unmoved.

• allowing the students to construct their own matrices by choosing their own base words or root with which to work and then providing them with a different set of affixes than the ones used in the modeled matrix

• emphasizing basic orthographic guidelines related to the addition of affixes with the students rather than trying to promote their understanding of the underlying concept and skills of word construction

• having the students begin with a two-box matrix using a few common inflections and then gradually introducing one new derivational affix at a time and explaining how each affix changes the meaning of the base word

• providing the students with a greater number of affixes to choose from and allowing them to construct multisyllable nonsense words using the matrix rather than encouraging them to generate words that have meaning

Answer explanation

Correct Response: C. Option C is correct because the strategy begins with what students already know (inflectional endings) and then increases the difficulty of the task incrementally, introducing just one derivational suffix at a time. In addition, the teacher also provides explicit explanation in how the meaning of an affix transforms the meaning of the base word. Differentiating the lesson in this way makes the task of generating multimorphemic words more accessible to the students without altering the lesson's learning objective. Option A is incorrect because this differentiation strategy increases the difficulty of the task by requiring more knowledge about roots and affixes than the original task. It also provides the students with less structure or scaffolding. Option B is incorrect because the strategy changes the lesson objective from learning morphemic analysis skills to learning spelling conventions related to affixes. Option D is incorrect because, by definition, nonsense words do not have meaning, an essential component of morphemic analysis.