Objective 7

A teacher can best help sixth graders draw inferences from informational text by asking them to complete which of the following statements?

• In my opinion…

• The passage suggests…

• In comparison…

• The author’s first point is…

Answer explanation

To draw an inference from a text is to derive a conclusion that is not stated explicitly in the text but rather is suggested by facts or premises presented. 

A is incorrect because stating an opinion about a text does not necessarily involve deducing or deriving a conclusion from explicit information in the text. 

C and D focus on the use of literal comprehension rather than inferential comprehension.

A sixth-grade teacher gives students several persuasive essays that present contrasting opinions on a current social issue. The teacher then asks students to consider the following questions as they read the texts.

These questions are likely to be most effective for helping students:

• monitor comprehension of informational texts.

• identify the theme in expository texts.

• draw inferences from informational texts.

• analyze point of view in expository texts.

Answer explanation

A persuasive essay is an expository text in which an author takes a stand on an issue and tries to persuade readers by presenting an argument and evidence to support that stand. The teacher's questions are designed to help students analyze the authors' points of view by identifying an author's opinion as presented in an argument, evaluating how effectively the author supports the argument, and considering factors that may have influenced the author's opinion. 

A is incorrect because, while students may monitor their comprehension of the texts, comprehension monitoring is not explicitly taught or reinforced by the questions. 

Similarly, the skills described in B and C may be secondary outcomes of this activity but are not the primary goal.

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:

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

• exposing them to new vocabulary in context.

•  modeling for them metacognitive comprehension strategies.

• giving them an example of fluent oral reading.

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

Answer explanation

Metacognitive reading comprehension strategies prompt students to think about their thinking as they read a text. The teacher models two powerful metacognitive strategies: visualizing to support comprehension and self-questioning to clarify understanding and to set a purpose for further reading. 

A is incorrect because while the teacher talks about the vocabulary word visible and determines what it means deductively, the focus of this portion of the teacher's think-aloud is promoting the students' comprehension of the sentence as a whole in which the word visible occurs. 

C is incorrect because the teacher pauses several times during reading to make comments about the text, so the teacher does not present an example of fluent oral reading. 

The teacher could conceivably summarize the text at the end of the think-aloud (D), but there is no evidence in the description to suggest this will occur.

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 Websites 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 Websites 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 Websites.

Which of the following text features are students likely to find most useful when previewing informational texts such as library books for a research project?

• index

• bibliography

• glossary

• Table of contents

Answer explanation

A table of contents shows how the content of a text is organized and provides clues to the types of information the reader is likely to find in each section. Skimming a text's table of contents provides a reader with a quick and effective preview of the text's content. This allows a reader to determine whether the text might be useful for a particular research project. 

A is incorrect because a typical index lists all the topics covered by a text in great detail, but it is organized alphabetically rather than grouped in broad categories, so it is less effective as a tool for previewing texts. 

B and C are incorrect because bibliographies provide information about the sources the author(s) used in developing the text, while glossaries provide definitions of key terms used in the text.

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.

Use the information below to answer the two questions that follow.

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.

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.