Subtest 1

A first grade teacher considers ways beginning English Learners develop skills and phonemic awareness and knowledge of English sounds. Which of the following steps will be most important for the teacher to take first.

How should a teacher begin teaching an EL student phonemic rules?

What should the teacher consider first?

• Something with sounds and primary in students language

• Collecting a sample set of rhyming poems and reciting with the student

• Prepare a list of simple English words with different vowel sounds for the student to study

• To do assessments and then plan

Answer explanation

According to Zarillo, pg. 28-29, English Learners, "If a child has mastered the task of blending skills in Spanish there is a very good chance they can blend the sounds in English."

Sat question...

A first grade teacher is teaching beginner readers how to blend phonemes. She writes the word "sat" on the board. Based on research based practices what is the next thing the teacher should do? The teacher is also working in small groups and only teaching single syllable words. This assessment best demonstrates which phonological awareness skill?

• Teacher should show them to blend sounds continuously (Connected text -get the student to blend the sound of words)

• Writing words that were similar like sat, sit, and another word. Have the students determine how they are similar.

• Teacher asks the students to suggest words that rhyme with sat and then writes them on the board.

• Students find rhyming words, write it on the board and read aloud.

Which of the following informal assessments would be most appropriate to use to assess an individual student's phonemic awareness?

• asking the student to identify the sound at the beginning, middle, or end of a spoken word (e.g., "What sound do you hear at the end of step?")

•  having the student listen to a tape-recorded story while looking at the book and then answer several simple questions about the story

•  asking the student to identify the letters in the alphabet that correspond to the initial consonant sounds of several familiar spoken words

•  having the student listen to the teacher read aloud a set of words with the same beginning sound (e.g., train, trap, trouble) and then repeat the words

Answer explanation

Notes- 

Asking the student to identify the sound at the beginning, middle, or end of a spoken word (e.g., “what sound do you hear at the end of step?)12/30- worded differently for me - answer said initial, medial, and final. 3/20 3/22 3/27 3/28 

Mine was worded differently- it didn’t have beginning, middle, end or initial, medial, and final. One of my answer choices had /d/ /o/ /g/ and i picked that one - 4/10/2023, same 5/10

The answer that I saw during my study session was: The teacher says a word like  cat and student should segment the word into /c/ /a/ /t//. So a sound segmentation assessment.  

What strategy is best used to teach phonemic awareness? 

• Saying the alphabet aloud

• Sing “Old Mcdonald”

•  teacher asking student to say the individual sounds of a word? Testers who passed with this answer-  (munay-ki)

•  Break apart words from a list

Answer explanation

Zarillo Book page 29: “One widely used test for phonemic awareness is the Yopp-Singer Test of Phoneme Segmentation. In this test, the teacher says 22 words (e.g., dog, keep, fine, no). The child must provide each sound of the word in order. So when the teacher says dog, the correct response is /d/, /o/, /g/. Remember, sound segmentation is the most difficult phonemic awareness task. So if a student does well on the Yopp-Singer Test, you can assume she or he can do the other phonemic awareness tasks as well.

Pre-teaching phonemic awareness is good for..

The questions said something about pre readers phonemic awareness 

• Prepare students for phonics instruction Testers who passed with this answer-  (annilorac)@Airheadwonder (munay-ki)

• Words carry meaning

• Concepts of print

A second/first grade student that came to class in October and doesn’t perform well on a phonemic awareness activity that was administered to the whole class. What is the next step the teacher should do in addressing the student’s needs?

• engage the student into a variety of something games and activities

• consult the special education teacher to see where the student can benefit from IEP

• conducting formal phonemic assessment testing for the student Testers who passed with this answer-   lyv)(@peace) (spedteacher19) (annilorac)@Airheadwonder (munak-ki)

• making any immediate plans for differentiated instructions for the students in phonemic awareness skills.

Answer explanation

Zarillo pg. 29: “..assessments are used to determine each child’s proficiency level of phonological awareness, including phonemic awareness, before a sequence of lessons begins.” 

THEREFORE wouldn’t it be option C, since there has to be an assessment done before there are any immediate plans to differentiate instruction? Instruction is data driven

Automaticity in phonemic awareness is a skill required to obtain for what type of instruction?

• Phonic skills 

• Increased Vocabulary

• enhancing  reading rate

• Increasing Fluency

Answer explanation

Zillow, pg 43: A child receives automaticity when her/his word identification is swift and accurate. Automaticity is essential for fluent reading. And research shows fluent reading is essential for reading comprehension 

Mine said why is it important to continue fluency when students have already reached automaticity

• Academic language and vocabulary continue to be a struggle with students

• All need continued guidance in phonics instruction - students need continued practice with phonics patterns and elements.

  Testers who passed with this answer-  (munay-ki) @Believe (annilorac)@Airheadwonder

•  All students need continued guidence with simple word identification or something like that 

• High frequency irregular sight words continue to be a significant impact on students' reading ability

Teacher is trying to give words to a student moving from semi phonetic to phonetic spelling. What kind of words should be given? 

• Chow, shop

• To,too,two

• Fun, sit

  Testers who passed with this answer-  (lyv)(annilorac) @Believe

• carry, carried, carries

Answer explanation

Notes-

Fun, sit I believe this is the answer since phonetic on Zarillo says on page 46 “Phonetic spellers know tht letters represent sounds and at least one letter represents each sound in a word. For example, I lik two fill a kitt is I like to fly a kite.

A first grader who demonstrates pre phonetic writing (just know what pre phonetic writing sample looks like you will have to choose one of the options given)

•  Letters are made up of words

• student does not know that letters make words.

  Testers who passed with this answer-  @Airheadwonder

• I don't know

Answer explanation

Notes- Zarrillo p. 46.1) Pre-communicative- spelling shows no understanding that letters represent sounds. Rather than writing letters, the child in this draws pictures or makes squiggles, letters appear randomly assigned, no understanding of the alphabetic principle. Example, a child might write aaLLo Sbav to represent My Dad’s new car.

 (2) Semi-phonetic- children attempt to use letters to represent sounds. Their knowledge of sound-symbol relationships, however, is poorly developed. At this level children often do not write at least one letter for each sound in a word; that is, some sounds in words are not represented. Example, banana might be spelled baa. (

(3) Phonetic- spellers know that letters represent sounds and at least on letter represents each sound in a word. Problem is that young spellers do not choose the right letter or combination of letters no to represent sounds. To use linguistic terms, all mphonemes have a grapheme. The writing of a child at the phonetic stage of spelling development is somewhat difficult to read. Example, I lik two flii a kitt is I like to fly a kite.

phonemes (A speech sound in a language that signals a difference in meaning. Example: /v/ and /b/  are English phonemes because there difference  between vote and boat. A simpler definition is that phonemes are the smallest unit of speech.)  grapheme (a linguistic term for the smallest written unit of a language. In English, graphemes are the 26 letters in the alphabet Chapter 3.

(4) Transitional- A child at the transitional stage of spelling development knows most of the orthographic patterns of  English. All sound have letters, and for the most part the child choose the correct letter or combination of letters to represent sounds. Mistakes occur with sounds that have several spellings, such as the long a. This is why the child writes nayborhood. Transitional spelling is easy to read. Example: a child at this stage might write, The firefiters have to be able to climb up the sides of bildings.

5 conventional- in the conventional stage of spelling development, the child spells almost all words correctly. The only mistakes at this level occur when the child tries to spell new words with irregular spellings. Children at this level generally recognize that a word they have spelled doesn't look right.