STR Test- Foundations of STR

Which of the following words does not contain an example of a consonant digraph?

• This

• Past

• Fish

• When

Answer explanation

Past contain a consonant blend, not a consonant digraph. Consonant digraphs form a new sound, whereas consonant blends retain the letters' original sounds while blending them together.

Teaching students to use contextual analysis when reading unfamiliar words is likely to help their accuracy by helping the student:

• Verify the accuracy of their reading by considering the word's meaning within the sentence.

• To make inferences about a text while they are reading it.

• Improve their figurative understanding of the text.

• Predict what the next word in the sentence will be before reading it.

After mastering the decoding of CVCC words, a student should move on to which decoding skill?

• CVCe

• Multisyllabic Words

• Vowel Diphthongs

• CVVC

Answer explanation

After mastering CVCC words, a student would be reading to begin decoding CVCe patterns.

A teacher wants to help his students with sight word recognition. Which activity would best meet this goal?

• Sorting words into groups based on syllable counts.

• Matching word pairs printed on flash cards.

• Reading a short text aloud to the teacher.

• Writing sentences using high-frequency words.

Answer explanation

In order to be successful, students have to read and recognize the sight words on the cards and then match them. This repeated exposure to the words will help students recognize them in the future.

The following words demonstrate which phonetic letter-sound relationship? Please, gem, cent, knight, rough.

• Vowel digraphs

• Consonant Digraphs

• Consonant Blends

• Consonant Irregularities

Answer explanation

All of the words in this list contain a consonant that makes an irregular sound. The s, g, c, k, and gh all act irregularly.

Which of the following best describes the difference between a consonant digraph and a consonant blend?

• Consonant digraphs form a new sound, whereas consonant blends retain the letters' original sounds while blending them together.

• 
  Consonant digraphs will sometimes include a vowel, but consonant blends only have consonants.

• 
  Consonant digraphs mimic vowel sounds, while consonants in blends retain their original sounds.

• Consonant digraphs and consonant blends both form new sounds, but consonant blends only occur at the beginnings of words.

Answer explanation

Consonant digraphs and consonant blends are both composed of two consonants. The difference is that consonant digraphs form a new sound, whereas consonant blends retain their original sound.

Which type of cueing system is being activated in the scenario below?

A teacher creates a series of word lists like the example below, with the topic word at the top and descriptors below. Students are asked to read through the lists, draw a line through any terms that don't belong, and add any words they think are missing.

• Semantic

• Pragmatic

• Graphophonic

• Syntacic

Answer explanation

This activity is asking students to make connections between words they know and create a "map" of semantic closeness. Students who have a strong semantic knowledge of like terms are able to define new words when they are encountered in a reading.

A teacher writes the word "pie" on the chalkboard. She says the word, then says, "What other words do I know that have the same vowel sound as 'pie'?" She adds "idea" to the list. Next she asks the class if anyone else can add words with the same vowel sound to the list. Once the class has a list of 10 words, she asks the class to write a short story that uses as many of the words as they'd like from the list.

In this lesson, the teacher is focusing on teaching:

• Short Vowel Sounds

• Long Vowel Sounds

• Silent e Words

• Vowel Digraphs

Answer explanation

The words in the example both contain a long i sound.

A teacher is teaching her first-grade students the skill of decoding. She prepares the following activity for her class.

Setup: Seat students in a circle. Prepare a bag with letter cards.

Step 1: Introduce students to the rime -it. Show students how to use rime cards and letter cards to make words, like sit, bit, hit.

Step 2: Give each student a rime card.

Step 3: Have students take turns reaching into the bag and removing a letter. Have each student place the letter at the front of the rime card and pronounce the word.

What could the teacher do to modify the activity for the English language learners in the class?

• Ask the students if the word is real or nonsensical, and if it is real, have them use it in a sentence.

• Pre-teach all of the possible vocabulary word combinations.

• Have the students perform the activity in small groups.

• Limit the rimes to sounds that exist in the ELL's native languages.

Answer explanation

Blending onset and rimes orally is an effective way for English learners to practice phonics, but to ensure that they are not confused, they should be informed when a word is nonsensical.

During a decoding exercise, a first-grade teacher noticed a student could not decode new words when particular suffixes were added to the word. This student would most benefit from which of the following instruction?

• Structural Analysis

• Counting the syllables in the words.

• Isolating the initial sounds of the words.

• Increasing understanding of vowel digraphs.

Answer explanation

Structural analysis is the practice of using word parts, such as roots and affixes, to identify words. Structural analysis skills will help the student use knowledge of the root word and suffix to decode the word.