Decoding Lessons

A second-grade teacher regularly reviews spelling patterns previously taught. The teacher also provides students with multiple opportunities to read and write connected text that features words containing the target spelling patterns and to engage in word sorts focused on previously taught spelling patterns. These types of activities are likely to promote students' reading proficiency primarily by developing their:

• knowledge of grade-level vocabulary.

• reading fluency with respect to accuracy.

• awareness of different types of morphemes.

• word recognition with respect to sight words.

Which of the following best describes the relationship between word decoding and reading comprehension in a beginning reader's development?

• Decoding skills and reading comprehension skills tend to develop independently of one another.

• Reading comprehension skills directly facilitate the development of decoding skills.

• Development of decoding skills is secondary to the development of reading fluency and comprehension skills.

• Rapid automatic decoding skills help facilitate development of reading fluency and comprehension.

A teacher can most effectively support first graders' development of rapid automatic word recognition by first teaching students how to:

• apply consistent phonics generalizations in common words.

• use context clues to determine the meanings of words.

• identify the constituent parts of multisyllable words.

• look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary.

A second-grade teacher pairs students who are reading at approximately the same independent reading level for a partner-reading activity. During the activity, the two partners sit side by side and take turns reading aloud from a shared text. Over a period of several days, the partners read a large number of independent-level texts together. This activity is best designed to promote students':

• development of reading rate and automaticity.

• awareness of key aspects of prosodic reading.

• development of comprehension skills and strategies.

• awareness of new phonics elements.

Which of the following strategies would be most effective in promoting second graders' decoding of multisyllable words?

• giving students opportunities to read literature that offers repeated exposure to predictable text

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

• encouraging students to compare the parts of new multisyllable words with known single-syllable words

• reinforcing students' recognition of high-frequency multisyllable words using drills and flashcards

According to basic principles of research-based, systematic phonics instruction, which of the following common English letter combinations would be most appropriate for a first-grade teacher to introduce first?

• ir

• kn

• th

• oi

Which of the following provides the best rationale for incorporating spelling instruction into a first-grade reading program?

• Spelling promotes phonemic awareness by teaching students to break words into onsets and rimes.

• Spelling facilitates vocabulary development by introducing students to new words.

• Spelling simplifies the reading process by focusing students on a limited set of decoding rules.

• Spelling supports word recognition by helping students learn and retain common phonics patterns.

Which of the following statements best describes how oral vocabulary knowledge is related to the process of decoding written words?

• A reader applies decoding skills to unfamiliar written words in order to increase his or her oral vocabulary knowledge.

• A reader's oral vocabulary knowledge allows the reader to derive meaning as he or she decodes written words.

• A reader must have extensive oral vocabulary knowledge in order to learn decoding processes.

• A reader's oral vocabulary knowledge is dependent on his or her development of strong decoding skills.