Section 2: Phonics

A second-grade teacher develops an activity to promote word identification and spelling skills in her class. The teacher writes "_ug" on the whiteboard and asks students to fill in the blank with a letter to make different words. Each time a student says a letter to make a new word, the teacher has the class write down the word in their notebooks. Which of the following additional activities is most likely to address the developmental levels of all children?

• Allow each student, one-by-one, to think of as many words using the original prompt. Once one student is finished, allow the next student to repeat the exercise until the whole class has a turn.

• Provide students with two additional prompts, "_at" and "_one", and have them create sentences in their notebooks with as many words using the additional prompts.

• Encourage the class to spell the word aloud before writing the word in their journals.

• Have students say aloud each new word as they write the word in their notebooks.

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

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

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

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

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

While working one-on-one with a student, the teacher administers a nonsense word test. Which of the following skills is the teacher most likely trying to assess?

• spelling

• fluency

• comprehension

• phonics

A student is attempting to determine the pronunciation and meaning of a word while reading a sentence. Which of the following could help with this unfamiliar word? Select all answers that apply.

• sight word recognition

• homophone awareness

• contextual analysis

• structural analysis

A kindergarten student is able to correctly identify all 26 letters and their sounds. She recognizes and creates rhymes, and can usually identify the first letter of objects or names when she hears the words spoken aloud. Despite these skills, she is still struggling to decode simple words, while most of the class has transitioned into using their decoding and sight-word skills to read simple books. The teacher is planning strategic reading intervention to support this student. Which of the following skills should the teacher plan to begin working on with this student?

• phoneme identification

• producing rhymes

• phoneme blending

• sound deletion

Which of the following methods could be used to test a student's decoding abilities?

• responding to questions after the teacher reads a text to the class

• administering a spelling test using sight words

• previewing a story by discussing illustrations on the book cover

• asking a student to read a grade level paragraph aloud

A student with strong phonics knowledge is able to:

• read text with accuracy, speed, and inflection.

• correctly define and use new terminology.

• rapidly name grade-level sight words.

• use relationships between symbols and sounds to read and write words.

A kindergarten student is falling behind as the class progresses through phonetic instruction. She has memorized most of the sound-to-letter pairings, but as the class prepares to move on to more complex letter combinations, the teacher is concerned that she will not be able to catch up without additional help. How should the teacher support this student's phonetic skills development?

• by waiting to introduce new skills until everyone in the class is ready to move on

• by incorporating review into whole-class instruction so all students continue to be exposed to these skills

• by continuing with instruction as planned, because these connections will naturally be reinforced as new skills are taught

• by providing additional instruction and practice, either small-group or individualized, to ensure mastery of these skills

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?

• Counting the syllables in the words.

• Structural analysis

• Isolating the initial sounds of the words

• Increasing understanding of vowel diagraphs

Which of the following best describes the segment “un” in “unbelievable”?

• Root

• Suffix

• Affix

• Prefix