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WorksheetsFoundations of Reading Practice
Total questions: 130
Worksheet time: 1hrs 5mins
When a person is able to connect the way words look with the way that they sound it is called:
sound awareness
print awareness
word-print awareness
word awareness
Which of the following activities can help young children learn to write letters?
All choices are correct
Have students practice reading out loud
Have students not practice writing letters at home with colored markers
Have students form letters using modeling clay or Play-Doh
After reading a text aloud with her class, a 6th grade English teacher asks her students to briefly describe in their own words what they have just read. What is the fundamental purpose of this "retelling" activity?
o develop their summarization skills
To assess whether or not the students struggle with the text's vocabulary
To help determine their reading level and comprehension
To assess whether or not students can follow along when listening to someone else read aloud
Which of these assessments is designed to predict future ability to succeed in a particular content domain?
Achievement assessment
Scholastic Aptitude Assessment
Specific Aptitude Assessment
School-readiness assessment
Use the image to help answer the question. A teacher instructs students to read the following passage. After the students read the story, the teacher wants students to make connections. Which of the following questions should the teacher ask?
''What do you think happens after the girl is closed in the room to spin gold?''
'Why might the king have interest in having more gold?''
''What type of tone is being conveyed?''
''If the story took place in the modern day, what tool might be used to make gold instead of a spinning wheel? ''
A teacher is using a text evaluation scale to choose classroom reading materials for her third-grade students. The teacher chooses a set of chapter books that she has deemed to have a high level of friendliness. During the school year, the teacher realizes that her assessment of the books was accurate because
the students understand the books because of the conciseness of the information therein.
the books regularly challenge students to increase their reading levels.
while the books are not the most popular among the students during independent reading time, students seem to not mind using the books during classroom instruction to learn reading skills.
the students have shown an increase in grade-level vocabulary usage when they speak.
Which of the following is an example of intrinsic motivation?
A student reads a book because they want to learn more about a topic
A student reads a book to receive extra recess time
A student reads a book because it is required for a grade
A student reads a book because their parents will buy them an ice cream when they finish
Which is NOT an example of the whole language approach (WLA)?
best guess spelling
approximated spelling
sight words
phonics
Which of the following sentences does not contain a pair of homographs?
The night was pitch black as the baseball player threw out the first pitch.
After finding money on the river bank, he decided that he was going to go put it in his bank.
Ever since my brother sustained a wound, I have been feeling really wound up.
It has been a year since I visited the site of the natural disaster, but I have not been able to forget what a horrible sight it was.
Affixes are combined with words to change the meaning of the original word. What is the original word referred to as?
basic
root
suffix
prefix
Which of the following scenarios presents an example of encoding?
Charlotte, a Kindergarten student, reads a short picture book on her own and correctly pronounces words she does not understand
Joan, a third grade student, reads a complicated chapter book about magical dragons, and is able to figure out the meanings of difficult words using clues from the text
Reid, a first-grade student, writes two sentences about his dog using his knowledge of letters and sounds to spell out words and phrases phonetically
William, a Kindergarten student, uses his knowledge of the sounds letters make to sound out a string of unfamiliar words written on the whiteboard
A teacher is observing students and their phonics development. The teacher and the students each conference so that the teacher can keep a running record of each student's progress. The teacher gives each student a paragraph to read out loud. The following is one student's prompt and a representation of how they pronounced their response. The student would benefit from which of the following?
instruction on consonant digraphs
practice verbalizing consonant blends
review of consonant sounds
activities focused on hard and soft sounding consonants
What are the 5 skills necessary for children to develop phonologically?
word awareness, an understanding of alliteration and rhyme, syllable awareness, rhyme manipulation, and phoneme awareness
babbling, jabbering, true vocabulary, fluency, and word segmentation
phoneme recognition, phonics, letter recognition, rhyming, and improved vocabulary
understanding alliteration, ability to produce rhyming words, letter recognition, phoneme mastery, and
sound manipulation
What 3 terms can help to define and better understand phonology?
syntax, morphology, linguistics
phonetics, phonemes, phonics
phonemes, allophones, morphemes
synonyms, antonyms, acronyms
Students are completing a research project and are going through different texts to gather their references. While the students are researching, the teacher reminds them to read slowly so that they do not mix up their information
The teacher is asking students to change what?
reading focus
reading rate
reading speed
reading pace
Which of the following is the most simple way to differentiate reading instruction at any educational level?
Allow each student the freedom to pick their own reading materials
Give each student a different text to read according to their ability
Provide a wide spectrum of texts/genres/content to read
Group students according to reading level and use a different teaching method for each one
It is important for readers to make text-to-text connections for all the following reasons, except
To help readers develop textual analysis skills
To enhance reading and writing abilities
To inspire personal creativity through comparison
Which of the following is an activity that teachers are encouraged to use after reading a text?
Summarize the text
Analyzing the title
Making a list of unknown vocabulary words
Fill out a plot diagram
A week after his students take a field trip to the zoo, a teacher reads them the story of ''The Elephant's Child '' within Rudyard Kipling's ''Just So Stories. ''The following shows the teacher's interactions with the students as she begins reading, interspersed with parts of the passage: The teacher is using a reading approach that
encourages students to think as they read, thus making reading interactive.
provokes students to be active readers so that they can keep track of both what the teacher is reading and what the teacher is remarking about.
models how students should avoid disrupting the flow of reading because they will lose sight of the story.
allows students to listen to the story in snippets so that they do not become overwhelmed.
Phonics is a way to teach which of the following skills?
writing only
reading only
hearing
reading and writing
When it comes to analyzing literature, what's the difference between comprehension and interpretation?
Comprehension is identifying text structure. Interpretation is a deeper look at why the text was structured in that way.
Comprehension is the basic understanding of a text. Interpretation is a deeper exploration of the text.
Comprehension is knowing what happens in a story. Interpretation is understanding why these things happen.
Comprehension is identifying the plot of a story. Interpretation is exploring the context of the story.
Which of the following graphic organizers would best compare four different texts?
Pie chart
Venn diagram
Plot diagram
Story maps
What does PAR stand for in the PAR method?
Participate, analyze, refresh
Pinpoint, acknowledge, reread
Prepare, assist, reflect
Pick, access, remember
If a teacher wants to know their students' preconceived notions on a particular subject before teaching said subject, which method would be best to find out?
The PAR Method
The KWL Method
The Anticipation Guide
The GIST Method
Which theory involves identifying a student's reading readiness by taking a series of tests?
differential theory
maturationist theory
emergent literacy theory
social constructivist theory
Which of the following terms refers to how we organize information in our minds?
mapping
memory
processing
schema
Which of the following is NOT a strategy for teaching directionality of print?
Having children interact with or visually observe the book as it is read aloud by an adult reader
Keeping the book turned to face the reader so the child does not become distracted by pictures
Showing children the books' details by pointing out pictures, titles, and other important details
Turning pages to illustrate how books function and the order in which pages should be read
Which of the following is an advantage of a leveled library?
It allows teachers to easily select educationally appropriate books for students of all reading levels
It increases reading motivation
It provides books with diversity in socioeconomic features, such as gender and race
It offers a wide variety of books and topic choices
One of the best ways to assess the process of visualization is to have students:
base their visualizations on things that they are familiar with.
create a tangible picture of their visualizations.
mimic their visualizations based off of the images within a story.
describe their visualizations in writing.
Ms. Pike enjoys reading time in her classroom. She builds plenty of time in her lessons for her students to practice their reading skills. In order to make the best use of time, Ms. Pike pairs the students up with a peer to read with. During this time, one student reads while the other student provides feedback, and then they switch roles.
What strategies is Ms. Pike using?
Interdisciplinary teaching
Partner reading
Inclusive teaching
Coaching session
Which of the following students is demonstrating the specific type of phonological awareness known as phonemic awareness?
a student who, after being shown a letter of the alphabet, can orally identify its corresponding sound(s)
a student who listens to the words sing, ring, fling, and hang and can identify that hang is different
a student who, after hearing the word hat, can orally identify that it ends with the sound /t/
a student who listens to the word magazine and can determine that it contains three syllables
A kindergarten teacher could best determine if a child has begun to develop phonemic awareness by asking the child to:
count the number of words the child hears in a sentence as the teacher says the sentence.
say the word cat, then say the first sound the child hears in the word.
point to the correct letter on an alphabet chart as the teacher names specific letters.
listen to the teacher say boat and coat, then identify whether the two words rhyme.
As students begin to read, the ability to blend phonemes orally contributes to their reading development primarily because it helps students:
recognize and understand sight words in a text.
use knowledge of letter-sound correspondence to decode words.
guess the meaning of unfamiliar words from their context.
divide written words into onsets and rimes.
A teacher holds up a series of familiar objects, asking students to name each object and isolate the final sound they hear. This type of activity would be most appropriate for a student who:
needs help developing phonemic segmentation skills.
is performing below grade-level benchmarks in reading fluency.
lacks automaticity in word recognition.
has difficulty sounding out phonetically regular one-syllable words.
Phonemic awareness contributes most to the development of phonics skills in beginning readers by helping them:
recognize different ways in which one sound can be represented in print
count the number of syllables in a written word.
identify in spoken language separate sounds that can be mapped to letters.
understand the concept of a silent letter.
Which of the following first-grade students has attained the highest level of phonemic awareness?
a student who, after hearing the word hot and the sound /ĭ/, can substitute /ĭ/ for /ŏ/ to make the word hit
a student who can orally segment the word wonderful into won-der-ful
a student who, after hearing the words fish and fun, can identify that they both begin with the same phoneme, /f/
a student who can orally segment the word train into its onset and rime
Asking students to listen to a word (e.g., same) and then tell the teacher all the sounds in the word is an exercise that would be most appropriate for students who:
have a relatively low level of phonological awareness.
are beginning to develop systematic phonics skills.
have a relatively high level of phonemic awareness.
are beginning to master the alphabetic principle.
A kindergarten teacher asks a small group of students to repeat after her. First, she says the word grape and then pronounces it as gr and ape. Next, she says the word take and then pronounces it as t and ake. This activity is likely to promote the students' phonemic awareness primarily by:
helping them recognize distinct syllables in oral language.
encouraging them to divide words into onsets and rimes.
teaching them how to distinguish between consonants and vowels.
promoting their awareness of lettersound correspondence.
A teacher shows a student pictures of familiar objects. As the teacher points to the first picture, she asks the student to name the object in the picture. Next, she asks the student to count on his fingers the number of sounds he makes as he says the word again. This activity is most likely to promote which of the following?
understanding of the alphabetic principle
phonemic awareness skills
development of letter-sound correspondence
word identification skills
A beginning-level English Language Learner can consistently blend individual phonemes to make simple English words composed of two or three phonemes but is having difficulty blending the sounds of familiar single-syllable words composed of four phonemes (e.g., clip, trap, spin). Which of the following questions would be most important for the first-grade teacher to consider when addressing the needs of this student?
Are the target words in the student's oral vocabulary in English?
Does the student's primary language have consonant blends?
Can the student distinguish between short and long vowel sounds in English?
Do the target words have cognates in the student's primary language?
A fourth-grade student reads on grade level and consistently scores very high on spelling tests that are part of weekly word study activities. However, the student often misspells the same words, and other familiar words, in everyday writings. The table shows examples of typical errors the student makes on class writing assignments and in informal notes to friendsThe student's overall spelling performance suggests that the student most likely has a weakness in which of the following foundational skills?
detecting syllable boundaries in words
sounding out and blending lettersounds to make words
discriminating between a word's root morpheme and affixes
segmenting and sequencing phonemes in words
A preschool child picks up an unfamiliar book, opens it to the end, points to the text, and begins to "pretend read" the story. These behaviors suggest that the child most likely:
has well-developed book-handling skills
knows where individual words begin and end.
has developed an understanding that print carries meaning.
understands the concept of print directionality.
A preschool child draws a stick figure and makes some unintelligible scribbles around it. When she shows it to her teacher, she points to the scribbles and says, "This says 'I love mommy.'" This behavior suggests that the child most likely:
is ready to learn the concept of letter-sound correspondence.
is beginning to develop awareness that words are made of distinct phonemes.
has a basic understanding
has grasped the idea that the function of print is distinct from that of pictures
At the end of each school day, a preschool teacher encourages the children to talk about the day's events. As the children describe each event, the teacher writes it on large block paper. Afterward, the teacher reads the list back to the class. This activity would contribute to the children's literacy development primarily by promoting their:
basic understanding of the alphabetic principle.
awareness that speech can be represented by writing.
basic understanding of word boundaries.
awareness of the relationship between syllables and the spoken word.
A kindergarten teacher hangs labels on key objects in the classroom, puts up posters that include words and captions, and always has a big book on display for the children's use. This kind of classroom environment is most likely to help promote children's:
recognition that words are composed of separate sounds.
recognition of high-frequency sight words.
development of automaticity in word recognition.
development of an awareness of print.
A preschool teacher is reading a story to his class. As he reads, he holds the book so the children can see the words and pictures while his finger follows the line of print. This activity would contribute to the children's reading development primarily by:
promoting their development of letter recognition skills.
helping them recognize phonemes that occur frequently in print.
developing their awareness of left-toright directionality.
promoting their understanding of letter-sound correspondence.
Pointing out the title, beginning, middle, and end of a book to a group of preschool children before reading the book aloud to them contributes to their reading development primarily by promoting their:
understanding of text directionality.
development of book-handling skills.
understanding of the concept of schema.
development of literal comprehension strategies.
Which of the following strategies would be most effective in promoting kindergarten children's ability to recognize and name letters of the alphabet?
The teacher says the name of a letter while the children each trace its shape on a cutout letter.
The teacher posts the entire alphabet around the room in several different formats.
The teacher reads aloud to the children from books that contain mostly words that follow regular phonics patterns.
The teacher emphasizes the initial sounds of words when reading to the children.
Having kindergarten children practice tracing the letters of the alphabet in sand is most appropriate for children who are having difficulty:
internalizing the alphabetic principle.
recognizing that print carries meaning.
understanding the relationship between spoken and written language.
developing letter formation skills.
A preschool teacher shows a group of children pictures of everyday objects. Below each picture is printed the letter of the alphabet that corresponds to the word's initial sound. As the teacher points to each picture, she names the object, then she points to the letter underneath it and says the sound it makes. The teacher invites the children to repeat the sound with her. This activity is likely to contribute to the children's reading development primarily by:
illustrating the concept of word boundaries.
focusing on auditory discrimination skills.
introducing the concept of onset and rime.
demonstrating that phonemes are represented by letters.
A kindergarten teacher wants to promote students' understanding of the alphabetic principle. Which of the following would be the most effective first step in a sequence of instruction designed to achieve this goal?
Talk with students about selected consonants using a series of posters that each feature one consonant and contain pictures of items whose initial phoneme demonstrates that consonant's sound.
Have students trace both lowercase and uppercase letters of the alphabet and then practice reproducing the letters on their own.
Talk with students about the title, beginning, middle, and end of a story and point to these parts while reading the story aloud from a big book.
Put labels on several familiar objects in the classroom and regularly read the labels aloud to the students.
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 partnerreading 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
A second-grade teacher administers spelling inventories periodically to help assess students' phonics knowledge. The chart shows one student's performance on a spelling inventory at the beginning of the school year and again several months later. The student's performance on the second administration of the spelling inventory indicates that the student made the most improvement in which of the following areas?
initial and final consonants
short vowels and diphthongs
digraphs and blends
long and r-controlled vowels
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.
Read the sentence below; then answer the question that follows.
My family went to the circus last weekend. I liked the clowns the best. They were very funny.
A student makes several miscues when reading these sentences aloud. Which of the following miscues represents an error in decoding consonant blends?
omitting circus
pronouncing clowns as clones
saying bet for best
shortening funny to fun
Which of the following sentences contains a pair of italicized words that differ from one another by one phoneme?
He took off his cap so that he could take a nap.
She works at a bank that is located near the bank of a river.
She told him not to buy a ticket because she had already bought one.
His face looked pale after he carried the pail of water for a mile.
Which of the following students demonstrates variation in reading development that would require intervention focused on explicit phonics instruction?
a kindergarten student who can recite the alphabet from memory but has difficulty distinguishing individual phonemes in words
a first-grade student who can easily decode nonsense words but has limited comprehension of the meaning of text
a second-grade student who is adept at using context clues to identify words but has difficulty sounding out the letters in unfamiliar words
a third-grade student who can read most grade-level text fluently but has difficulty with unfamiliar irregular low-frequency words
A student who has mastered which of the following skills along the phonological awareness continuum is best prepared to begin explicit phonics instruction?
being aware that a word is made up of one or more phonemes
being able to separate a word's onset and rime
being aware that words can be divided into syllables
being able to segment and blend a word's phonemes
Use the information to answer the question that follows. A teacher poses the following question to fourth-grade students. What words can you think of that have the word "act" in them? Using student responses, the teacher creates the for web on the board. This technique is likely to be most helpful for enhancing the students' awareness of:
morphemic structure.
compound words.
syllable patterns.
Greek roots.
Which of the following sets of words would be most effective to use when introducing students to the concept of structural analysis?
late, great, wait, eight
afraid, obtain, explain, remain
swim, swims, swam, swum
pretest, retest, tested, testing
An English Language Learner pronounces tigers as tiger when reading the following sentence aloud.
They saw tigers at the zoo.
Which of the following actions is most appropriate for the teacher to take first in response to the student's miscue?
guide the student in reading lists of nouns with and without plural –s on the end
verify that the student understands that tigers means more than one tiger
provide the student with independent practice in adding plural –s to singular nouns
provide a picture card to determine whether the student can identify a tiger
The following sentence is missing several words.
(1) unusual (2) of spices (3) the soup an (4) flavor.
A word with the suffix -tion would fit best in which of the blanks in the sentence?
1
2
3
4
Which of the following principles is best illustrated by the words watched, wanted, and warned?
Spelling is often the best predictor of the pronunciation of a suffix.
Open syllables are usually pronounced with a long vowel sound.
The spelling of a suffix is often more reliable than its pronunciation.
The second letter of a consonant blend is usually pronounced as the onset of the following syllable.
The words enjoyable, maneuverable, corruptible, and convertible best illustrate which of the following principles?
The spelling of a suffix can vary depending on its root word.
The accented syllable of a root word can shift when certain suffixes are added to it.
The addition of a suffix can alter the spelling of its root word.
The pronunciation of a suffix can change when added to certain root words.
A second-grade teacher has students pull two single-syllable nouns from a hat (e.g., bulb, light) and asks them to form words by putting the words together (e.g., lightbulb). Students then draw pictures to illustrate their new words and write short stories using the new words. This activity is likely to be most effective for helping students:
use visualization as a reading comprehension strategy.
apply knowledge of phonics generalizations.
use context clues to identify unfamiliar words.
understand the concept of compound words.
Instruction in structural analysis is likely to promote upper elementary students' reading comprehension primarily by:
facilitating their ability to use phonics generalizations to decode words.
enhancing their familiarity with the text structures and features used in different genres.
equipping them with strategies for understanding the meanings of unfamiliar multisyllable words.
increasing their knowledge of key vocabulary found in content-area textbooks.
A third-grade teacher administers this informal reading assessment to individual students.
One student performs significantly better on the second part of the test than on the first. Which of the following is the best assessment of this student's reading performance?
The student is proficient at using context clues to help identify words but has weak word decoding skills.
The student can decode single-syllable words but has not yet learned how to decode multisyllable words.
The student is proficient at using syntactic clues to identify words but is not yet skilled at using semantic clues.
The student understands letter-sound correspondence but has limited awareness of syllable structure.
A second-grade teacher uses the following handout to guide the class through an activity.
This activity would best promote students' ability to:
identify and decode common homographs.
use structural clues to identify the meaning of words.
cluster new vocabulary together into meaningful groups.
find and use synonyms for common words.
A sixth-grade student encounters the following sentence in a short story.
She experienced a sense of déjà vu as she walked down the street of the strange new city.
The student asks the teacher about the meaning of déjà vu in the sentence. The teacher could best respond by advising the student to take which of the following steps?
Make note of the word in a vocabulary log, and then study the word after finishing the story.
Use context clues in the sentence to guess the meaning of the word, and then try out that meaning in the sentence.
Look up the word in the dictionary, and then paraphrase the sentence
Break the word into its component parts, and then compare the parts to the meanings of similar known words.
Before beginning a new content-area reading passage, a fourth-grade teacher asks students to think of words related to the topic of the text. The teacher writes the words on the board and then asks the students to suggest ways to group the words based on meaningful connections. The teacher also encourages them to explain their reasons for grouping particular words together. This series of activities is likely to promote the students' reading development primarily by helping them:
extend and reinforce their expressive and receptive vocabularies related to the text's topic.
infer the meaning of new vocabulary in the text based on word derivations.
strengthen and extend their understanding of the overall structure of the text.
verify word meanings in the text by incorporating syntactic and semantic clues into their word analysis.
A first-grade teacher designs the following activity.
1. Divide students into pairs.
2. Have students sit back-to-back.
3. Give one student in each pair a picture of a familiar object to describe to his or her partner.
4. The partner tries to name the object based on the description.
This activity is likely to contribute to students' literacy development primarily by:
helping them begin to make connection between print and the spoken word.
fostering their ability to work independently of teacher guidance.
promoting their oral language development and listening comprehension.
encouraging them to practice speaking skills.
A fifth-grade student reads the sentence, "After playing with her friends all day, Kaylee did her science homework, her geography project, and her composition in one fell swoop." The student asks the teacher for help understanding what is meant by the phrase one fell swoop. The teacher can best help the student understand this idiomatic expression by:
discussing with the student more examples of the phrase used in context.
directing the student to look up different meanings of fell and swoop in the dictionary.
helping the student create a tree diagram of the structure of the phrase.
asking the student to find other sentences in the text that use the words fell and swoop
A second-grade student demonstrates automaticity decoding grade-level regular and irregular words. However, the student frequently experiences poor text comprehension. Which of the following is the first step the teacher should take in order to promote this student's reading proficiency?
evaluating the student's ability to apply grade-level phonics skills
determining the rate of the student's phonological processing
evaluating the degree to which the student uses syntactic clues
determining the extent of the student's vocabulary knowledge
A fifth-grade teacher is about to begin a new unit on weather and climate. Which of the following types of vocabulary words from the unit would be most appropriate for the teacher to preteach?
words that are conceptually challenging
high-frequency, phonetically irregular words
multisyllable words
high-frequency words with multiple meanings
A text includes the word indefensible, which is unfamiliar to some students in a fourthgrade class. Which of the following strategies for teaching the word would be most effective in both clarifying the meaning of the word and extending the students' vocabulary development?
Have the students enter the word in their ongoing list of new vocabulary words and then look up its definition independently.
Use explicit explanation to describe the meaning of the word to the students before they read the text.
Help the students apply structural and contextual analyses to construct and confirm the word's meaning.
Ask the students to paraphrase the sentence that contains the word by substituting a synonym for the word.
In which of the following sentences is context most helpful in understanding the italicized word?
Tulip trees are ubiquitous in Virginia and in some other parts of the United States as well.
John's friends surreptitiously planned a housewarming party for him soon after he had moved in.
Mary is magnanimous in all of her dealings with people, even when she does not know a person well.
Peter's mother was adamant that he should attend college, but his father did not seem to care.
Students in a third-grade class are studying different forms of transportation that are used around the world. As part of this unit of study, they work together to create a semantic map of words associated with transportation, including words that they have recently learned (e.g., barge, rickshaw). This activity is most likely to promote students' vocabulary development by:
showing them how structural analysis can be used to determine the meaning of new vocabulary.
helping them to categorize, visualize, and remember new vocabulary.
guiding them to discover the multiple meanings of new vocabulary.
providing them with frequent, varied reading experiences using the new vocabulary.
A third-grade class that includes several English Language Learners is about to read a text about water sports. Which of the following teaching strategies would be most effective in promoting the English Language Learners' comprehension of the text?
Have the students look up unknown English words using bilingual dictionaries and then make vocabulary lists in both languages.
Pair English Language Learners with native speakers of English and have the native speakers explain any unknown vocabulary.
Activate students' prior knowledge about the topic and provide visual aids such as illustrations to clarify new vocabulary.
Give students a list of new vocabulary with definitions and ask the students to try to construct their own sentences using the words.
A sixth-grade teacher is planning explicit instruction to help students read and understand sentences that have a complex sentence structure. Which of the following skills would be most effective for the teacher to focus on first?
identifying the independent clause at the heart of a sentence
distinguishing between sentences that use passive and active voice
identifying common transition words that link ideas in two or more sentences
distinguishing between demonstrative and indefinite pronouns in a sentence
Over the course of the school year, a sixthgrade student who had been a fluent, proficient reader in previous years is having increasing difficulty comprehending gradelevel literary and informational texts assigned in class. The results of informal, curriculum-based assessments indicate that the student still meets grade-level expectations in vocabulary knowledge, but the student's reading rate and comprehension have dropped below grade level. The student also tends to choose fiction and graphic novels written well below the sixthgrade level for independent reading. The student's overall reading performance suggests that the student would likely benefit most from instruction focused on promoting the student's:
knowledge and skills related to understanding complex academic language.
understanding of important features of skilled prosodic reading.
development of decoding skills and automaticity recognizing grade-level sight words.
skill in applying contextual analysis and other word analysis strategies.
Use the information below to answer three questions that follow.
Before reading aloud a book about a farm to a group of beginning readers, a first-grade teacher has the students brainstorm and briefly discuss words related to farms. Next, the teacher reads the text aloud from a big book, pointing to each word being read. Periodically, the teacher stops to discuss with students key concepts or events described in the text and to guide students in relating the text to the illustrations. After finishing the read-aloud, the teacher puts the book in the classroom library and encourages the students to read it on their own.
The students are most likely to be successful in their independent reading of the book if:
the students can decode and understand the meaning of at least 95 percent of the words in the text.
the text does not include compound sentences joined by coordinating conjunctions such as and, or, or but.
the students come from homes where silent reading is extensively modeled and encouraged by caregivers.
the text primarily deals with fictional rather than factual accounts of characters and/or events.
Use the information below to answer three questions that follow.
Before reading aloud a book about a farm to a group of beginning readers, a first-grade teacher has the students brainstorm and briefly discuss words related to farms. Next, the teacher reads the text aloud from a big book, pointing to each word being read. Periodically, the teacher stops to discuss with students key concepts or events described in the text and to guide students in relating the text to the illustrations. After finishing the read-aloud, the teacher puts the book in the classroom library and encourages the students to read it on their own.
The theoretical basis for including the brainstorming activity in this lesson is that having the students share their vocabulary knowledge about farms prior to the reading will:
give the teacher an opportunity to assess and compare the students' oral language skills.
reinforce the students' understanding and recognition of key concepts about print.
facilitate the students' comprehension by activating prior knowledge and building schema.
prepare the students to benefit from explicit phonics instruction related to the text.
Use the information below to answer three questions that follow.
Before reading aloud a book about a farm to a group of beginning readers, a first-grade teacher has the students brainstorm and briefly discuss words related to farms. Next, the teacher reads the text aloud from a big book, pointing to each word being read. Periodically, the teacher stops to discuss with students key concepts or events described in the text and to guide students in relating the text to the illustrations. After finishing the read-aloud, the teacher puts the book in the classroom library and encourages the students to read it on their own.
The most important reason for putting the book in the classroom library is to promote the students':
love of reading by facilitating their access to a story that they have already heard, understood, and enjoyed.
understanding of the alphabetic principle by reinforcing their knowledge of letter-sound correspondences.
oral language development by providing them with the opportunity to imitate the teacher's reading of a text.
use of metacognitive strategies by allowing them to practice self-monitoring when reading silently.
Which of the following strategies would be most appropriate to use to promote secondgrade students' ability to analyze key ideas and details in a literary text?
explicitly teaching students the key features and conventions of different literary genres
prompting students to evaluate the significance of a story's setting with respect to its theme
helping students create a story map of the main characters in a story and the events with which they are involved
encouraging students to clarify their understanding of a story by reflecting on their personal experiences
After students in a sixth-grade class finish reading a historical novel about the U.S. Civil War, the teacher asks each student to bring in an object, or a picture or illustration of an object, that, to them, represents the book. The students must also identify a passage or passages from the book that they can use to support their choices when they present their objects to the class. This activity is most likely to promote students' reading development by helping them understand the importance of:
determining an author's stated or implied main point of view.
using text structure to develop a general summary of a literary work.
identifying a novel's mood by analyzing the author's use of figurative language.
basing interpretations about a literary work on textual evidence.
A fifth-grade teacher guides students in reading a complex literary text. First, the teacher reads aloud the beginning of the text as the students follow along silently in their copies. Next, the teacher rereads key phrases and sentences, asking students what the author meant by certain statements or by the choice of certain words. Finally, the teacher and students reread the section aloud together with expression. The teacher repeats these steps with each section of the text. This activity promotes reading proficiency primarily by:
modeling for students how to engage in close reading of academic texts.
developing students' word consciousness and love of interesting new words.
helping students achieve grade-level fluency benchmarks for accuracy and rate.
encouraging students to apply metacognitive comprehension strategies as they read.
Sixth-grade students have just finished reading a chapter in a novel and are getting ready to write an entry in their response journals. The teacher could most effectively develop students' literary response skills by assigning which of the following journal prompts?
What new vocabulary words did you learn when reading this chapter? List and define the new words from the chapter.
What happened in the chapter? Describe two or three events from the chapter.
What do you think is the main idea or theme of the novel? Relate specific events in this chapter to the theme you suggest.
Which characters are mentioned in this chapter? List each of the characters.
A second-grade teacher reads a trade book aloud to the class. Which of the following postreading activities would be most likely to promote the students' comprehension of the story by enhancing their literary analysis skills?
encouraging the students to identify the key vocabulary words in the story
discussing with the students how the characters in the story respond to major events and challenges
asking the students to reread the story silently and respond to several literal comprehension questions
having the students "freewrite" about the story in their reading response journals
A fifth-grade class is about to read a play about the life of Harriet Tubman called "Travels on the Railroad." Which of the following prereading activities would best promote students' comprehension of the text?
introducing the common elements of plays as a genre and looking at sections of a printed play as a class
asking students to generate several questions about the play based on the play's title
asking students to share what they already know about the time period during which the play takes place
encouraging groups of students to create and perform their own short skits about the same subject
A second-grade teacher notices that one of her students lacks fluency when reading aloud. The first thing the teacher should do in order to help this student is assess whether the student also has difficulties with:
predicting
inferring
metacognition
decoding
Read the passage below; then answer the question that follows.
For the second time that week, Saul forgot to wash his hands after working on his painting. He had gotten so involved filling in the ocean in his picture that he had barely even heard the teacher telling everyone it was time to put away their easels and wash up for lunch. He had put his supplies away, but, still thinking about the ocean, he had gone straight to his desk. Now he saw that he was leaving blue-paint handprints on his desk, on his shirt, on his books—even on his lunchbox. Estella looked over at him and joked, "Hey, Saul! You're the new King Midas! Only you turn everything to blue!" Saul rolled his eyes at her as he got back up to go to the sink.
This passage would be most suited for helping students:
recognize a literary allusion.
analyze story elements.
predict future events.
analyze an author's point of view.
Students in a third-grade class are working on an interdisciplinary unit on Native Americans of the Northeast. The teacher has selected a historical novel for students to read during the unit to help them gain insight into people's daily lives in a particular Native American nation at a particular point in time. However, the teacher is aware that the novel's text complexity may make comprehension difficult for a group of struggling readers in the class. Which of the following strategies would be most effective for the teacher to use to support the struggling readers' comprehension of the novel and their purpose for reading?
engaging the students in guided reading and rereading of key passages in the novel
having the students stop after reading each chapter and try to summarize the key events of the plot in their own words
asking the students to rewrite the story from the perspective of a different character in the novel
encouraging the students to read key chapters of the novel aloud together by taking turns reading specific pages
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 . . .
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.
1. What is the author's opinion on the issue? 2. How might the author's background influence his or her opinion? 3. What evidence does the author use to support his or her opinion?
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.
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:
"'The moon does not shine on its own. The sun's light reflects off the moon.' Hmm. I'm imagining that the sun is like a flashlight shining on the moon in the dark. 'As the moon rotates, only the part that faces the sun is visible from the Earth.' I'm not quite sure what "visible" means, but it sounds kind of like vision, which I know has to do with eyes. It probably means the part that we can see from the Earth. Now, that makes me wonder— why do we see different amounts of the moon at different times? Let's see if the next part of the chapter explains this . . ."
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.
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
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 Web sites that have been preapproved 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.
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
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.
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
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.
An English Language Learner reads academic texts fluently in her primary language but is struggling to understand her content-area textbooks in English. This student would likely benefit most from engaging in which of the following activities?
translating textbook reading assignments from English into her primary language
receiving reading comprehension instruction with texts written in her primary language
learning to use metacognitive reading strategies with English text
reading texts in her primary language that cover the same material as her English textbooks
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. The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, 1775. At the time, the American army occupied the area from Cambridge to the Mystic River. American troops gathered in Cambridge Common on the evening of June 16, 1775, and set out for Bunker Hill. Upon reaching Bunker Hill, however, officers decided to move to Breed's Hill, a smaller hill closer to Boston.
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
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.
The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, 1775. At the time, the American army occupied the area from Cambridge to the Mystic River. American troops gathered in Cambridge Common on the evening of June 16, 1775, and set out for Bunker Hill. Upon reaching Bunker Hill, however, officers decided to move to Breed's Hill, a smaller hill closer to Boston.
The teacher asks students to locate and mark places mentioned in the chapter on a map as they read. This activity is most likely to help students:
use visualization to facilitate their comprehension of the text.
paraphrase content to make the text more understandable.
connect elements in the text to their background knowledge.
identify the text's main ideas and supporting details.
A third-grade teacher has been conducting a series of ongoing assessments of a student's oral reading. Shown below is a sentence from a text, followed by a transcription of a typical example of the student's oral reading performance.
Text: Her boots crunched through the snow.
Student: Her boats crucked throw the snow.
After reading the sentence, the student paused and then reread it without the teacher's prompting and self-corrected the errors. Based on this information, the teacher could best meet this student's needs by adjusting instruction in order to:
enhance the student's oral vocabulary development.
develop the student's ability to self-monitor comprehension.
improve the student's decoding skills.
promote the student's ability to track print.
Which of the following types of assessments would best provide information about the comparative reading proficiency of students in an elementary school?
a test of vocabulary development
a norm-referenced survey test
a reading miscue inventory
a diagnostic portfolio
Considerations of validity in test construction relate most closely to:
how a particular examinee's test performance relates to a preestablished standard.
whether the test questions effectively measure their specified content.
how a particular examinee's test performance compares to the performance of other examinees.
whether the test results are likely to be repeatable with a similar examinee test group.
If a standardized test is said to lack reliability, the test:
is not measuring what it is supposed to measure.
has not proven to be useful as an instructional intervention.
gives fluctuating scores in different administrations.
has poor predictive value relative to students' classroom performance.
Which of the following informal assessment results provides the clearest indication that a kindergarten child has attained a beginning level of phonemic awareness?
The student can clap the "beats" or syllables of familiar multisyllable words.
The student can delete the second "word" or syllable in compound words.
The student can identify the beginning sound of single-syllable words.
The student can substitute phonemes in the medial position of single-syllable words.
One of the most important purposes of a standardized Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) is:
to establish how prior knowledge and text organization influence a student's reading comprehension.
to determine how a student uses semantic, syntactic, and other text clues to deduce a word's meaning.
to analyze how a student's silent reading comprehension is influenced by oral reading fluency.
to establish a student's independent, instructional, and frustration reading levels.
An advantage of using assessment tools such as portfolios and scoring rubrics is that they:
provide more objective results than do multiple-choice tests.
promote student participation in self-assessment activities.
ensure consistency among different evaluators.
offer more reliable assessment data.
Which of the following best describes the primary advantage of having a student read a passage silently and then provide a "retelling" as a means of assessing the student's comprehension, rather than having the student answer questions?
A retelling is open-ended and requires the student to construct a description of the passage more independently of the examiner.
The results of a retelling are more objective and easier to quantify than the results of direct questioning.
The procedure involved in retelling tends to be more familiar to a wider range of students, including English Language Learners.
A retelling can provide information about the student's inferential comprehension skills, which questioning cannot provide.
Which of the following criteria would be most important to consider when selecting "leveled texts" for use in assessments and guided reading with beginning-level readers?
The texts should use repeated words and natural oral language structures.
The texts should require readers to use problem-solving to connect text to illustrations.
The texts should emphasize use of literary language and dialogues.
The texts should feature a range of punctuation and context-specific vocabulary.
In order to select a trade book that emphasizes predictability, a teacher should ensure that:
the text includes some pictures or illustrations.
the concepts in the text are at an appropriate level of difficulty for the target student(s).
a phrase, rhyme, or sentence is repeated throughout the text.
the length of the text is not likely to exceed the attention span of the target student(s).
A fourth-grade English Language Learner is new to a school. Assessments suggest that the student can read orally with accuracy on grade level; however, the student's comprehension of grade-level textbooks fluctuates widely. Which of the following steps would be most appropriate for the teacher to take first in order to determine the cause of the student's difficulty?
Assess the student's word analysis and decoding skills.
Determine whether the student has a specific learning disability that affects language processing.
Assess the student's level of first-language literacy.
Determine whether the student has adequate vocabulary and background knowledge to support comprehension of the textbooks.
A first-grade teacher encourages beginning readers to "write" their own captions beneath their drawings. This practice is most likely to lead to which of the following?
The students will tend to lose interest in writing because of their frustration with their lack of mastery of the English spelling system.
The students' overall reading proficiency will be adversely affected by any spelling errors that go uncorrected.
The students will tend to develop strong automatic word recognition skills from their interaction with print.
The students' development of phonics knowledge will be reinforced as they experiment with their own phonetic spellings.
Which of the following types of activities would be most important to include on a daily basis when planning reading instruction for first graders who are developing as beginning readers?
activities that introduce students to basic concepts about print
activities that emphasize listening to and producing rhyming, alliteration, and similar forms of wordplay
activities that promote students' development of decoding and other word analysis skills
activities that emphasize memorization of lists of gradelevel-appropriate sight words
Which of the following statements describes the most important reason for a fourth-grade teacher to assign a variety of high-quality trade books as a component of reading instruction?
The themes typical of children's literature tend to reinforce students' development of literal comprehension skills.
Reading across genres contributes to students' developing understanding of the structures and features of different texts.
Simplified syntax and controlled vocabulary provide necessary scaffolding for students who are not skilled readers.
Reading diverse texts promotes students' development of phonological and phonemic awareness skills.
A fifth-grade class silently reads an informational text. In subsequent informal assessments, several students are able to read the text orally with fluency, but they demonstrate poor overall comprehension of the text. The teacher could most appropriately address these students' needs by adjusting future instruction in which of the following ways?
using informational texts that are written at the students' independent reading level
providing the students with explicit instruction in grade-level-appropriate test-taking strategies
introducing a text's key vocabulary and supporting the students in close reading of key passages
emphasizing reading skill-building activities that focus primarily on narrative texts
A fifth-grade teacher is planning a literature study focused on how various elements of an author's craft are used to convey a poem's theme. The class includes students with a wide range of reading and language skills, including several advanced readers.
In an early lesson, the teacher distributes a simple short poem and a printed copy of the graphic organizer shown in the picture.
The teacher has students read the poem twice. First, they read it silently. Then, they follow along as the teacher reads the poem aloud. In keeping with evidence-based best practices in reading instruction, which of the following steps would be most effective for the teacher to implement next in this lesson?
asking students to complete the portions of the graphic organizer that they understand and then correcting any misunderstandings
having students work with a classmate to discuss the poem's theme before they complete the graphic organizer
using think-aloud and questioning to complete the graphic organizer on the board with students' support
providing students with a copy of a completed graphic organizer for them to use as an example
A fifth-grade teacher is planning a literature study focused on how various elements of an author's craft are used to convey a poem's theme. The class includes students with a wide range of reading and language skills, including several advanced readers.
Over the course of the unit, the class reads and analyzes the themes of several, increasingly complex, grade-level poems. Near the end of the unit, the teacher will have students practice literary analysis skills on an unfamiliar grade-level poem. According to evidence-based best practices, which of the following differentiation strategies would be most appropriate for the teacher to use with advanced readers during this lesson?
having advanced readers work independently at their own pace while other students work in small, heterogeneous groups to analyze a poem
having all students work in small heterogeneous groups to analyze a poem, with advanced readers assigned a leadership role
having all students work in small, homogeneous groups to analyze a poem at an appropriate level of complexity for the group
having students work independently to analyze a poem, and having students who complete their work early analyze a second poem
A third-grade class includes students with delays in foundational reading skills. Two students also have delays in language expression and comprehension. The teacher is considering ways to best support the students' reading development. The teacher would also like to provide appropriate supports for the students during the planned biweekly whole-class close-reading routine, in which the teacher will engage the students in reading and rereading a variety of complex literary and informational passages.
The teacher wants to support the students with literacy delays in developing selfconfidence and self-efficacy as readers. Which of the following strategies would be most appropriate for this purpose?
instructing the students explicitly in how to use various word-reading and comprehension-repair strategies to solve reading challenges
requiring the students to engage in more independent reading in the classroom and at home
evaluating texts that will be used in reading instruction with the students for text complexity to ensure that the texts are always easily accessible
balancing the students' exposure to authentic literary and informational texts in a diversity of genres
A third-grade class includes students with delays in foundational reading skills. Two students also have delays in language expression and comprehension. The teacher is considering ways to best support the students' reading development. The teacher would also like to provide appropriate supports for the students during the planned biweekly whole-class close-reading routine, in which the teacher will engage the students in reading and rereading a variety of complex literary and informational passages.
Which of the following guidelines for planning effective reading instruction for these students best addresses the evidence-based recommendation that foundational reading skills should be taught in conjunction with building a foundation for reading comprehension?
providing sufficient time for the students to engage in sustained silent reading with self-selected texts in class to practice new skills and strategies independently
using decodable texts to promote the students' ability to read a text with fluency while also selecting complex, grade-level texts for read alouds and text analysis
utilizing state standards from lower grade levels in order to address gaps in the students' reading skills and accommodate their limited reading comprehension
focusing more on modeling oral reading of texts with adequate expression to facilitate the students' comprehension than on developing their decoding or fluency skills
A third-grade class includes students with delays in foundational reading skills. Two students also have delays in language expression and comprehension. The teacher is considering ways to best support the students' reading development. The teacher would also like to provide appropriate supports for the students during the planned biweekly whole-class close-reading routine, in which the teacher will engage the students in reading and rereading a variety of complex literary and informational passages.
Which of the following strategies for differentiating collaborative text-based discussions for the students with language-expression challenges would best enhance their participation in the text-based discussions and their overall language development?
having the students discuss texts with each other instead of in a larger group
pairing the students with an advanced reader who can model appropriate responses to questions
asking the students key-detail questions that have the answers right in the text
providing the students with relevant sentence or language frames to scaffold their responses
