Instructional Tools
Parts of Speech
Reading Phases
Testing
Box of Chocolates (you never know what you're gonna get)
100
20. When reading aloud texts, a second-grade English Learner often makes errors in pronunciation that are unrelated to her ability to accurately decode the words. The teacher's best response would be to: a. write down words the student mispronounces and include them on a list for her to practice reading aloud. b. analyze the student's pronunciation patterns and plan an intervention to address difficulties that may affect her reading comprehension. c. encourage other students in the class to help the student work on improving her accuracy in pronunciation. d. help the student avoid having pronunciation errors count as reading miscues by stopping her and having her correct her own errors.
Explanation: Answer is B. Any targeted reading strategy will first employ analysis to identify specific skills students need to work on. Answers c and d not include this analysis. Answer a does not highlight patterns or groups of words that can be worked out, as B does.
100
19. Mrs. Gupta presents three words to her students: “their” “there” “they’re.” This is likely a mini-lesson on: a. Gramophones b. Graphemes c. Homonyms d. Homophones
Explanation: Answer D. Homophones are words that sound the same, but are spelled orthographically distinctly, like those in the question. Gramophones (a) are audio players, a grapheme (b) is the smallest unit in written language, and homonyms (c) are words that are pronounced similarly and written differently (write and right).
100
10. Jack understands that that sounds are assigned to letter, but uses U for you. Which orthographic stage is he in? a. Semiphonetic b. Phonetic c. Transitional d. None of these Relating to a city and its surrounding communities.
Explanation: the answer is (a). In semiphonetic stage (a), the child begins to understand letter-sound correspondence--that sounds are assigned to letters. At this stage, the child often employs rudimentary logic, using single letters, for example, to represent words, sounds, and syllables (e.g., U for you). In the phonetic stage, students are more easily understood and use letter groupings (b). In selection (c), the student would assimilate the conventional alternative for representing sounds, moving from a dependence on phonology (sound) for representing words to a reliance on visual representation and an understanding of the structure of words.
100
A natural resource that is not a plant or an animal.
What is a mineral?
100
17. Which of the following refers to the ability to read aloud or decode a word correctly, even without knowing the meaning? a. Word identification b. Phonemic awareness c. Structural ability d. Alphabetic principle
Explanation: the answer is A, ability to identify words whether or not the student understands the meaning of the word; meanwhile (d) refers to understanding that letters refer to sounds, and (b) is the ability to manipulate speech sounds.
200
16. A kindergarten teacher plays the following game with students. The teacher says, "Guess whose name I'm going to say now?" The teacher then says the initial sound of a student's name (e.g., /m/ for Mariko), and the children try to guess the name. This activity is likely to promote the reading development of students primarily by helping them: a. blend separate sounds in words. b. recognize that a spoken word is made up of sounds. c. understand the principles of phonics. d. learn how to spell their own names.
Explanation: learning that a name begins with a predictable initial letter and sound is part of (b) learning that words are made up of sounds. Recognizing the small sounds themselves if part of phonics (c), and blending sounds (a) is phonemic awareness. In this activity, students are using names beyond their own, and not spelling, so (d) is incorrect.
200
15. Which of the following word pairs are homophones? a. answer and reply b. playful and replay c. table and stable d. sight and site
Explanation: the answer is (d), since homophones are words that sound alike but are distinctly spelled.
200
9. Grace spells EGUL for eagle and HIGHEKED for hiked, which orthographic stage is she in? a. Semiphonetic b. Phonetic c. Transitional d. None of these
Explanation: Grace is beginning to understand the more complex structure of words, and is therefore in the transitional stage (c). She would have a less complex attempt at spelling in the semiphonetic or phonetic stages (a) or (b).
200
18. Jefferson’s recent assessment indicates that he spells phonetically or using logical, but incorrect spellings (e.g. spelling cake “kak”). Which of the following does his assessment indicate? a. No etymological awareness b. Invented spelling c. Onset/rime difficulties d. Frustrated level reading
Explanation: the answer is B, spelling invented by the student. Answer (a) would indicate that the child is not aware of where the word originates, which is not required even to know its meaning. (c) refers to pronunciation, not spelling, and (d) notes a difficulty with more than 10% of words in a given passage.
200
14. When reading the last sentence of the passage, the student pronounces the word imagine as [im Ma’ jin]. Evidence from this assessment best supports which of the following interpretations of this word-reading error. a. The student recognizes the base word but is unaware of phonological shifts that apply to the derived form b. The student is unfamiliar with syllabication rules governing medial consonants c. The student does not apply the appropriate phonics generalization to the last two syllables of the word d. The student applies syllabication and phonics rules correctly but does not recognize the word.
Explanation: the student is not aware of how the I and e interact with the other vowels, meaning the student is not aware of (b) syllabication rules governing medial consonants. This is not phonetic (c), or about recognizing the word (a) and (d).
300
13. Sarah’s recent running record indicates that she struggles with words that appear frequently, but are may not be easy to sound out phonetically, like “a” “said” “we” “can” and “up.” This assessment indicates that Sarah would benefit from which of the following? a. Orthographic instruction b. Direct instruction on phonemes and graphemes c. Direct instruction or mini-lessons working on sight words d. Word analysis mini-lessons
Explanation: The answer is (c). The words listed in the question are all high-frequency words that are difficult to sound out, these are sight words (c). Therefore, spelling (a), sound pair (b) or word analysis (d) will not help this student identify these words.
300
11. sit, spit, and split all have the same: a. onset b. prefix c. rime d. orthography
Explanation: while these words all begin with the same letter, their commonality in speech is the “-it” sound that appears in their rime. Therefore, the answer is (c).
300
A fifth-grade teacher is planning a multidisciplinary unit on water pollution. For this unit, students will read chapters from their social studies and science textbooks as well as relevant fictional narratives. These materials will also be incorporated into a variety of instructional activities designed to promote students' reading development. Which of the following statements best describes an important advantage of using a crosscurricular approach such as this unit to promote students' reading development? A. Interdisciplinary reading instruction provides more opportunities for teachers to tailor teaching strategies to the needs of individual students B. Reading instruction that focuses on both literature and content-area texts helps students recognize and understand differences between written and oral English. C. Interdisciplinary reading instruction motivates students to apply a variety of word identification strategies to clarify the meaning of texts D. Reading instruction that integrates a variety of related texts promotes deep processing of new vocabulary through multiple exposures to key words and concepts.
D. Reading instruction that integrates a variety of related texts promotes deep processing of new vocabulary through multiple exposures to key words and concepts. Explanation: Students read fictional and informational texts differently. Exposing students to new vocabulary through a variety of texts will make students process the words and concepts multiple times and in different contexts, leading to a deeper understanding that is more likely to be processed as long-term memory. It does not allow the teacher to differentiate instruction on a individual level [A], nor to expose the differences between written and oral English [B], nor will they need to use word identification strategies to clarify the meaning of text [C] because the vocabulary will have already been taught.
300
8. Which assessment should a teacher use to test phonemic segmentation, the most difficult reading task. a. San Diego Graded Word Assessment b. Elementary Spelling Indicator c. Yopp-Singer Test d. Running Record or DRA
Explanation: Answer C. Yopp-Singer studies phonemic segmentation. In word assessment (a) and running record (d), fluency is studied. (b) is an orthographic assessment.
300
12. Rhyming books and poems help children practice and learn which of the following, particularly? a. Onset b. Rime c. Prosody d. Orthography
Explanation: the rhythm of sound is prosody (c), where the initial sound is onset (a), the next sound is rime (b), and orthography refers to spelling (d). So, the answer is c.
400
1. An emergent reader frequently reverses some letters and numbers during writing tasks. Which of the following strategies would be most effective in helping this student develop more accurate letter formation skills? a. providing the student with supplemental practice writing lists of words that are spelled with the target letters b. having the student practice tracing the target letter shapes with a finger while saying aloud the sequence of steps to form each letter c. providing the student with a supplemental handwriting workbook that describes the formation of the target letters in a series of steps d. encouraging the student to vocalize words when writing, especially when the words contain the target letters
Explanation: answer B. The student needs to practice the individual letters that are being reversed (b), not some of the words that feature those letters (a) or speak the letters (d). (c) is a poor choice because it assumes the student can figure out the sequence formations on their own without guidance or correction as needed.
400
7. In English, “sh” is an example of a: a. Consonant pair b. Long vowel c. Schwa d. Diagraph
Explanation: Answer D. A pairing or letters that make one sound is a diagraph (d) other examples of diagraphs are /th/ /ch/ and /wh/. The long vowel is a single letter (b), the schwa is a dip typically made by vowels, and a consonant pair typically refers to a pairing in which each letter of the sound can be heard (e.g. /dr/ in dragon or /pl/ in plane).
400
1. Christopher’s recent oral reading analysis indicated that he needs instruction and practice with glided sounds made by vowel combinations, like oy/oi in the words “boy” and “oil.” Which of the following does Christopher’s teacher need to work with him on? a. Diagraphs b. R controlled vowels c. Dipthongs d. Short vowels
Explanation: answer C. In a dipthong (c), two vowels glide together as one (/oo/ in book). Whereas, in schwa is a stressed vowel (u in cut), an r controlled vowel (b) must have an r in the word, and short vowels (d) are singular vowels.
400
3. A teacher substitutes blank spaces for several nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in an appropriate level text and asks students to determine reasonable and logical words to complete each blank. This technique is useful as an informal assessment of students' understanding of English language structures primarily because it requires them to: a. define various grammatical categories in their own words. b. select appropriate words based on their grammatical function as well as on their meaning. c. group words into grammatical categories to clarify their meaning. d. draw on grammatical knowledge to identify the subjects and predicates of complex sentences.
Explanation: Answer b. Like mad-libs, or the “Jaberwocky”, this activity is selecting appropriate word types (nouns, verbs, etc). It is not indentifying senteces (d), grouping words (c), or defining the grammatical categories (a), though it does utilize the categories.
500
1. A second-grade teacher would like to plan an activity to improve the reading rate of two students who read at about the same rate and level and are both automatic readers. Which of the following activities would best address the students' needs? a. a cooperative silent reading activity, in which the students read the same passage together silently, stopping periodically to share their understanding of the text b. a repeated reading activity, in which each student takes several turns reading aloud a decodable passage to the other student while the other student follows along silently c. a paired reading activity, in which the students sit side by side and read a shared text aloud in unison, gradually increasing their pace as they proceed through the text d. a timed partner-reading activity, in which the students take turns silently reading a shared text for one minute while the other student keeps time and says when to stop
Explanation: the answer is B, as repeated reading allows time to practice decoding and listening/comprehension. Answer A would be useless for a pairing, C and D do not allow both decoding and Metacognition.
500
2. Using morphological clues includes which of the following: a. Formation clues like root words, prefixes, and affixes b. Structural clues like onset, rime, and syllabication c. Rhyming word or phrases d. Orthographic structures like silent g and k
Explanation: answer A understands that morphological refers to morphemes and linguistic units like roots and prefixes, not onset and rime (b), rhyme (c), or spelling (d).
500
4. A fifth-grade teacher gives students the following sentence: Neither walking on the beach nor running around the track cheered Ahmed up. The teacher asks the students how the phrases that come just after neither and just after nor are similar. This exercise can promote students' reading comprehension by helping them: a. distinguish between explicit and implied main ideas. b. apply literal comprehension skills. c. identify cause-and-effect relationships. d. recognize parallel grammatical structures
Explanation: answer D. The “neither” “nor” pairing is part of parallel structure (d). There is neither cause-and-effect (c), nor explicit/implied ideas (a) ideas contained in these two sentences. Nor is it an instance of figurative versus literal comprehension (b).
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