During a writing activity a teacher writes two sentences from a sample of a student's writing on the whiteboard. The teacher shows the students how to use
... [Show More] appropriate proofreading marks and asks the students to proofread the first paragraph of their individual writing samples. Which of the following traits of writing is the teacher's focus?
a) Ideas
b) Voice
c) Conventions
d) Organization
...
Which of the following terms is best described as connecting background knowledge with clues in the text to come up with an idea that is not explicitly stated by the author?
a) Visualizing
b) Inferring
c) Predicting
d) Summarizing
b) is the best answer. The reading strategy of inferring is defined as a reader connecting to what he or she already knows with clues given in the text without being directly stated.
A fifth-grade class is studying the American Revolution. The teacher wants students to understand the differences in perceptions between the colonists who believed their actions in the Boston Tea Party were legitimate protests against British taxation, and the British who thought the colonists were engaged in rebellion against their government.
Which of the following instructional strategies is most effective in helping students understand the differences in perceptions?
a) List examples of protests and rebellions during other historical time periods
b) Read an article to help students understand the causes of rebellions
c) Create a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the concepts of protest and rebellion
d) Read a fictional account of the Boston Tea Party
c) A Venn diagram is a graphic organizer used to compare and contrast two or more things. The other options do not focus on the differences in perceptions, which is the objective of the lesson.
A third-grade student wrote the following paragraph about her summer vacation: "My vacation was exciting we did many interesting things. Like visit the zoo, an amusement park, and fishing. I had an amazing time. Because I got to see so many different places."
Which of the following topics should her teacher work with her to improve during a writing conference?
a) Word choice
b) Sentence structure
c) Elaboration techniques
d) Organization
b) is the best answer because the writing sample contains many sentence fragments and run-on sentences.
A fourth-grade teacher wants his students to be able to evaluate literature by recording their thoughts and reactions about their reading. Which would be the most appropriate writing form in which to accomplish this goal?
a) Story map
b) Summary
c) Response journals
d) Guided questions
c) is the best answer because the characteristics described are that of response journals. The other options to not allow for students to record their thoughts and reactions about their reading.
Define: Story Map
A graphic organizer that outlines elements of fiction (e.g. problem, solution, setting, characters).
Define: Summary
A retelling of the important events of a story.
Define: Guided Questions
Guided questions are used to lead students toward a particular response and do not allow student to express their own thoughts about their reading.
Having just broken her truck, a girl attending preschool complained to her teacher, "I breaked my truck, Mr. Frank." Which of the following best characterizes the girl's statement?
a) It is an oral miscue.
b) It is an example of telegraphic speech.
c) It exhibits an overgeneralization.
d) It demonstrates a semantic confusion.
c) Overgeneralization involves applying a particular rule of language in all instances.
Define: Oral Miscue
Oral reading errors that are used to understand children's existing reading strategies and how to help students learn more effective strategies.
Define: Telegraphic Speech
A stage in oral language development when children use two-word phrases and place the subject before the verb.
High-frequency words (e.g., "the," "what," "of") are important for emergent readers to learn. Which of the following is the most effective way for students to learn the words?
a) Teaching students to read the words by learning sound-symbol decoding patterns that can be applied to the words.
b) Teaching students to read the
words with repeated practice in the context of predictable text.
c) Teaching students to use flash cards to learn the words by sight.
d) Teaching students to use a tactile method of tracing the letters and writing the words.
b) High-frequency words can either be decodable or irregular. Irregular words have spelling that do not follow common phonics rules.
A second-grade teacher uses an assessment tool for coding, scoring, and analyzing a student's oral reading behavior. Which of the following best describes the technique?
a) Shared reading
b) Reader's conference
c) Process interview
d) Running record
d) Running record
Mr. Thacker would like to assess his first graders' phonemic awareness. Of the following, the best way to asses students' phonemic awareness using the world "bat" is to
a) asking student to write the first letter in the word "bat"
b) ask students to sound out the separate sounds in "bat"
c) distribute note cards with the three letter B-A-T and ask students to create a word
d) display the written word "bat" and ask students to sound it out
b) A student who possess phonemic awareness can segment sounds in words and blend strings of isolated sounds together to form recognizable words.
Which of the following is the onset in the word "stage"?
a) st
b) age
c) sta
d) tage
a) is the best answer. In the word "stage," "st" is the onset and "age" is the rime. The other option are not separated into the onset.
During the revision stage of the writing process, which of the following activities would most likely occur?
a) Correcting spelling errors
b) Brainstorming ideas in a cluster diagram
c) Adding details
d) Narrowing the topic
c) is the best answer. Adding details happens during the revision stage of the writing process. The other options are not correct because a) happens during the editing stage and b) and d) happen during the prewriting stage.
The best rationale for using flexible grouping during literacy instruction is that flexible grouping
a) tailors instructions to students' strengths and weaknesses
b) ensures opportunities for students to interact with peers
c) develops students' interpersonal skills
d) provides time to progress through a set of materials
a) is the best answer. When teachers use flexible grouping they are considering the always-changing strengths and weaknesses of students and grouping the students temporarily to best meet instructional needs. The other options do not address the main purpose of flexible grouping.
Which of the following pairs of words demonstrate that different letter combinations can represent the same speech sound?
a) Church...chorus
b) Bow...bow
c) Hot...cold
d) Phone...laugh
d) is the best answer. "ph" and "gh" fall into the category of consonant irregularities with consonant combinations that have a unique sound. Both the "ph" in "phone" and the "gh" in "laugh" represent the sound of /f/. a), b), and c) have letter combinations that represent different speech sounds and, thus, are not correct answers.
Which of the following student activities is most closely related to the development of phonics skills?
a) Tracing and then naming lowercase letters
b) Writing examples of words that are in the -at word family
c) Counting the number of phonemes in a given word
d) Pointing to where a sentence starts and ends
b) is the best answer. Writing examples of words in the -at word family requires students to make use of their knowledge of letter-sound correspondence and word patterns (phonics). a) is not correct. Tracing and naming letters of the alphabet develops letter-recognition skills and letter-naming fluency, but not phonics skills. c) is not correct because counting phonemes is related to phonemic awareness, not phonics. d) is also not correct. Pointing to where a sentence begins and ends is related to concepts of print.
Which of the following assignments would best allow teachers to connect reading and writing as part of literacy centers?
a) Assign students to write definitions of spelling words
b) Design a concept map and allocate time for students to complete it
c) Require each student to read a passage and answer multiple-choice questions
d) Allow students to listen to an audio book and write a review
d) is the best answer. Listening to an audio book and writing a review for others to read connects reading and writing in a purposeful way. a) is not correct because writing definitions of words does not address reading and writing skills. b) is not correct. Completing a concept map does not involves reading for a real purpose or responding to reading in an authentic writing task. c) is also not correct. Answering multiple-choice questions many check a student's comprehension of a story, but does not connect writing to reading in any meaningful way.
Which of the following is the best rationale for introducing informational texts in the early grades?
a) Informational texts provide many opportunities to decode unfamiliar vocabulary or terms
b) Informational texts are usually easier for a beginning reader to read
c) Readers need to learn to use a variety of different strategies to understand informational texts
d) The major goal of reading to recall details needs to be established at an early age
c) is the best answer. Informational texts have unique organizational structures (e.g. cause and effect) and text features (e.g. headings, captions). Teaching student about these structures and patter will help them learn how to use different strategies to understand the various types of informational texts. When introduced in the early grades, students will already have some strategies to comprehend content area textbooks in the later grades.
Which of the following is an instructional technique designed to help students improve the ability to summarize information by accessing prior knowledge, establishing a purpose for reading, and recognizing what is already known?
a) Know-Want to Know-Learned (K-W-L)
b) Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DR-TA)
c) Question-Answer Relationships (QAR)
d) Survey-Question-Read-Recite-Review (SQ3R)
a) is the best answer. The process of doing a K-W-L facilitates students stating what they already know about a topic (assessing prior knowledge) in addition to what students would like to know (purpose setting) and, finally, summarizing what new information was learned. b), c), and d) do not address accessing students' prior knowledge, establishing a purpose for reading, and summarizing what information was learned or confirmed.
Sarah is a second-grade student. Her teacher administered a running record at the beginning of the school year. Sarah was able to decode most of the words in the passage, but she read with many hesitations and did not read with appropriate intonation or phrasing. The results of the assessment indicate that Sarah is most likely to benefit from direct instruction in
a) syllabication rules
b) comprehension
c) fluency
d) context clues
c) is the best answer. Proficient readers have learned to read fluently. Speed is important because it's hard for a reader to remember what he or she is reading if the reading is dysfluent. Prosody is important because when a reader reads with expression, the text is more easily understood. a) and d) are not correct because there are no indication in the behaviors described that teaching syllabication skills and use of context clues should be the primary focus of direct instruction for this student. b) is not correct. Comprehension may be affected by the behaviors which are identified. However, the primary problem in this scenario is fluency.
A first-grade student spells the word "bumped" as "BT." The student can best be classified as being in which of the following stages of spelling development?
a) Precommunicative stage
b) Semiphonetic stage
c) Phonetic stage
d) Transitional stage
b) is the best answer. At the semiphonetic stage, students show a developing understanding of sound-symbol relationships. Spellings are often abbreviated and represent the initial and/or final sound. a) is not correct. Students at the precommunicative stage of spelling use letters to write words, but the letters are strung together randomly and do not correspond to sounds. c) is not correct. Phonetic spellers are able to perceive and represent all of the phonemes in a word, though the spellings may be unconventional; e.g. "ATE" for eighty. d) is incorrect. Students in the transitional spelling stage exhibit conventions of English orthography like correctly spelled inflectional endings, vowel digraph patterns, and vowels in every syllable.
Which of the following is an effective instructional strategy for helping kindergarten students develop an understanding of concepts of print?
a) Exposing students to a variety of rhyming texts
b) Finder tapping to identify the number of phonemes in words
c) Modeling how to track text during shared reading
d) Using guided practice of visualization techniques
c) is the best answer. Children are more likely to visually attend to print when engaged in shared reading with an adult who uses print referencing behavior. a) is not correct. Rhyme awareness is a phonological awareness activity. b) is not correct. Finger tapping is a phonemic awareness activity, not a print awareness activity. d) is also not correct. Visualization is a strategy to improve and enhance comprehension of a text.
Define: Phoneme
A sound; it's represented in print with slashes (e.g. /s/ and /th/). Smallest unit of speech that holds meaning.
Define: Phonological Awareness
The ability to identify and manipulate phonemes, onsets and rimes, and syllables, it includes phonemic awareness. The ability to recognize that words are made up of a variety of sound units.
Define: Syntax
The structural system of language or grammar. The study of the rules for the formation of grammatical sentences in a language.
Define: Zone of Proximal Development
The distance between a child's actual developmental level and his or her potential level that can be reached with teacher scaffolding.
Define: Shared Reading
The teacher reads a book aloud as a group of children follow along in the text, often using a big book.
Define: Semantics
The meaning system of language.
Define: Prosody
The ability to orally read sentences expressively, with appropriate phrasing and intonation.
Define: Pragmatics
The social use system of language. The study of what words mean in particular situations.
Define: Phonics
Predictable relationships between phonemes and graphemes.
Define: Morpheme
The smallest meaningful part of a word; sometimes it's a word (e.g. cup, hope), and sometimes it's not a whole word (e.g. -ly, bi-).
Define: Homonyms
Words that sound alike but are spelled differently (e.g. there, their, they're); also called homophones. [Show Less]