Foundations of reading practice test – Flashcards
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Which of the following students is demonstrating the specific type of phonological awareness known as phonemic awareness?
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a student who, after hearing the word hat, can orally identify that it ends with the sound /t/
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A kindergarten teacher could best determine if a child has begun to develop phonemic awareness by asking the child to:
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say the word cat, then say the first sound the child hears in the word.
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As students begin to read, the ability to blend phonemes orally contributes to their reading development primarily because it helps students:
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use knowledge of letter-sound correspondence to decode words
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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:
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needs help developing phonemic segmentation skills.
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Phonemic awareness contributes most to the development of phonics skills in beginning readers by helping them:
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identify in spoken language separate sounds that can be mapped to letters.
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Which of the following first-grade students has attained the highest level of phonemic awareness?
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a student who, after hearing the word hot and the sound /?/, can substitute /?/ for /?/ to make the word hit
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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:
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have a relatively high level of phonemic awareness.
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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:
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encouraging them to divide words into onsets and rimes.
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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?
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phonemic awareness skills
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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?
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Does the student's primary language have consonant blends?
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11. 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 following table shows examples of typical errors the student makes on class writing assignments and in informal notes to friends. Target Word Student Spelling girl gril instead intead decided decideded independent indepednent interrupted interruted The student's overall spelling performance suggests that the student most likely has a weakness in which of the following foundational skills?
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segmenting and sequencing phonemes in words
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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:
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has developed an understanding that print carries meaning.
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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:
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has grasped the idea that the function of print is distinct from that of pictures.
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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:
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awareness that speech can be represented by writing.
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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:
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development of an awareness of print.
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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:
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developing their awareness of left-to- right directionality.
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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:
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development of book-handling skills.
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Which of the following strategies would be most effective in promoting kindergarten children's ability to recognize and name letters of the alphabet?
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The teacher says the name of a letter while the children each trace its shape on a cutout letter.
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Having kindergarten children practice tracing the letters of the alphabet in sand is most appropriate for children who are having difficulty:
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developing letter formation skills.
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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:
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demonstrating that phonemes are represented by letters.
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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?
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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
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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:
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reading fluency with respect to accuracy.
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Which of the following best describes the relationship between word decoding and reading comprehension in a beginning reader's development?
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Rapid automatic decoding skills help facilitate development of reading fluency and comprehension.
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A teacher can most effectively support first graders' development of rapid automatic word recognition by first teaching students how to:
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apply consistent phonics generali- zations in common words.
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A second-grade teacher pairs students who are reading at approximately the same independent reading level for a partner- reading activity. During the activity, the two partners sit side by side and take turns reading aloud from a shared text. Over a period of several days, the partners read a large number of independent-level texts together. This activity is best designed to promote students':
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development of reading rate and automaticity.
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Which of the following strategies would be most effective in promoting second graders' decoding of multisyllable words?
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encouraging students to compare the parts of new multisyllable words with known single-syllable words
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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?
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th
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Which of the following provides the best rationale for incorporating spelling instruction into a first-grade reading program?
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Spelling supports word recognition by helping students learn and retain common phonics patterns.
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Which of the following statements best describes how oral vocabulary knowledge is related to the process of decoding written words?
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A reader's oral vocabulary knowledge allows the reader to derive meaning as he or she decodes written words.
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A student makes several miscues when reading these sentences aloud. Which of the following miscues represents an error in decoding consonant blends? My family went to the circus last weekend. I liked the clowns the best. They were very funny.
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saying bet for best
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Which of the following sentences contains a pair of italicized words that differ from one another by one phoneme?
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He took off his cap so that he could take a nap.
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Which of the following students demon- strates variation in reading development that would require intervention focused on explicit phonics instruction?
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a second-grade student who is adept at using context clues to identify words but has difficulty sounding out the letters in unfamiliar words
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A student who has mastered which of the following skills along the phonological awareness continuum is best prepared to begin explicit phonics instruction?
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being able to segment and blend a word's phonemes
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What words can you think of that have the word "act" in them? Using student responses, the teacher creates the following web on the board This technique is likely to be most helpful for enhancing the students' awareness of:
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morphemic structure.
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Which of the following sets of words would be most effective to use when introducing students to the concept of structural analysis?
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pretest, retest, tested, testing
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An English Language Learner pronounces tigers as tiger when reading the following sentence aloud. Which of the following actions is most appropriate for the teacher to take first in response to the student's miscue? They saw tigers at the zoo.
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verify that the student understands that tigers means more than one tiger
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Which of the following principles is best illustrated by the words watched, wanted, and warned?
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The spelling of a suffix is often more reliable than its pronunciation.
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The words enjoyable, maneuverable, corruptible, and convertible best illustrate which of the following principles?
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The spelling of a suffix can vary depending on its root word.
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Instruction in structural analysis is likely to promote upper elementary students' reading comprehension primarily by:
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equipping them with strategies for understanding the meanings of unfamiliar multisyllable words.
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A sixth-grade student encounters the following sentence in a short story. 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? She experienced a sense of déjà vu as she walked down the street of the strange new city.
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Look up the word in the dictionary, and then paraphrase the sentence using the dictionary definition.
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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:
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extend and reinforce their expressive and receptive vocabularies related to the text's topic
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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:
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promoting their oral language development and listening comprehension.
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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:
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discussing with the student more examples of the phrase used in context.
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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?
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determining the extent of the student's vocabulary knowledge
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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?
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words that are conceptually challenging
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A text includes the word indefensible, which is unfamiliar to some students in a fourth- grade 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?
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Help the students apply structural and contextual analyses to construct and confirm the word's meaning.
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In which of the following sentences is context most helpful in understanding the italicized word?
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Peter's mother was adamant that he should attend college, but his father did not seem to care
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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:
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helping them to categorize, visualize, and remember new vocabulary
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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?
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Activate students' prior knowledge about the topic and provide visual aids such as illustrations to clarify new vocabulary.
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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?
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identifying the independent clause at the heart of a sentence
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Over the course of the school year, a sixth- grade student who had been a fluent, proficient reader in previous years is having increasing difficulty comprehending grade- level 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 sixth- grade 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:
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knowledge and skills related to understanding complex academic language.
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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. 57. The students are most likely to be successful in their independent reading of the book if:
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The students can decode and understand the meaning of at least 95 percent of the words in the text.
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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:
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facilitate the students' comprehension by activating prior knowledge and building schema.
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The most important reason for putting the book in the classroom library is to promote the students':
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love of reading by facilitating their access to a story that they have already heard, understood, and enjoyed.
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Which of the following strategies would be most appropriate to use to promote second- grade students' ability to analyze key ideas and details in a literary text?
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helping students create a story map of the main characters in a story and the events with which they are involved
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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:
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basing interpretations about a literary work on textual evidence.
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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:
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modeling for students how to engage in close reading of academic texts.
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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?
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What do you think is the main idea or theme of the novel? Relate specific events in this chapter to the theme you suggest.
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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?
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discussing with the students how the characters in the story respond to major events and challenges
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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?
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asking students to share what they already know about the time period during which the play takes place
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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:
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Decoding
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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:
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recognize a literary allusion.
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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?
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engaging the students in guided reading and rereading of key passages in the novel
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A teacher can best help sixth graders draw inferences from informational text by asking them to complete which of the following statements?
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The passage suggests . . .
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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:
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analyze point of view in expository texts
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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:
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modeling for them metacognitive comprehension strategies
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Skimming is likely to be the most effective strategy for accomplishing which of the following reading tasks?
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previewing a chapter in a content-area textbook
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A sixth-grade class is working on an Internet research project about various natural resources and their uses. The teacher could Mbest support students' effective use of the Internet for their research by
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providing students with a checklist of questions that prompt critical evaluation of information on Web sites.
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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?
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Table of contents
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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:
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are able to focus their full attention and cognitive resources on the meaning of a text
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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?
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encouraging students to read and interact closely with the text
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Two proficient readers are answering postreading 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?
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Each student applied different reading comprehension skills when reading the text.
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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?
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learning to use metacognitive reading strategies with English text
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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:
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use visualization to facilitate their comprehension of the text.
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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. 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: Text: Her boots crunched through the snow. Student: Her boats crucked throw the snow.
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improve the student's decoding skills
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Which of the following types of assessments would best provide information about the comparative reading proficiency of students in an elementary school?
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norm-referenced survey test
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Considerations of validity in test construction relate most closely to:
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whether the test questions effectively measure their specified content.
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If a standardized test is said to lack reliability, the test:
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gives fluctuating scores in different administrations.
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Which of the following informal assessment results provides the clearest indication that a kindergarten child has attained a beginning level of phonemic awareness?
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The student can identify the beginning sound of single-syllable words
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One of the most important purposes of a standardized Informal Reading Inventory (IRI) is:
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to establish a student's independent, instructional, and frustration reading levels
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An advantage of using assessment tools such as portfolios and scoring rubrics is that they:
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promote student participation in self- assessment activities.
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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?
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A retelling is open-ended and requires the student to construct a description of the passage more independently of the examiner.
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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?
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The texts should use repeated words and natural oral language structures.
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In order to select a trade book that emphasizes predictability, a teacher should ensure that:
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a phrase, rhyme, or sentence is repeated throughout the text.
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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?
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Determine whether the student has adequate vocabulary and background knowledge to support comprehension of the textbooks.
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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?
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The students' development of phonics knowledge will be reinforced as they experiment with their own phonetic spellings.
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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?
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activities that promote students' development of decoding and other word analysis skills
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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 inzstruction in which of the following ways?
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introducing a text's key vocabulary and guiding the students in close reading of key passages
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As a first-grade teacher reads a big book to a group of students, the teacher points to the beginning consonants of selected words and accentuates the sound the initial letter makes. This activity is most likely to promote the students':
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ability to isolate individual sounds in words.
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Which of the following children is most in need of immediate intervention?
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a second-grade student who still decodes words letter by letter
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Which of the following is the most important reason for a fourth-grade teacher to assign a variety of high-quality trade books as a component of reading instruction?
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Reading across genres helps students develop an understanding of the structures and features of different texts.
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Frequent oral reading to kindergarten children using appropriate and expressive intonation and voices is likely to promote the students' reading development primarily by:
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fostering their engagement in and love of reading.
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Which of the following strategies is likely to be most effective in promoting reluctant readers' interest in independent reading outside of school?
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Encourage students and parents to read books together on a regular basis, either silently or aloud, and discuss their personal responses to each chapter or key event.
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Electronic reading books are advantageous for beginning or struggling readers primarily because this type of computer software:
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scaffolds learning by providing a high level of interactivity.
