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Section 4: Sample Selected-Response Questions Science of Teaching Reading (293)Expand All Answers | Collapse All Answers This section presents some sample exam questions for you to review as part of your preparation for the exam. To demonstrate how each competency may be assessed, sample questions are accompanied by the competency that they measure. While studying, you may wish to read the competency before and after you consider each sample question. Please note that the competency statements do not appear on the actual exam. The sample questions are included to illustrate the formats and types of questions you will see on the exam; however, your performance on the sample questions should not be viewed as a predictor of your performance on the actual exam. Selected-Response Questions with RationalesEach sample exam question here includes the correct answer and a rationale for each answer option. Domain I—Reading PedagogyCompetency 001—(Foundations of the Science of Teaching Reading): Understand foundational concepts, principles, and best practices related to the science of teaching reading.1. Which of the following practices by a prekindergarten teacher best reflects an assets-based approach to reading instruction?
2. A first-grade student has been identified as having dyslexia and has begun intervention. Which of the following approaches to instruction would be most effective to enhance the student's reading development?
For more detailed information on dyslexia and its treatment, see The Dyslexia Handbook: Procedures Concerning Dyslexia and Related Disorders (2018), Texas Education Agency. https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/2018-Dyslexia-Handbook_Approved_Accomodated_12_11_2018.pdf Competency 002—(Foundations of Reading Assessment): Understand foundational concepts, principles, and best practices related to reading assessment.3. A third-grade teacher frequently uses an online application at the end of a lesson that allows the teacher to post a small task or question for students on the classroom computer. For example, after a lesson on prefixes, the teacher posts three base words and asks students to change the meaning of each word by adding an appropriate prefix from the lesson. Throughout the day, students post their individual responses for the teacher to review. In this scenario, the teacher is using technology for which of the following assessment purposes?
Domain II—Reading Development: Foundational SkillsCompetency 004—(Phonological and Phonemic Awareness): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of phonological and phonemic awareness, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level phonological and phonemic awareness skills.4. At the beginning of the school year, a first-grade teacher conducts a brief screening assessment in which the teacher asks small groups of students to spell four CVC words and one word with a consonant blend (e.g., bag, hen, sit, mop, slug). In addition to providing the teacher with information about students' knowledge of letter-sound correspondences, this type of assessment would also provide information about students' development in which of the following other areas related to emergent reading?
5. A prekindergarten teacher is preparing an introductory lesson focused on isolating/identifying the initial sound in spoken words for a small group of children whose informal assessments indicate that they are ready to learn this skill. The group includes an English learner. Which of the following instructional supports would best promote the English learner's success in achieving the instructional goal of this lesson?
6. As part of an informal assessment of students' phonemic awareness skills, a kindergarten teacher meets with individual students and says, "We're going to play a word game. I'm going to say a word that you know. When you hear it, I want you to say each sound in the word in the right order. For example, if I say fan, you should say ." The teacher then helps the student practice the procedure using the practice words in, sat, and top. After meeting with each student, the teacher reviews students' performance and notices that several students performed similarly on the assessment. A representative sample of their assessment results is shown below.
Given the information provided, which of the following student activities would be most appropriate for the teacher to include when planning differentiated instruction to promote the students' growth in phonemic awareness?
Competency 005—(Print Concepts and Alphabet Knowledge): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of print concepts and alphabet knowledge, including understanding of the alphabetic principle, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level print concepts and alphabet knowledge and their understanding of the alphabetic principle.7. A kindergarten teacher is planning instruction for a small group of students who have mastered the letter-sound relationships for the consonants m, s, t, and p and for the short-vowel sound of the letter a. The students also consistently spell words using both initial and final consonant sounds in their daily writing. Given this information, which of the following instructional activities would be most appropriate for the teacher to use with these students to promote their transition to the next step along the continuum of development of knowledge and skills related to the alphabetic principle?
8. A prekindergarten teacher is planning instruction in letter-sound relationships for a group of beginning-level English learners who have begun identifying and naming the letters of the alphabet. Which of the following strategies would likely be most effective to apply with this group of children?
Competency 006—(Phonics and Other Word Identification Skills): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of phonics and other word identification skills, including related spelling skills, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level phonics and other word identification skills and related spelling skills.9. A second-grade teacher frequently uses the strategy of phoneme-grapheme mapping as part of phonics instruction. The teacher selects target words from a phonics lesson and creates sound boxes corresponding to the words. The teacher then helps students write the target words in the sound boxes, making sure that students map each sound of a word to a single box. Examples of sound boxes from two different phonics lessons are shown below. Sample sound boxes for one group of students: Target word: chain. The first box contains the letters c h. The second box contains the letters a i. The third box contains the letter n. Target word: cheap. The first box contains the letters c h. The second box contains the letters e a. The third box contains the letter p. Sample sound boxes for a second group of students: Target word: bent. The first box contains the letter b. The second box contains the letter e. The third box contains the letter n. The fourth box contains the letter t. Target word: fist. The first box contains the letter f. The second box contains the letter i. The third box contains the letter s. The fourth box contains the letter t. Using this activity in the context of phonics lessons best demonstrates the teacher's understanding of which of the following key concepts related to beginning reading instruction?
10. A kindergarten teacher reads a decodable text about cats with a small group of students and then incorporates the content of the text into an interactive writing lesson. First, the teacher has students orally generate several sentences that relate to the actions of the cat in the story. The teacher then says, "Those are great sentences. Help me write them on the chart paper." For each decodable word in a sentence, the teacher pauses to prompt the students to listen to the sounds of the word and use their knowledge of the letter-sound correspondences that they practiced in the decodable text to identify which letter the teacher should write next. This scenario best demonstrates the teacher's awareness of which of the following concepts related to students' development of beginning reading skills?
Competency 007—(Syllabication and Morphemic Analysis Skills): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of syllabication and morphemic analysis skills, including related spelling skills, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level syllabication and morphemic analysis skills and related spelling skills.11. A first-grade teacher would like to incorporate instruction in morphemes for students who have mastered reading and spelling closed- and open-syllable words. Which of the following skills is best aligned with both the teacher's goal and the continuum of word-reading skills described in the first-grade Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR)?
Competency 008—(Reading Fluency): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of reading fluency, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level reading fluency.12. A second-grade student scores well above the 50th percentile benchmark for fluency on the midyear benchmark assessment. However, the teacher notes that the student reads the text word-by-word in a choppy, disjointed manner and has difficulty answering comprehension questions afterward. Which of the following strategies would be most important for the teacher to include in an intervention designed to address the student's assessed needs?
13. Several students in a first-grade class have progressed from the partial-alphabetic phase of word-reading development to the full-alphabetic phase. Which of the following instructional activities would be most appropriate for promoting these students' word-reading accuracy and automaticity?
14. Before assigning students a new science or social studies text, a third-grade teacher introduces important Tier Three terms from the text. As part of the introduction, the teacher leads students in applying morphemic analysis skills to the words and also discusses new concepts related to the words. The teacher's actions best reflect an understanding of which of the following factors that can disrupt reading fluency and affect comprehension?
Domain III—Reading Development: ComprehensionCompetency 009—(Vocabulary Development): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to vocabulary development, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level vocabulary knowledge and skills.15. Which of the following sets of words would be most appropriate to categorize as Tier Two words?
Competency 010—(Comprehension Development): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of reading comprehension, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of reading comprehension strategies in order to gain, clarify, and deepen understanding of appropriately complex texts.16. A third-grade English learner has grade-level decoding skills and scores around the grade-level benchmark for words correct per minute on oral reading fluency measures. However, the student's text comprehension is mixed. The student comprehends some literary and informational texts with ease, yet struggles with others. Given this evidence, when the student is having difficulty with a text, the teacher's best initial response should be to:
17. Students in a second-grade class will be reading a complex informational text about ants as part of a science unit focused on comparing the ways living organisms depend on one another. Prior to the reading, the teacher plans to show students a video depicting activities in ant colonies and to share a picture book about ants. The teacher's actions best demonstrate understanding of which of the following factors affecting reading comprehension?
Competency 011—(Comprehension of Literary Texts): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the comprehension of and critical thinking about literary texts, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level comprehension and analysis skills for literary texts.18. A third-grade class includes several English learners who represent a variety of home languages and English language proficiency levels. Some of the students are beginning readers in English. The teacher collects folktales from several countries to use for whole-class read-alouds and during small-group reading instruction. Which of the following statements accurately describes a feature of folktales and why that feature makes the genre especially well-suited for students in a multilingual, multicultural classroom?
Competency 012—(Comprehension of Informational Texts): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the comprehension of and critical thinking about informational texts, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level comprehension and analysis skills for informational texts.19. A kindergarten teacher frequently conducts think-alouds when reading aloud to the class. The following is a transcript of the teacher reading aloud an informational text called "Making a Bird Feeder." The teacher's think-aloud process is seen below in italics. start italics Text end italics: Making a Bird Feeder. start italics Materials end italics: one two-foot piece of string, one pinecone, honey, seeds, two bowls, one coat hanger start italics Instructions end italics: Step 1: Get the materials together. Which of the following text analysis skills does the teacher model during this think-aloud?
Clustered QuestionsUse the information below to answer the two questions that follow.
Competency 003—(Oral Language Foundations of Reading Development): Understand foundational concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of oral language, including second-language acquisition, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level oral language skills.20. In the dialogue, the teacher's practice of prompting students with connecting words benefits their oral language development primarily by:
21. The teacher brings in a variety of building materials mentioned in the story The Little Yellow Chicken's House (e.g., straw, wood, stones) for the students to describe, sort, and categorize. The teacher also asks the students to describe how the character used the materials in his house. The teacher's actions best demonstrate attention to which of the following instructional goals?
Use the information below to answer the two questions that follow.
Competency 009—(Vocabulary Development): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to vocabulary development, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level vocabulary knowledge and skills.22. The teacher's practices in this scenario best demonstrate which of the following key principles of effective vocabulary instruction for prekindergarten children as described in the Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines?
23. The extension of the activity best demonstrates the teacher's understanding of which of the following key factors affecting vocabulary development in prekindergarten children?
Use the information below to answer the two questions that follow.
Competency 010—(Comprehension Development): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of reading comprehension, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of reading comprehension strategies in order to gain, clarify, and deepen understanding of appropriately complex texts.24. During the second reading of the text, the teacher would like to focus students' attention on analyzing the author's craft. How can the teacher best achieve this goal?
25. After the third reading of the text, the teacher has students discuss whether the goldfish was happier when it was once again alone in a fishbowl or when it rejoined the other creatures in a large fish tank. The students must work with a partner to locate support from the text and illustrations for their claim. Conducting this type of collaborative conversation as part of a focused-rereading protocol benefits students' understanding of a complex text primarily by:
Additional Selected-Response QuestionsThis section includes additional sample selected-response questions for you to review in preparation for the exam. The correct answer is provided for each question below. Domain I—Reading PedagogyCompetency 001—(Foundations of the Science of Teaching Reading): Understand foundational concepts, principles, and best practices related to the science of teaching reading.26. A first-grade teacher provides reading instruction that is systematic and explicit and emphasizes both foundational reading skills and various dimensions of comprehension. According to research in preventing reading difficulties, which of the following additional actions would be most important for the teacher to take to ensure that reading instruction addresses all students' reading needs?
27. At the beginning of the school year, a kindergarten teacher determines that some students have had limited prior formal and informal literacy experiences. To accelerate these students' reading development, which of the following strategies would be most appropriate for the teacher to emphasize?
Competency 002—(Foundations of Reading Assessment): Understand foundational concepts, principles, and best practices related to reading assessment.28. A second-grade teacher periodically conducts reading interest surveys with individual students. The teacher could best use the results of these assessments for which of the following instructional purposes?
Domain II—Reading Development: Foundational SkillsCompetency 004—(Phonological and Phonemic Awareness): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of phonological and phonemic awareness, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level phonological and phonemic awareness skills.29. A prekindergarten teacher frequently engages children in circle time activities such as the activities described below.
According to convergent research, activities such as these are most effective in helping young children:
Competency 005—(Print Concepts and Alphabet Knowledge): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of print concepts and alphabet knowledge, including understanding of the alphabetic principle, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level print concepts and alphabet knowledge and their understanding of the alphabetic principle.30. A kindergarten teacher meets with individual students and asks them to point to the words in the text of a familiar nursery rhyme as the teacher and student read the nursery rhyme aloud together. Some students demonstrate understanding of the directionality of print by sweeping their finger as they "read," but they are not able to accurately point to the individual words. Other students who readily associate letters with sounds use this understanding to guide their finger as they point to a word that starts with the sound they hear at the beginning of the spoken word. The second group of students clearly try to match their speech to the print as they say the words. The teacher can best use the results of this informal assessment to determine which students are able to:
31. A third-grade teacher reviews data on the literacy skills of several beginning-level English learners who did not attend school prior to moving to the United States. The teacher wants to plan appropriate small-group reading instruction for the students. Which of the following types of text would best meet the reading development needs of English learners who are at an emergent stage of English language development and at the pre-alphabetic phase of word reading?
Competency 006—(Phonics and Other Word Identification Skills): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of phonics and other word identification skills, including related spelling skills, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level phonics and other word identification skills and related spelling skills.32. A first-grade teacher is working with a small group of students that includes English learners and speakers of various dialects of English. As part of a series of lessons on the inflectional ending -ed, the teacher helps the students sort a list of inflected verbs according to their final sound or syllable. The teacher selected the verbs from a text the students are currently reading. The students' completed word-sort chart is shown below.
The teacher's strategy of having the students sort and pronounce inflected verbs is likely to benefit the English learners and speakers of various dialects primarily in which of the following ways?
Competency 007—(Syllabication and Morphemic Analysis Skills): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of syllabication and morphemic analysis skills, including related spelling skills, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level syllabication and morphemic analysis skills and related spelling skills.33. A second-grade teacher divides the class into pairs and presents each pair of students with a unique set of word cards. The teacher models how to match two word cards to build a new word (e.g., mail plus box equals mailbox, some plus thing equals something). The teacher then challenges the students to work with their partners to build as many new words as they can using their own set of word cards. The students are assigned to make a list of their new words and draft a sentence for three of the words. Afterward, each pair of students reads aloud their lists of words and sentences to the class. This activity supports students' reading development primarily by promoting their ability to:
Competency 008—(Reading Fluency): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of reading fluency, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level reading fluency.34. A second-grade teacher is working with students to develop their automaticity in recognizing high-frequency words. Several English learners often misread or omit high-frequency prepositions (e.g., in, on, of, by) when reading connected text. Which of the following strategies for differentiating instruction for the English learners would best scaffold their learning in order to promote their accuracy and automaticity in reading high-frequency, grade-level function words?
Domain III—Reading Development: ComprehensionCompetency 010—(Comprehension Development): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of reading comprehension, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of reading comprehension strategies in order to gain, clarify, and deepen understanding of appropriately complex texts.35. A kindergarten teacher would like to determine if students can make inferences about characters and/or events in stories they hear or read. Which of the following assessment approaches is most likely to require students to make inferences?
36. A third-grade teacher would like to model how to apply metacognitive strategies while reading in order to improve students' reading comprehension. Which of the following strategies would be most appropriate to model?
Competency 011—(Comprehension of Literary Texts): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the comprehension of and critical thinking about literary texts, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level comprehension and analysis skills for literary texts.37. A prekindergarten teacher frequently reads aloud high-quality literature to develop children's familiarity with literary texts. Which of the following accompanying activities would best promote the children's understanding of basic story structure?
Competency 012—(Comprehension of Informational Texts): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the comprehension of and critical thinking about informational texts, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level comprehension and analysis skills for informational texts.38. To promote students' ability to engage in academic conversations about informational texts, a second-grade teacher creates the following anchor chart with students. The teacher posts it in the classroom and supports students in using it during discussions. For example, ... The author said ... According to the author, ... From the reading I know that ... On page blank, the author says ... For instance, ... Because ... This list of phrases is best designed to scaffold students' ability to apply which of the following skills during text-based discussions about informational texts?
39. A first-grade teacher often uses a simple timeline graphic organizer to scaffold information for students when they are reading social studies texts about historical events or the lives of important people. The teacher's practice is most likely to promote students' development of which of the following disciplinary-literacy skills?
Clustered QuestionsUse the information below to answer the two questions that follow.
Competency 003—(Oral Language Foundations of Reading Development): Understand foundational concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of oral language, including second-language acquisition, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level oral language skills.40. The teacher wants to align prompts about the setting of the story with the English learners' oral proficiency levels. Which of the following prompts would best align with a student who is at the beginning level of oral language proficiency in English?
41. As the story progresses, more characters enter the bedroom and pile on the snoring granny to take a nap. The teacher asks students to describe what is occurring on each page. In response to the text and illustrations, one English learner says, "Mouse sleep on cat. Cat sleep on dog." The student's grammar is most typical of an English learner at which of the following levels of English language proficiency?
Use the information below to answer the two questions that follow.
Competency 002—(Foundations of Reading Assessment): Understand foundational concepts, principles, and best practices related to reading assessment.42. The teacher uses the assessment in this scenario for which of the following assessment purposes?
Competency 006—(Phonics and Other Word Identification Skills): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of phonics and other word identification skills, including related spelling skills, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level phonics and other word identification skills and related spelling skills.43. Given the student's performance on the assessment, which of the following actions would be most appropriate for the teacher to take next?
Use the information below to answer the two questions that follow.
Competency 002—(Foundations of Reading Assessment): Understand foundational concepts, principles, and best practices related to reading assessment.44. The student-teacher conference described in this scenario best reflects the teacher's awareness of the importance of:
Competency 006—(Phonics and Other Word Identification Skills): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of phonics and other word identification skills, including related spelling skills, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level phonics and other word identification skills and related spelling skills.45. Given the information provided, which of the following instructional plans would likely be most effective in improving this student's ability to self-monitor and self-correct while reading?
Use the information below to answer the two questions that follow.
Competency 009—(Vocabulary Development): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to vocabulary development, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level vocabulary knowledge and skills.46. This type of activity benefits students' vocabulary development most directly by:
47. The teacher would like to reinforce this lesson while also promoting the students' knowledge of independent word-learning strategies. The teacher could best address both goals by showing the students how to:
Use the information below to answer the three questions that follow.
Competency 010—(Comprehension Development): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the development of reading comprehension, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of reading comprehension strategies in order to gain, clarify, and deepen understanding of appropriately complex texts.48. The read-aloud portion of the lesson best demonstrates the teacher's understanding of the importance of selecting texts for reading instruction that:
Competency 011—(Comprehension of Literary Texts): Understand concepts, principles, and best practices related to the comprehension of and critical thinking about literary texts, and demonstrate knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote all students' development of grade-level comprehension and analysis skills for literary texts.49. The teacher observes that some students are having difficulty completing the right side of the blank Somebody-Wanted-Because-But-So-Then chart. Which of the following scaffolding strategies would best help the students use the chart to develop summaries that convey story relationships?
50. The teacher differentiates the written-summary portion of the lesson for the English learners by having them practice orally retelling the story before they develop their written summaries. The teacher listens to their retelling and provides them with feedback, coaching, and/or additional instruction, as needed. The transcript of one intermediate English learner's oral retelling of the story is shown below.
Given this retelling, the teacher could best improve the student's ability to summarize the story in a way that conveys story relationships by providing explicit instruction in which of the following skills?
Return to Navigation What are learnerDefinition. Learner-centered instruction empowers learners to participate actively in the learning process. Unlike more traditional teacher-centered approaches which focus on the instructor, this model places the learner at the center of the learning process.
Why is the learner is the center of instruction?Learner-centered instruction is focused on the students. What this means is that the teacher takes into account the learning goals and objectives of the students in establishing what to teach. This requires the teacher to conduct at least an informal needs assessment to figure out what the students want to learn.
How will you describe the role of teacher and learner in a learnerIn learner-centered pedagogy, the role of the teacher is more that of a coach than a person with all the answers. The focus is on both the instructor and students. Learning occurs through the process of interaction between the instructor and students and among the students (Figure 1.2).
Which one of the following statements most accurately describes behaviorist view of how learning can best be studied?Which one of the following statements most accurately describes behaviorists view of how learning can best be studied? The study of learning will be more objective and scientific if only observable events are considered.
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