Foundations of Reading 3

Question 1

A sixth-grade teacher is planning explicit instruction to develop students’ ability to 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?

Answer 1

deconstructing complex sentences into independent and dependent clauses

Question 2

Over the course of the school year, a sixth-grade student who had been a fluent, proficient reader in previous years has become increasingly inconsistent in 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 expectations. The teacher observes that the student does not read smoothly when reading aloud sentences that contain more than one clause, and the student often comments about “getting lost in the sentence.” The teacher is also aware that the student tends to choose fiction and graphic novels for independent reading that are written well below grade-level expectations. The student’s overall reading profile suggests that the student would likely benefit most from explicit instruction focused on promoting the student’s:

Answer 2

ability to deconstruct complex academic language and interpret its meaning.

Question 3

A third-grade class that includes several English learners is preparing to read a text about the life cycles of various organisms (e.g., plants, mammals, reptiles). Which of the following teaching strategies would be most effective in promoting the English learners’ comprehension of the text?

Answer 3

activating the students’ prior knowledge about the topic and providing visual aids such as illustrations to clarify new vocabulary

Question 4

A sixth-grade student encounters the following sentence in a short story.
“She experienced a sense of déjà vu as she walked down the street of the strange new city.”
The student asks the teacher about the meaning of déjà vu in the sentence. The teacher could best respond by advising the student to take which of the following steps?

Answer 4

looking up the word in the dictionary, and then paraphrasing the sentence using the dictionary definition

Question 5

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:

Answer 5

extend and reinforce their expressive and receptive vocabularies related to the text’s topic.

Question 6

A second-grade teacher is reading aloud a literary text to the class. Which of the following post- reading activities would be most likely to promote the students’ comprehension of the story by enhancing their literary analysis skills?

Answer 6

discussing with the students how the characters in the story respond to major events and challenges

Question 7

A fifth-grade teacher plans to use the passage below in a lesson focused on analyzing literary texts.

“Zander told me it didn’t matter what the exact rules were, or what was “fair” according to Coach. What mattered most was the team winning against Sagamore and advancing to the next level. “So, okay? You in?” he asked me.
I just looked at him without saying a word. I like Zander. He’s funny, smart, popular— everything I’m not. So I wanted to say, Sure, let’s do it. But I kept seeing Coach’s face in my mind, like he was looking me right in the eye. “I don’t know,” I said slowly. Zander’s eyes narrowed and his mouth set firmly shut. Oh, great, I thought. Now I’ll have NO friends at school.”

The teacher is planning text-based questions to use in a post-reading discussion about the passage. Which of the following organizing questions would most effectively prompt students’ higher-order analysis of this passage?

Answer 7

How are the narrator’s relationships with Zander and Coach similar and yet different?

Question 8

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?

Answer 8

asking students text-dependent who, what, where, when, why, and how questions about story elements

Question 9

A fourth-grade teacher is planning a lesson focused on promoting students’ recognition of distinguishing features of prose, poetry, and drama. The teacher plans to begin the lesson by having students follow along as the teacher reads aloud three short passages—a chapter from a novel, a narrative poem, and a scene from a play. Afterward, the teacher plans to lead a whole- class discussion about the passages. Which of the following post-reading activities would be most effective in helping the students prepare for the discussion and achieve the lesson’s objective?

Answer 9

having pairs of students use a graphic organizer to compare how major story elements such as setting, characters, and plot are conveyed in the three passages

Question 10

A second-grade class includes several expanding-level (advanced) English learners. The teacher typically previews a variety of texts to help select appropriate passages for English language arts instruction. Following is an excerpt from one of the texts the teacher is considering.

“Edward’s and Jo’s eyes met. Edward blinked. “There was a letter on the table a second ago. Where did it go?” Jo asked. Edward shrugged. “I wouldn’t know,” he said. “Don’t give me that!” snapped Jo. Edward could see that his older sister was about to blow a fuse. “No need to bite my head off,” he said. “It’s got to be here somewhere!” As Jo turned around to scan the room, Edward quickly took the letter from his jacket pocket and chucked it under the table.”

The English learners are most likely to need support with which of the following comprehension challenges in this passage?

Answer 10

understanding idiomatic meanings of some words and phrases

Question 11

A fourth-grade class will be comparing the treatment of a similar theme, “family ties,” in stories from different countries. After students read the stories independently, the teacher plans to lead close rereadings focused on the influence of culture on the target theme. Which of the following teaching preparation strategies would be most essential and effective for achieving the goals of this lesson?

Answer 11

identifying passages in each story that are essential to understanding the author’s perspective and key words or other stylistic choices that convey certain values

Question 12

Which of the following activities would be most effective for a teacher to use to promote students’ strategic reading of literary texts?

Answer 12

leading students in frequent small-group discussions and close readings focused on relevant strategies (e.g., skimming, rereading) to use for different academic tasks and purposes

Question 13

Fourth-grade students silently read an assigned text for part of the English language arts block and then meet for a small-group discussion of the text in another part of the block. During the silent reading portion, the teacher instructs students to use stick-on notes to bookmark passages where they make predictions, ask or answer questions, or encounter an unfamiliar word. In addition to anchoring the group discussions in the text, this practice benefits students primarily by increasing their:

Answer 13

metacognitive awareness while reading.

Question 14

Some children in a kindergarten class have had limited prior exposure to storybooks read aloud and/or limited prior experiences discussing narrative texts. Their teacher wants to develop their knowledge of story structure. According to evidence-based best practices, which of the following instructional approaches is most likely to accelerate the children’s understanding of the causal nature of story events?

Answer 14

teaching story elements explicitly, such as main character, goal or problem, and resolution, as part of the daily read-aloud

Question 15

A group of fifth-grade students finishes reading a novel written in the first person. The teacher has the students work together to write a new account of a key scene as it might be reported by a different major character. Which of the following questions would be the most appropriate focus of a group discussion following the writing activity?

Answer 15

How does the narrative point of view in a story shape a reader’s understanding of events?

Question 16

An entering third-grade student with a specific learning disability demonstrates reading comprehension that is below grade-level expectations. The student can read aloud narrative texts that are aligned with second-grade expectations with accuracy and fluency; however, the student does not consistently remember key details or events after reading the texts. In keeping with evidence-based best practices, which of the following strategies would be most appropriate for the teacher to try first to support the student’s reading comprehension with literary texts?

Answer 16

providing the student with explicit instruction in story elements using a graphic organizer

Question 17

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?

Answer 17

What do you think is the main idea or theme of the novel? Relate specific events in this chapter to the theme you suggest.

Question 18

A fifth-grade teacher gives students a “reading planner” for an informational text that they will be reading independently. The reading planner 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 planner is likely to be most effective for achieving which of the following instructional purposes?

Answer 18

encouraging students to read and interact closely with the text

Question 19

A second-grade class is studying a social studies unit focused on geography (e.g., bodies of water, landforms) and its effects on people. So far, the students have learned about lakes, oceans, and bays. As part of the unit, the teacher reads aloud an informational passage that explains why human settlements near rivers historically have succeeded and grown. The teacher pauses regularly to discuss the reading, using a range of text-based questions to prompt discussion and promote students’ literal, inferential, and evaluative comprehension. Part of the text appears below.
“Rivers have fresh water. Fish and other wildlife live in and near rivers. The soil near rivers is good for growing crops and grazing animals. But rivers provided towns with more than just what people needed to survive. Moving water provided a source of power that people could harness for industry. And, over time, large rivers became superhighways for travel and trade across great distances.”
Which of the following questions about this part of the text would most effectively target students’ inferential comprehension?

Answer 19

Do you think living near a river makes life easier or more difficult for people, and what information in the text makes you think so?

Question 20

A sixth-grade teacher gives students several 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 the opinion?
3. What evidence does the author use to support the opinion?
These questions support students’ reading comprehension primarily by prompting them to:

Answer 20

analyze points of view in expository texts.

Question 21

A sixth-grade teacher is planning an instructional unit on summarizing informational text. In one lesson, the teacher will show students how to use the graphic organizer shown below to support them in identifying important ideas from an informational passage.

Which of the following learning goals would be most essential for the teacher to address in the lesson to develop students’ ability to compose an effective summary from these kinds of notes?

Answer 21

citing evidence from the passage using direct quotes and paraphrasing

Question 22

A second-grade teacher frequently reads aloud informational books related to grade-level content in social studies, science, and the arts. The teacher supports students in developing their own questions during and after the read-alouds and then helps them conduct research on their questions using grade-level resources the teacher has collected on these topics. In keeping with evidence-based best practices, providing direct instruction in which of the following aspects of informational text would be most essential to students’ success and growing independence in using informational texts for personal research?

Answer 22

using text features to locate specific information in a text

Question 23

During a series of integrated science and literacy lessons, a third-grade teacher plans to have students read several articles from a children’s magazine about new technologies for cleaning up pollution in the oceans. After they read the articles, students will work in small groups to create a graphic organizer comparing and contrasting two of the solutions. To prepare students to integrate information across texts in this activity, which of the following steps would be most essential for the teacher to take?

Answer 23

providing explicit instruction in how to identify the most important points and key details presented in the texts

Question 24

A third-grade teacher periodically reads aloud from a chapter in content-area textbooks using think-aloud while reading. Following is an example.
Foundations of Reading Practice Test
“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. …”
The teacher’s practice is most likely to promote students’ reading comprehension of informational texts by:

Answer 24

modeling for them metacognitive comprehension strategies.

Question 25

A fifth-grade teacher plans to have students read a chapter about the American Revolutionary War from their social studies textbook. The following is an excerpt from the chapter.
“The Battle of Bunker Hill took place on June 17, 1775. At the time, the American army occupied the area from Cambridge to the Mystic River. American troops gathered in Cambridge Common on the evening of June 16, 1775, and set out for Bunker Hill. Upon reaching Bunker Hill, however, officers decided to move to Breed’s Hill, a smaller hill closer to Boston.”

Given this excerpt from the chapter, which of the following graphic organizers would best promote students’ awareness of the chapter’s text structure?

Answer 25

timeline