Subarea 2/Objective 6: Second-Language and Content Learning Flashcards
Apply knowledge of theory, research and practice related to developing reading skills and reading comprehension in English as a first language.
According to convergent research in reading development in English as a first language, a key
component of an effective early reading program is explicit instruction in:
A. Phonemic awareness skills.
B. Academic language structures.
C. Content-area concepts and skills.
D. Listening comprehension.
A. Phonemic awareness is a specific type of phonological awareness that involves the ability to distinguish the individual phonemes in a spoken word. Research indicates that phonemic awareness and letter recognition are the two primary indicators of beginning reading success for students learning to read an alphabetic language such as English.
B and C are incorrect because knowledge of academic language structures and content-area concepts and skills contributes to reading comprehension at later stages of reading development but these skills are not prerequisite for beginning reading development. D is incorrect because listening comprehension contributes to the development of reading comprehension but is not prerequisite for developing decoding and fluency skills, which are foundational to early reading development. Without effective decoding skills, students cannot develop grade-level reading comprehension, regardless of their competence in listening comprehension.
Which of the following are two key indicators of a student’s reading fluency development?
A. Range of reading preferences and motivation to read.
B. Reading accuracy and reading rate.
C. Knowledge of word-learning and reading comprehension strategies.
D. Reading level and comprehension.
B. Reading fluency is the ability to read a text accurately, at an appropriate rate, and with appropriate expression. Hence, key indicators of reading fluency development are accuracy, rate, and prosody, with accuracy and rate being the two indicators most commonly assessed on fluency
measures.
A is incorrect because the types of texts a reader prefers and the reader’s motivation are not
indicators of fluency development. A reader can be motivated to read but still lack the decoding skills
necessary to be able to read fluently. C and D are also incorrect because fluency is prerequisite for
reading comprehension, not vice versa.
Research has shown that which of the following factors has the most significant impact on a student’s vocabulary growth during the upper elementary grades?
A. The frequency and amount of the student’s independent reading.
B. The student’s level of mastery of basic phonics skills.
C. The extent to which the student engages in social interactions.
D. The student’s level of interest in content-area topics.
A. Reading research indicates that in the upper grades, there is a direct correlation between the amount of independent reading a student engages in and the student’s vocabulary development. During independent reading, students consolidate and gain vocabulary knowledge through their experiences with text.
B is incorrect because phonics skills are needed for decoding unfamiliar words but they do not help students understand the meanings of new words. C is incorrect because social interactions are limited in providing a vocabulary-rich experience and therefore do not tend to contribute much to vocabulary growth. D is incorrect because having an interest in content-area topics is not enough to contribute to vocabulary growth. The interest must be acted on through extensive reading to be truly beneficial.
Which of the following should be an important consideration for a teacher who is planning reading instruction for elementary school students?
A. Frequent sustained silent reading is essential to the mastery of fundamental reading skills
during the early stages of literacy development.
B. Weaknesses in basic reading skills are best addressed implicitly, without direct intervention,
as part of a holistic approach to literacy development.
C. Engagement in authentic tasks related to reading that make use of other modalities (i.e.,
listening, speaking, and writing) supports literacy development.
D. Basic reading skills develop in a natural, predictable sequence that is relatively fixed for all
learners regardless of their background or stage of cognitive development
C. It is widely recognized in reading research that engaging students in purposeful listening, speaking, and writing about the texts they are reading supports students’ growth and development in literacy at all stages of reading and writing development.
A, B, and D are all incorrect because foundational reading and writing skills need to be explicitly taught during the early stages of literacy development for students to become proficient readers and writers, including proficient spellers.
A, B, and D all focus on implicit strategies for promoting reading development.
A second-grade teacher is teaching a series of reading comprehension lessons focused on helping students recognize basic elements of story grammar. During one lesson, the teacher guides students in retelling familiar stories aloud using a story grammar chart to scaffold their retellings. The teacher’s inclusion of this activity in the lesson best illustrates:
A. A constructivist approach to teaching literary response skills.
B. An effective strategy for providing independent practice of a newly acquired reading skill.
C. An indirect approach to developing oral vocabulary knowledge.
D. An effective use of an oral language activity to enhance development of a reading skill.
D. The teacher’s use of guided retellings (an oral language activity) using a story grammar chart as a visual support helps reinforce the students’ ability to identify basic story elements in narrative texts.
A is incorrect because the students in the scenario are not engaging in literary response, but rather they are developing a skill (identifying elements of story grammar) that is foundational to the development of literary analysis skills. B is incorrect because the teacher is guiding the students through a scaffolded story-retelling activity. C is incorrect because the focus of the activity is on the development of an understanding of story grammar, not on vocabulary development.
A kindergarten teacher leads an activity in which students practice counting on their fingers the number of separate sounds they hear in simple words. This activity promotes development of
which of the following literacy skills?
A. phonics skills
B. phonemic awareness
C. letter knowledge
D. word consciousness
B. Phonemic awareness is the ability to distinguish the individual sounds within a word. By counting the number of separate sounds heard in simple words, students in this scenario are practicing phonemic awareness skills.
A is incorrect because phonics skills involve the relationship between the sounds of spoken language and the letters of written language. In this scenario, students are counting the sounds they hear in a spoken word. The teacher does not relate the sounds to written words. C is incorrect because, again, the teacher is asking the students to focus on the sounds of spoken words, not letters. D is incorrect because word consciousness is a concept related to vocabulary development and refers to an awareness of and interest in words and their meanings. In the scenario, the teacher is helping students think about words phonologically, to lay the foundation for later learning how to decode words in print.
Which of the following statements best describes the relationship between spelling and phonics instruction in an effective research-based reading curriculum?
A. Systematic spelling instruction takes priority over explicit phonics instruction in the early
grades.
B. Explicit phonics instruction is used primarily to remediate specific areas of spelling difficulty.
C. Systematic spelling instruction is coordinated with and reinforces explicit phonics instruction.
D. Explicit phonics instruction is reinforced by spelling instruction focused on irregular sight
words.
C. There is a reciprocal relationship between spelling and phonics. The development of spelling and orthographic knowledge (e.g., doubling the final consonant of CVC words when adding an ending that begins with a vowel) reinforces the development of decoding skills. Similarly, students can utilize their phonics knowledge to build spelling skills.
A and B are incorrect because phonics and spelling should be taught to all students systematically and concurrently, not simply in the context of an intervention. D is incorrect because irregular sight words are words that contain one or more elements that do not conform to regular phonics guidelines; thus, focusing on them would not reinforce phonics instruction.
A teacher could most effectively promote a beginning reader’s ability to read phonetically irregular words by teaching the student to notice which of the following features of a word first?
A. the sequence of letters in the word
B. the regular (decodable) elements in the word
C. the textual context of the word
D. the overall visual appearance (shape) of the word
B. Virtually all irregular words contain elements that follow regular phonics guidelines. For example, in the irregular words many and said, only the vowel sounds are irregular. Teaching beginning readers to notice the regular (decodable) elements in a word provides them with an important scaffold for recognizing the word.
A and D are incorrect because they are not efficient strategies. These strategies would have students ignore all the knowledge about letter sounds that they have already acquired and instead memorize the letter sequence (A) or shape (D) of each irregular word separately. C is also incorrect because context should be taught as a strategy for verifying the meaning of a word once it has been decoded, not as a stand-alone decoding strategy.
A sixth-grade teacher includes explicit instruction in common Greek and Latin roots (e.g., flex, struct) and affixes (e.g., pre-, -ology) as a regular part of vocabulary instruction. This strategy supports students’ reading development primarily by:
A. Expanding their knowledge of common textual features of academic texts.
B. Enhancing their appreciation of the origins of content-area words.
C. Prompting their use of morphology to determine the meanings of new words.
D. Fostering their development of word consciousness.
C. Explicit instruction in common Greek and Latin roots and affixes helps students learn to recognize the individual morphemes that make up morphologically complex, multisyllablewords. Thus, by learning these common roots and affixes, students can use their understanding of morphology (word formation) to help them determine the meanings of many multisyllable words in English.
A is incorrect because instruction in common Greek and Latin roots and affixes supportsstudents’ learning of new words and does not relate to the use of common textual features, such ascaptions and subtitles. B is incorrect because, although students may gain an appreciation of the origins of content-area words by studying Greek and Latin roots and affixes, the strategy is most beneficial for helping students determine the meaning of unknown academic words. Finally, D is incorrect because the scenario focuses on a specific word-learning strategy, whereas word consciousness relates to having a positive attitude toward words—having a strong interest in learning about words and in acquiring new words. The scenario does not focus on the development of these affective factors.
Which of the following strategies would be most effective in promoting a first-grade student’s reading fluency?
A. Poviding the student with scaffolded practice in reading comprehension strategies.
B. Creating frequent opportunities for the student to engage in silent reading of high-interest
texts.
C. Providing the student with focused review of phonics generalizations and word analysis
strategies.
D. Creating frequent opportunities for the student to engage in oral reading of independent-level
texts.
D. Reading fluency involves the ability to read a text easily and accurately. Two key indicators of reading fluency are accuracy and rate. Once a beginning reader has developed accuracy in decoding simple words, the student can begin to improve his/her rate by developing automaticity (rapid, automatic decoding of familiar words). Automaticity is developed through frequent reading practice of texts at the student’s independent level (that is, the student can read at least 99 percent of the words accurately). Oral reading allows the student to hear his/her voice as he/she practices reading at an efficient rate, thus encouraging self-monitoring to maintain accuracy.
A is incorrect because comprehension strategies support a student’s understanding of the text, not the
accuracy and rate with which the reader decodes words in a text. B is incorrect because beginning
readers should practice reading orally to ensure they maintain accuracy. Also, reading high-interest texts does not necessarily promote development of fluency. For example, the student may be interested in a science text that is too difficult for the student to read with accuracy or at an appropriate rate because he/she has to struggle to decode too many unfamiliar words. C is incorrect because phonics knowledge and word analysis strategies provide tools for decoding unfamiliar words, but to develop an appropriate reading rate, the student needs to practice reading texts that he/she can already decode with ease.
A teacher would like to promote third-grade students’ use of syntactic and semantic context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words in a passage. Which of the following should be an
important consideration for the teacher to keep in mind when planning instruction to address this goal?
A. Contextual analysis strategies are more effective when combined with word analysis
strategies.
B. Dictionary definitions tend to be more helpful than context clues in supporting word
comprehension.
C. Most readers develop an implicit awareness of context clues independently.
D. Informational texts tend to lend themselves to contextual analysis more than literary texts.
A. Contextual analysis is an effective strategy for verifying the meaning of a word once it has been decoded. It is not effective as a stand-alone decoding strategy. Once a word has been decoded using word analysis strategies (e.g., phonics, syllabication, structural analysis), syntactic context clues (clues that reveal information about a word’s grammatical function) and semantic context clues (clues provided by the meaning of the surrounding words in the sentence or passage) can help the reader determine the meaning of the word as it is being used in the passage.
B is incorrect because dictionary definitions tend not to be helpful without the additional support of context to determine which of possibly several definitions is appropriate to the passage. C is incorrect because contextual analysis skills are enhanced by explicit instruction. D is incorrect because contextual analysis is a skill that can be used with any genre. Indeed, informational texts such as textbooks frequently use apposition and other contextual clues to help readers understand the meaning of new vocabulary.
