Once students decode well, which statement describes the relationship between vocabulary and reading comprehension?
Vocabulary is the best single predictor of reading comprehension.
In teaching the word invisible, the teacher broke it into the parts in – vis – ible and talked about the meanings of the parts. Which aspect of language was emphasized?
morphology
The Hart and Risley study (1995) identified a “30-million-word” gap. This gap refers to:
the difference in the number of words heard by preschool children raised in high- and low-language family environments.
Which of the following is least likely to narrow the vocabulary gap between language-rich and language-poor students?
watching children’s television programs
To introduce a Tier 2 vocabulary word explicitly and systematically before reading, which of these strategies would be the least effective?
asking students to write the word 10 times until they can spell it
Students must learn the meanings of several thousand new words every year if they are going to meet grade-level expectations for vocabulary growth. About how many of those word meanings should teachers aim to teach explicitly and thoroughly per week?
10-12
When a student is an accurate but slow reader, which of the following practices is most effective?
Focus instruction on foundational reading skills that address multiple aspects of language.
In what way should the vocabulary instruction of English Learners (ELs) be distinguished from the vocabulary instruction of native English speakers?
They may need to learn the meanings of the Tier 1 words in a passage.
To select the best vocabulary words to teach before reading a text, the teacher should prioritize which types of words?
words that are central to understanding key meanings in the passage
A primary-grade teacher who wants to implement research-based vocabulary instruction should try to emphasize:
word relationships, including antonyms, synonyms, categories, and semantic families.
Good readers will stop and reread a portion of the text for clarification if they don’t understand it. This behavior demonstrates:
cognitive flexibility and metacognition.
When students read about a topic for which they already have well-developed background knowledge, they are more likely than uninformed students to:
acquire new knowledge faster from the text.
A valuable first step before reading a text with a group of students is:
clearly stating the purpose for reading the text.
Which of the following is the best description of the comprehension process as it relates to reading?
linking the surface code with ideas in the text base
Which teaching strategy is most likely to help students construct a mental model of a texts meanings?
anticipating the takeaways and building background knowledge
Standardized tests of reading comprehension have been shown by research to:
give varied results depending on the content and format.
Which technique would be least relevant for teaching an informational passage about the difference between frogs and toads?
outlining the elements of story grammar
Which of the following activities would help students identify cohesive ties in a text?
having students draw arrows between pronouns and their referents
Which kind of text structure organization is suggested by the topic sentence, “Here are some easy steps for making pancakes”?
process (time sequence)
Which of the following would be a good example to use while teaching students to identify compound sentences?
The rain came but the team played on.
Which criterion best describes a high-quality text for use in read-alouds or comprehension instruction?
It is worth rereading for new meanings.
When students are still learning foundational reading skills, the recommended division of instructional time between word work and language comprehension is:
about 30-40 minutes on word work during a 90-minute reading lesson.
The research consensus on the teaching of comprehension strategies during reading instruction indicates that:
- after 1-2 lessons, strategies easily generalize to students’ independent reading.
- strategy instruction is more effective in grades 4 and up than in grades 1-3.
(Not sure on this one, but it’s between these two)
During a teacher-mediated reading of a story such as The Three Little Pigs, which of these questions is most likely to facilitate construction of a mental model of the texts meanings?
“What have we learned so far about the third pig?”
One of the most important follow-up activities to deepen student understanding of and memory for the content of a specific text is:
retelling or summarizing the text, either orally or in writing.
Students with comprehension weaknesses benefit from teachers actively mediating comprehension because these students:
typically make fewer, lower-quality inferences on their own.
Which one of the following is not a key difference between narrative and informational text?
its appropriateness for classroom libraries in all grades
Dialect differences characterize students in many regions of the United States. Research supports handling these language differences by:
explicitly contrasting “home language” with “school language” in frequent, brief lessons.
The most practical way for teachers to assess student progress in writing is to use:
all of the above.
If an English Learner (EL) is confused about the meaning of a reading passage, a teacher might be more successful conveying the meaning by:
supplementing the language in the text with pictures, actions, and objects.
During the editing phase of writing, a personal editing/proofreading checklist should contain:
a few specific reminders of skills the student has learned and practiced.
Which of these techniques is least helpful for encouraging comprehension monitoring (e.g., students noticing and reacting when the text does not make sense to them)?
waiting until a reading is completed and then asking students to summarize
Of the topic sentences below, which one would be most appropriate for writing an opinion?
This book about wolves is one of my favorites.
About how many American students demonstrate “proficient” or “advanced” writing skills by grade 8, according the National Assessment of Educational Progress (2007)?
33 percent
Which would be the most essential step to take in preparing students to write a complete narrative?
Talk out ideas and make notes within a Story Framework.
Writing is sometimes called the “quintessential mental juggling act” because:
it requires more cognitive, motor, and language skills than any other academic activity.
Which of the following sentence-writing skills is the most challenging for students to learn?
- distinguishing among the four basic sentence types
- writing complex sentences beginning with adverbial phrases*
- combining two simple sentences into a compound sentence
The act of transcribing words into print by hand or by keyboarding is part of which phase of the writing process?
translating
The most important reason for systematically teaching and valuing good handwriting and spelling is that:
mastery and automaticity enable higher quality compositions.
Which statement best describes the relationship between foundational writing skills (handwriting, spelling, punctuation, capitalization) and composition?
An equal emphasis on learning foundational skills and composition will work best for most students.
academic language
written or spoken language that is more stylistically formal than spoken conversational language; language that is most often used in academic discourse or text.
adjective
A part of speech that describes a noun or person (e.g., windy, blue).
adverb
A part of speech that describes a verd, adjective, or adverb (e.g., sadly, crookedly).
affricate
A speech sound with features of both a fricative and a stop; in English, /ch/ and /j/ are __.
allophones
Slight alterations to pronunciation of phonemes resulting from phonemes overlapping with one another in a spoken word; these variations of pronunciation are predictable and unconscious, as most speakers make them.
allophonic variation
The slightly different pronunciation of a phoneme, depending on its place in a word; for example, automatic nasalizing of a vowel before a nasal consonant.
alphabetic principle
The concept that letters are used to represent individual phonemes in the spoken word; insight into this principle is critical for learning to read and spell.
antonym
A word that overlaps with another word, but which has the opposite meaning.
automaticity
The ability to read quickly and accurately without conscious effort.
background knowledge
Preexisting knowledge of facts and ideas necessary to make inferences.
base words
Words that can stand on their own, or can serve as part of another word, as a free morpheme.
benchmark
A standard or a set of standards used as a threshold for predicting future risk for reading difficulty.
blend
Two or three graphemes, each one representing a phoneme (e.g., the s-c-r in scrape); a __ is not one sound, but two or three adjacent consonants before or after a vowel in a syllable.
characters
The protagonist or who the story is about, plus optional secondary people or animals whose roles within the story help the plot to unfold.
clause
A group of words that has a subject and a predicate and functions as a unit.
closed syllable
A syllable with a short vowel spelled with a single vowel letter and ending in one or more consonants (e.g., hat, kit-ten).
coarticulation
Occurs when phonemes are spoken together to produce syllables or words and the features of these phonemes are affected by the speech sounds that precede or follow them.
code switching
The conscious effort to write and/or speak in a certain way, depending on the social context and/or whether the language is spoken or writter.
cognate
A word in one language that shares a common ancestor and common meanings with a word in another language. Many Spanish words, such as “problema” or “diagrama,” are __ that are built around the same Latin and Greek prefixes, suffixes, or roots that English words also employ.
coherence
The property of sticking together into a consistent whole; can refer to a quality of text or to the representation of meaning in a person’s mind.
cohesive devices
The specific linguistic devices by which a text hangs together, such as pronoun references, repeated phrases, or substitution or one phrase for another.
comparative adjective
An adjective that compares two nouns or pronouns (e.g., Sarah is taller than Monique; the red flower is more colorful than the pink one).
complementary antonym
An antonym that is mutually exclusive from its opposite term.
complex sentence
A complex sentence has an independent clause and a dependent clause; the dependent clause only makes sense with the independent clause in the sentence (e.g., “When she came into the room, the class settled down.”).
composition
The skill of formulating ideas into words, incorporating subskills such as knowledge of the topic, vocabulary, and Standard English grammar and usage.
compound sentence
A sentence with two independent clauses that are joined by a coordinating conjunction (e.g., “The cat crouched to pounce and her tail twitched.”).
conditional verb forms
A challenging sentence feature that expresses a situation that is hypothetical or highly unlikely (e.g. “If the apples were ripe, he might have made a tart.”).
conjunctions
The parts of speech that connect the words, phrases, or clauses and indicate the relationship between the elements joined.
conjunctive (connecting) adverbs
Conjunctions that connect two independent clauses in one sentence or link ideas in two or more sentences. They often show cause and effect, sequence, or compare and contrast relationships.
consonant
A phoneme (speech sound) that is not a vowel and that is formed by obstructing the flow or air with the teeth, lips, or tongue; English has 25 __ phonemes.
consonant blend
Two or three consonant phonemes before or after a vowel in a syllable (e.g., bl-, fr-, str-, -nd, -sp).
consonant-le (Cle) syllable
An unaccented final syllable containing a consonant before / followed by silent e (e.g., ea – gle, drib – ble).
coordinating conjunctions
Conjunctions that connect grammatically equal parts of sentences, such as words to words, phrases to phrases, and clauses to clauses.
curriculum-based measurements (CBMs)
Standardized measurements that assess content that students should master by the end of the grade level that the measurement represents; requires standard administration and scoring.
decoding
The ability to translate a word from print to speech, usually by employing knowledge of sound-symbol correspondences.
dependent clause
A clause that begins with a subordinating conjunction or a realtive pronoun and expresses an incomplete thought; it can’t stand on it’s own (e.g., “after we went home” or “when the sun sets”).
derivational suffixes
Grammtical endings that mark or determine the part of speech of the suffixed word.
diagnostic decoding survey
A diagnostic tool that is used as a screening test to measure decoding with a large group of students, or for in-depth diagnosis with individual students; also known as a diagnostic phonics survey.
dialect
An intelligible version of a language with systematic differences in phonology, word use, and/or grammatical skills.
digraph
A two-letter combination (e.g., th, ph) that stands for a single phoneme in which neither letter represents its usual sound.
dipthongs
Single vowel phonemes that glide in the middle; the mouth position shifts during the production of the single vowel phoneme, especially the vowels spelled ou and oi.
discourse
Written or spoken communication or the exchange of information and ideas, usually longer than a sentence, between individuals or between the writer and the reader.
discourse comprehension
The understanding of meanings in longer segments of connected text, whether written or spoken.
double deficit
A combination of phonological and naming-speed dificits.
double negative
A challenging sentence that contains two negative elements (e.g., “I never told her not to eat the sandwiches.”).
doublet
A double letter (e.g., ff, ll, ss, zz) that represents one phoneme (e.g., the zz in buzz).
dysgraphia
A breakdown in the communication pathways between the mind’s image of a letter and the hand’s ability to produce that letter in written form.
elaborative questioning
Questioning that requires students to integrate information from the text with prior knowledge, mental images, feelings, or bigger ideas relevant to the text.
ellipses
A cohesive device that occurs when words that name or refer to an entity already named are assumed but not stated.
expressive vocabulary
The words one uses in speaking and writing.
functional writing skills
The skills necessary to transcribe or encode words into written symbols, using phonological, orthographic, morphological, and syntactic aspects of language.
fricative
A consonant sound created by forcing air through a narrow opening in the vocal tract; includes /f/, /v/, /s/, /z/, /sh/, /zh/, and /th/.
genre
A distinct type of literature, characterized by convention of structure and content.
glide
A type of speech sound that glides immediately into a vowel; includes /h/, /w/, and /y/.
gradable antonym
An antonym that takes its meaning from the context in which it is used, and is therefore subject to scaling.
grapheme
A letter or letter combination that spells a phoneme; can be one, two, three, or four letters in English (e.g., e, ei, igh, eigh).
graphic organizer
A visual representation of the logical relationships among ideas.
graphomotor skill
The skill of manually forming the letters that represent written language.
high-frequency words
Words that occur most often in written English, including articles, common nouns, pronouns, conjunctions, and auxiliary (helping) verbs.
independent clause
A clause that expresses a complete thought and can stand on its own.
inferences
Assumptions that a reader makes based on evidence from the text and the reader’s own experiences.
inflectional suffixes
Grammatical endings that do not change the part of speech of the word to which they are added.
interjection
A word used to express emotion (e.g., Yikes! Wow!).
lexical quality
The nature of a stored word image in the brain. A high quality representation of a word in memory enable orthographic mapping better than a partial or poorly elaborated word image.
lexicon
The name for the mental dictionary in every person’s phonological processing system.
liquid
The speech sounds /l/ and /r/ that have vowel-like qualities and no easily definable point of articulation.
low-frequency words
Words that do not occur often in printed text, and which are likely to be found only in text concerning a specific topic.
macroprocesses
Thought processes and/or activities by which students process and transform new information so that it is “owned.”
mental model
The mental representation of a text’s meaning that locates those meanings within a wide context of time, place, and circumstance. Also known as situation model.
metacognition
The act of monitoring and assessing one’s own awareness and thought processes.
metalinguistic awareness
The ability to think about and reflect on the structure of language itself. The invention of the alphabet was an achievement in .
morpheme
The smallest meaningful unit of language; it may be a word or a part of a word; it may be a single sound (e.g., plural /s/), one syllable (e.g., suffix -ful), or multiple syllables (e.g., prefix inter-).
morphology
The study of meaningful units in language and how the units are combined in word formation.
morphonemic
English orthography is __, which means that it is a deep alphabetic writing system organized by both sound-symbol correspondences and morphology.
nasal
A type of phoneme that directs resonance through the nose; in English, /n/, /m/, and /ng/ are __ phonemes.
nonstandard dialect
Any dialect that differs from Standard American English (SAE), which refers to English that is generally used in professional communication and taught in American schools.
norm-referenced tests
Standardized tests that are designed to compare and rank test-takers in relation to each other.
noun
A part of speech that names a person, place, thing, or idea (e.g., potatoes, anger).
noun phrase
A phrase that includes a noun and the words that modify it (adjectives), such as “the cold glass” or “a fragrant rose.”
onset-rime
The natural division of a syllable into two parts; the onset comes before the vowel, and the rime includes the vowel and what follows after it (e.g., pl – an).
open syllable
A syllable ending with a long vowel sound that is spelled with a single vowel letter (e.g., me, yo-yo).
orthographic mapping
The mental process used to store words for immediate and effortless retrieval. It requires phonemic awareness, letter-sound knowledge, and the mechanism for sight word learning.
orthography
A writing system for representing language.
paragraph
A number of sentences about the same topic or idea that are grouped together and formatted in a certain way.
passive voice
A challenging sentence feature wherein the subject receives the action (e.g., “Someone had cleaned the windows.”).
phoneme
A speech sound that combines with others in a language system to make words; English has 40 to 44 ________s, according to various linguists.
phoneme-grapheme mapping
The matching of phonemes (sounds) in words with the graphemes (letters) that represent them.
phonemic awareness
The conscious awareness of the individual speech sounds (consonants and vowels) in spoken syllables and the ability to consciously manipulate those sounds.
phonetics
The study of the sounds of human speech; articulatory __ refers to the way the sounds are physically produced in the human vocal tract.
phonics
The study of the relationships between the letters and the sounds they represent; also used as a descriptor for code-based instruction.
phonological awareness
The conscious awareness of all levels of the speech sound system, including word boundaries, stress patterns, syllables, onset-rime units, and phonemes.
phonological lexicon
The brain’s storehouse of words previously heard, but not necessarily understood.
phonological processing
Multiple functions of speech and language perception and production, such as perceiving, interpreting, storing (remembering), recalling or retrieving, and generating the speech sound system of a language.
phonological working memory (PWM)
The “online” memory system that remembers speech long enough to extract meaning from it, or that holds onto words during writing; a function of the phonological processing system.
phonology
The rule system within a language by which phonemes can be sequenced, combined, and pronounced to make words.
phrases
Groups of words that cluster together to fill grammatical slots in sentences.
plot
The events in a narrative text, or story, that include a problem that the main character is trying to solve, attempt(s) to solve it, and a resolution.
pragmatics
The system of rules and conventions for using language and related gestures in a social context.
preposition
A part of speech that is placed before a noun or pronoun to form a phrase modifying another word in the sentence (e.g., under, around).
prepositional phrase
A phrase introduced by a preposition and which includes a noun phrase (e.g., “against the tide” or “upon my nose”).
pronoun
A part of speech that is used in place of a noun (e.g., I, we, ours, yours).
pronoun reference
A word, usually a pronoun, used to refer to something else that has alread been named in a text.
prosody
The rhythms and patterns of sounds in spoken language; expression.
qualitative spelling screener
A list of words with a variety of orthographic patterns, specifically designed to assess students’ spelling levels and knowledge of those patterns.
rapid automatic naming (RAN)
The ability to quickly name a series of printed, repeated numbers, letters, or objects that should be known by rote.
receptive vocabulary
The words whose meanings one can recongize when reading or listening to others speak.
reliable measure
A measure that is likely to yield the same result if it were to be given several times on the same day in the same context.
root
A bound morpheme, usually of Latin origin, that cannot stand alone but that is used to form a family of words with related meanings (e.g., spect, vis).
scaling
The expression of words on a continuum to show degrees of meaning.
schema
A mental model or conceptual framework for a specific topic or idea.
schwa
The empty vowel in an unaccented syllable, such as the last syllable in wagon or rebus.
semantic lexicon
The brain’s “mental dictionary” or word meanings, including synonyms and related mental concepts.
semantic map
The association of meanings and context for a given word, including structure, origin, images, and personal associations, synonyms, antonyms, and historical or cultural connotations.
semantic overlap
Common features between words that are not synonyms.
semantic properties
The features or attributes of a morpheme, word, or sentence that contribute to its meaning.
semantics
The study of word and phrase meanings and relationships.
setting
Where and when a narrative text, or story, occurs.
sight vocabulary
A student’s bank of words that are instantly and effortlessly recognized; includes both regularly spelled and irregularly spelled words.
silent letter combination
A letter combination where one or more letters is silent (i.e., does not represent the phoneme) but another letter does represent the phoneme (e.g., kn in knock).
simple sentence
An independent clause with a subject and a predicate.
single deficit
A prominent and specific weakness in either phonological processing or rapid print (naming-speed) processing.
socioeconomic status (SES)
Refers to a combination of the education, income, and occupation of an individual or a social group.
stop
A type of consonant that is spoken with one push of breath and not continued or carried out, including /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/, /k/, and /g/.
story grammar
A set of conventions used in a narrative, including setting, characters, a problem to be solved, climax, and conclusion.
subjunctive mood
A challenging sentence feature that expresses a mood for something wished for or imagined (e.g., “What might have happened if the plane had landed on time?”).
subordinating conjunctions
Conjunctions that connect clauses that are not equal.
substitution
A cohesive device that renames a person, place, thing, idea, or action with a word or phrase that means the same thing but that is not a pronoun.
superlative adjective
An adjective that compares three or more nouns or pronouns (e.g., Sarah is the tallest student; the red flowers are the most colorful in the garden).
surface code
Refers to literal word and phrase meanings in a sentence.
syllable
The unti of pronunciation that is organized around a vowel; it may or may not have a consonant after the vowel.
synonym
A word that overlaps extensively in meaning with another word.
syntax
The system of rules governing permissible word order in sentences.
text base
The underlying meanings to which words in text refer.
text-dependent questions
Questions that require students to refer back to the text and develop answers based on inferences made from the text.
topic sentence
A sentence that usually begins the paragraph and states the main idea
trigraph
A three-letter combination that represents one phoneme (e.g., -tch in ditch and -dge as in dodge).
valid measure
A measure that measures what was intended (construct validity); corresponds well to other known, valid measures (concurrent validity); and predicts with good accuracy how students are likely to perform on an accountability measure (predictive validity).
verb
A part of speech that expresses an action or state of being (e.g., running, thinks).
verb phrase
A phrase that includes a verb and its modifiers (adverbs), such as “is eating quickly” or “jumped lightly.”
vocabulary
Knowledge of, and memory for, word meanings.
vowel
One of a set of 15 vowel phonemes in English, not including r-controlled combinations in a schwa; an open phoneme that is the heart of every spoken syllable; classified by tongue position and height (e.g., high to low, and front to back).
vowel team
A combination of two, three, or four letters that stand for a vowel (e.g., au, ea, oo, eigh).
vowel team syllable
A syllable with a long or short vowel spelling that uses 2-4 letters to spell the vowel sound (e.g., toy, light, four – teen); includes dipthongs ou/ow and oi/oy.
vowel-consonant-e (VCe)
A common pattern for spelling a long vowel sound (e.g., rate, ice).
vowel-consonant-e (VCe) syllable
A syllable with a long vowel spelled with one vowel plus one consonant plus silent e (e.g., note, fire – place).
vowel-r combination
A single vowel letter followed by r (ar, er, ir, or, ur) that stands for a unique vowel sound.
vowel-r syllable
A syllable with er, ir, or, ar, or ur (e.g., for, start); the vowel sound before the letter r ofter changes its pronunciation.
Many screening measures can be considered diagnostic since they provide extremely detailed data about a students skills in particular literacy domains.
False
If a student needs work on phonics and decoding, what kind of informal diagnostic assessment would provide the most useful information on how to help this student with these skills?
b. a word-reading survey to show which sound-symbol correspondences the student knows and which ones still need practice
Which of the following is not an area of inquiry to include in a comprehensive diagnostic assessment of a potential reading disorder?
d. social interactions
Which of these literacy skills have students typically mastered by the end of third grade? Select all that apply.
a. advanced phonemic awareness
c. inflectional morphology
d. fluent recognition of word families (rime patterns)
Cody is in first grade. He almost never raises his hand to participate in class discussions. When called on, he replies very briefly. He tends to use vague words like stuff and rarely uses full sentences. During decoding exercises, he reads words accurately and easily recognizes common patterns; he is a good speller. When he reads stories aloud, he reads fairly accurately but in an expressionless monotone. Which assessment would be most likely to yield valuable information about Cody?
b. reading a story to him and having him orally retell it