SUBTEST 1

Question 1

What is phonological awareness?

Answer 1

The knowledge that oral English is composed of smaller units.

A child who has phonological awareness can identify and manipulate sounds, such as (a) individual sounds (phonemic awareness) and (b) sounds in larger units of language, such as words and syllables.

Question 2

What is phonemic awareness?

Answer 2

The ability to distinguish the separate phonemes (sounds) in a spoken word.

If a child can identify that duck and luck are rhyming words or say that duck has three sounds that are /d/ /u/ /k/, then they are phonemically aware.

This is an important teaching goal for kindergarten and 1st grade teachers.

Question 3

What is phonics?

Answer 3

The knowledge of letter-sound correspondences; knowing, for example, that in the word phonics the letters ph make the /f/ sound.

Question 4

What is the alphabetic principle?

Answer 4

The alphabetic principle states that speech sounds are represented by letters.

English is an alphabetic language because symbols represent sounds.

Question 5

What is a phoneme?

Answer 5

A speech sound in a language that signals a difference in meaning; phonemes are the smallest units of speech.

For example, /v/ and /b/ are English phonemes because there is a difference between vote and boat.

Question 6

What is a grapheme?

Answer 6

The English letter or letters that represent phonemes.

For example, the phoneme /b/ is represented by the grapheme b; the phoneme /k/ in duck is represented by the grapheme ck.

Question 7

What is a vowel?

Answer 7

Speech sounds that are made when air leaving your lungs is vibrated in the voice box and there is a clear passage from the voice box to your mouth.

Vowel sounds are said to be long when they say their own name.

R- controlled vowels are neither short nor long, as in the sounds a makes in car, e in her, I as in girl, etc.

Question 8

What are consonants?

Answer 8

Speech sounds that occur when the airflow is obstructed in some way by your mouth, teeth, or lips.

Question 9

What are onsets and rimes?

Answer 9

Think syllable!

Onsets and rimes occur in a single syllable. The onset is the initial consonant sound or consonant blend; the rime is the vowel sound and any consonants that follow.

All syllables must have a rime; they may or may not have an onset.

What is the onset and rime in the word napkin?

Nap-kin

The onset in nap I n, and the rime is ap. The onset in kin is k, and the time is in.

Question 10

What are phonograms?

Answer 10

Rimes that have the same spelling.

Words that share the same phonogram are word families.

Ex: Rime or phonogram (at); word family: cat, bat, sat, hat.

Question 11

Why is phonological awareness important?

Answer 11

It is the foundation for understanding the sound-symbol relationships of English.

Students with strong phonological awareness skills are likely to become good readers but students with weak phonological skills will likely become poor readers.

It is estimated that more than 90% of students with significant reading problems have a core deficit in their ability to process phonological information.” (Blachman, 1995)

Question 12

How do you teach phonological awareness?

Answer 12

This instruction that focuses on the phonological awareness of larger units of language (words and syllables) should always take place before teaching phonemic awareness.

1. Word Awareness: The goal here is to help students become aware that sentences are made up of words (e.g., the sentence ‘I like ice cream’ has four words). The lessons should include 1-3 word sentences, each word with one syllable. The teacher uses cards with words to make sentences while reading the sentences as a whole and words separately.
2. Syllable Awareness: A respected instructional activity asks children to clap their hands as they say each syllable in a two-syllable or three-syllable word.
3. Word Blending: Children are challenged to take two single-syllable words and combine them to make a compound word. Pictures can be used. The teacher can use an activity where she places up two pictures and asks the students, “What do you get when you put cow and boy together?” The teacher would then display a third picture, one of a cowboy.
4. Syllable Blending: Here, the children are required to blend two syllables into a word. The teacher might say “What word do we get is we put sis and ter together?”
5. Onset and Rime Blending: The teacher would say the onset, such as /b/, and the time, -ank. The children then put them together and say ‘bank’.

Question 13

How do you teach phonemic awareness?

Answer 13

1. Sound Isolation: The children are given a word and asked to tell which sound occurs at the beginning, middle, or end of the word. The teacher should have a list of words that all have long vowels in the medial position: cake, day, late, leap. At the beginning of the lesson, the teacher would say each word and then say the medial sound (“leap, the middle sound is /i/”). At some point, the teacher will just say the word and the students will provide the medial sound. It is best to start with beginning sounds, then ending, then medial.
2. Sound Identity: The teacher needs a set of words that all share the same beginning, middle, or ending sound, but have no other shared sounds. For example, the teacher might select the words lake, light, and low and ask what sound is the same in each.
3. Sound Blending: The teacher says the sounds with only brief pauses in between each sound. The children then guess the word. For example, the teacher asks, “Which word am I thinking of? Its sounds are /b/ /a/ /t/.”
4. Sound Substitution: The teacher asks children to substitute one sound for another. One-word substitutions where the teacher says, “cat, cat, cat. Let’s substitute the /b/ sound for the /k/ sound. We get bat, bat, bat.”
5. Sound Deletion: This works best with consonant blends. For example, for block, take away the b to get lock. For the word snail, take away the s to get nail.
6. Sound Segmentation: Children are challenged to isolate and identify the sounds in a spoken word. The teacher should start with words with only two sounds. “I am going to say a word and then slowly say the sound in the word. Bee. (pause) /b/ (pause) /e/.” Then the teacher would ask the students to say the sounds in two-sound words. After the children show they can segment two-sound words, then lessons should go up to three-sounds. To simplify, a teacher can ask how many sounds are in a word that the teacher pronounces (for dog, its three).

Question 14

What are concepts about print?

Answer 14

The basic principles about how letter, words, and sentences are represented in written language.

To learn how to read, children must acquire these concepts. They must do so before they leave kindergarten.

1. An awareness of the relationship between spoken and written language and an understanding that print carries meaning.
2. Letter, word, and sentence representation.
3. The directionality of print (left to right, up and down) and the ability to track print in connected text.
4. Book-handling skills.

Question 15

What is letter recognition?

Answer 15

The ability to identify both the uppercase and lowercase letters when a teacher says the name of a letter.

Question 16

What is letter naming?

Answer 16

The ability to say the name of a letter when a teacher points to it.

Question 17

What is letter formation?

Answer 17

Also called letter production.

The ability to write the uppercase and lowercase letters legibly. When talking about letter recognition and letter naming, it is important to note the we are teaching the names of letters, not the sounds letters make.

Question 18

What is the alphabetic principle?

Answer 18

The alphabetic principle states that individual sounds (phonemes) are represented by individual letters.

Letters represent sounds!

Question 19

What are the concepts about print?

Answer 19

1. Relationship between spoken and written language and that print carries meaning.
2. Letter, word, and sentence representation.
3. The directionality of print and the ability to track print (tracking is the physical, observable evidence that a student has learned this).
4. Book-handling skills: Reflect knowledge of how to hold a book when reading, where the front cover of a book is, where the title page is, where the story starts, when and how to turn the pages, and the location of the back cover.

Question 20

Why are concepts about print important?

Answer 20

A child’s awareness about the forms, functionalities, and uses of print provide the foundation upon which reading and writing abilities are built (Adams, 1990; Mason, 1980).

Question 21

How do you teach concepts about print?

Answer 21

1. Reading Aloud to Students: Reading aloud to students will teach them that text holds meaning and help them recognize the components of a book.
2. The Shared Book Experience: Big books are used by the teacher (1) introducing the book by looking at the cover and pointing out features of the book (I.e., author’s name, illustrator’s name, the title page); asks “What do you think this book will be about?”; (2) reads the story with full dramatic punch, overdoing it; pausing occasionally to encourage comments or predictions; if the teacher wants to stress directionality and tracking of print, they will point to every word as they read; (3) a discussion occurs before, during, and after the text reading; (4) the story is reread on subsequent days with the whole group, in small groups, pairs, or individuals acting out and enjoying the language patterns.

Question 22

What is the language experience approach (LEA)?

Answer 22

• Intended to help develop and support a student’s reading and writing abilities.
• Children share an experience while the teacher records it verbatim; the teacher and student read the text; the text is saved and bound in a child’s personal reading book.
• This approach teaches students that print carries meaning, directionality and tracking of print, and sentence, word, and letter representation.

Question 23

What is environmental print?

Answer 23

Printed messages that students encounter in ordinary, daily living (e.g., candy wrappers, menus, shirts, ads).

Can be used to show students that print carries meaning and letter, word, and sentence representation.

Question 24

What is a print-rich environment?

Answer 24

1. Labels/captions on classroom items.
2. Morning Message of the day’s activities.

Question 25

What is the importance of letter recognition in reading development?

Answer 25

Accurate and rapid letter recognition is an essential component in learning to read. Kindergartens that are able to quickly identify letters have a great chance of being successful at word identification and comprehension.

Question 26

How do you teach letter recognition, letter naming, and letter formation?

Answer 26

1. Associating names and things with letters: A teacher displays the letter J on the board and asks everyone with names beginning with J to stand underneath the J; teachers have 26 shoeboxes and have students place classroom items in the appropriately labeled box. 2. Singing the Alphabet: The song needs to be sung slowly and each letter needs to be pointed to in order for students to truly learn the names of the letters. 3. ABC Books: Teachers should read aloud books that are organized by letters of the alphabet. 4. Practice writing both uppercase and lowercase letters and writing words: Children learn the names of letters as they practice writing them; many teachers have children say the name of a letter each time they practice writing it to provide the auditory link to the visual form of the letter. 5. Tactile and Kinesthetic Methods: Children can make 3-D letters out of modeling clay or trace their fingers over letters cut out of sandpaper; kinesthetic lessons ask children to make exaggerated movements with their hands and arms as they present to write letters in the air. Tactile and kinesthetic methods are essential for young struggling readers and those with disabilities.

Question 27

How do you introduce visually and auditorily similar letters?

Answer 27

1. Teach all of the uppercase first or all of the lowercase first; do not teach both at the same time. 2. Teach one letter at a time, and each time you introduce a new letter review the ones that have been learned previously. Two visually similar letters are m and n. Two auditorily similar letters are p and d. Two letters that are both visually and auditorily similar are b and d. Teachers can help students distinguish the two letters by asking them to trace the letters with their fingers, focusing on the different direction and movements it takes for each letter.

Question 28

What is phonetic spelling?

Answer 28

Temporary spelling or invented spelling because a child does not know the accurate spelling. Teachers should encourage children to do the best they can and keep writing because: 1. An emphasis on overcorrectness will stop some students dead in their tracks; they will write very little and that is not good! They need the challenge of trying to figure out how words are spelled. 2. Phonetic spelling provides important assessment data on a child's knowledge of letter-sound correspondences.

Question 29

What is word identification?

Answer 29

The ability to read aloud, or decode, words correctly (this does not include the word's meaning); reading with automaticity. Students can use the following four identification strategies to identify words: phonics, sight words, morphology and context clues.

Question 30

What is word recognition?

Answer 30

Making the connection between the word being pronounced and its meaning.

Question 31

What is phonics?

Answer 31

Phonics helps children learn the correct association between the sounds and the symbols of language (graphophonemic relationships). The letter c makes both the /k/ sound (cake) and the /s/ sound (city).

Question 32

What are sight words?

Answer 32

Words that children should be taught to identify as whole units without breaking down the word by phonics. 1. High-frequency words: Words that appear most frequently in printed texts (e.g., as, the, of). 2. Words with Irregular Spelling (e.g., dove, great). 3. Words that children want to know, usually because they want to use them in their writing (e.g., dinosaur, Burger King). 4. Words that are introduced in content-area lessons in social studies and science (e.g., insect, butterfly).

Question 33

What are morphological cues?

Answer 33

Word formation; children use morphological cues to identify words when they rely on root words, prefixes, and suffixes.

Question 34

What is the process of using prefixes, suffixes, and root words to identify a word?

Answer 34

Structural analysis (morphemic analysis)

Question 35

What is syllabic analysis?

Answer 35

The process of recognizing words by analyzing the syllables in a word.

Question 36

What are context clues?

Answer 36

Children can figure out an unknown word if they know the meanings of the surrounding words.

Question 37

What is automaticity?

Answer 37

A child achieves automaticity when their word identification is swift and accurate. Automaticity is essential for fluent reading (I.e., reading at an appropriate pace with appropriate expression). FLUENT READING IS ESSENTIAL FOR READING COMPREHENSION. This is because slow readers often lose track of the meaning of what they are reading. Automaticity in word recognition --> fluency + comprehension

Question 38

What is a continuous consonant sound?

Answer 38

It is possible to hold the sound and stretch the sound out. When in the initial position in a word, the sounds made by the letters f, l, m, n, r, s, v and z are continuous. E.g., "ffffffffff", "lllllllllll"

Question 39

What are stop consonant sounds?

Answer 39

The sounds must be uttered quickly with a quick puff of air. Stop sounds are also called clipped consonant sounds and include the following letters in the initial position of the word: b, c, d, g, j, k, p, qu, and t. E.g., "buh", "cuh", 'duh'

Question 40

What is a consonant digraph?

Answer 40

Two-letter combinations that make one sound. For example, ph in phone and sh in share are digraphs. The ph is digraph is a digraph!

Question 41

What is a consonant blend?

Answer 41

Blends are two- or three- letter combinations, said rapidly, and each letter in a blend makes a sound. For example, pl- in play and spr- in spring.

Question 42

What is a vowel digraph?

Answer 42

Two-vowel combinations that make a single sound. For example, the oa in boat makes the long o sound; the ea in teach makes the long e sound.

Question 43

What is a diphthong?

Answer 43

Glided sounds are made by such vowel combinations as oi in oil and oy in boy. When pronouncing a diphthong, the tongue starts in one position and rapidly moves to another.

Question 44

What is an r-controlled vowel?

Answer 44

They are neither long nor short, as in the sounds a makes in car, e makes in her, I makes in girl, u makes in hurt and o makes in for.

Question 45

What is an l-controlled vowel?

Answer 45

They are neither long nor short, as in the a makes in chalk, e makes in help, I makes in milk, o makes in cold, and u makes in bull.

Question 46

What do morphological units contain?

Answer 46

Morphological units contain prefixes (e.g., inter- or intra-), suffixes (e.g., -est or -ment), and words without prefixes or suffixes (e.g., pizza, elephant). Inflected morphological units are suffixes that do not change the part of speech of the root word (e.g., walk and walked are verbs; big and bigger are adjectives). Children should be taught how to pronounce these inflected suffixes and how they change the meaning of the root words they are attached to.

Question 47

Common Word Patterns of Increasing Difficulty

Answer 47

There are exceptions to each pattern; words with irregular spellings. 1. VC: The vowel is short. 2. CVC: The medial vowel is short. 3. CVCC: The vowel is short. 4. CCVC: Most of these words start with a consonant blend; the vowel is short. 5. CVVC: Many, but not all, of the words in this pattern have vowel digraphs (two vowels, one sound), such as bait, team, and goat. 6. CVCE: The vowel in this pattern make a long sound.

Question 48

What are phonetically irregular words?

Answer 48

Words that do not follow the decoding generalizations that usually work. Some words are phonetically irregular because of etymology (word origins); they reflect the spelling of another language. These words are usually taught as sight words (words that are taught as a whole unit, so that students do not need to decode them by applying their knowledge of phonics); also referred to as function words.

Question 49

Why do some decodable words must be taught as sight words?

Answer 49

Because they are high-frequency words children need to know early on and due to some sound-symbol relationships in the word not being taught until much later.

Question 50

What are the stages of spelling development?

Answer 50

The development of phonics knowledge and learning how to spell are closely related. A teacher must know the level of spelling development a student is at because it will inform the instruction and support they will need. 1. Pre-Communicative: Students' spelling shows no understanding that letters represent sounds, instead they draw pictures or make squiggles; there is no understanding of the alphabetic principle. 2. Semi-Phonetic: Students attempt to use letters to represent sounds; the child's knowledge of sound-symbol relationships are poorly developed; some sounds in words are not represented. 3. Phonetic: Students know that letters represent sounds and at least one letter represents each sound in a word; the problem is that students do not choose the right letter or combination for the sound(s). 4. Transitional: A child knows most of the orthographic (spellings of a language) patterns of English; all sounds have letters and for the most part the child chooses the correct letter combinations to represent sounds. 5. Conventional: The child spells out almost all words correctly. Even when a student is making errors as they write, they should be encouraged to write even though they make many mistakes.

Question 51

What is structural analysis (morphemic analysis)?

Answer 51

The process of decoding a multisyllabic word with an affix (prefix, suffix) added to a base word. Students recognize the word by putting together their knowledge of the affix and the base word.

Question 52

What is syllabic analysis?

Answer 52

The process of decoding a multisyllabic word by examining the word's syllables. Students recognize the word by putting together their knowledge of the word's syllables.

Question 53

What is orthographic knowledge?

Answer 53

What a person knows about how to spell words.

Question 54

What is a morpheme?

Answer 54

The most elemental unit of meaning in a language. In English, there are two types of morphemes: some words and all affixes (prefixes and suffixes). Not all syllables are morphemes and some words have more than one morpheme. For example, elephant has one meaning; walked (walk + ed) and chairs (chair + s) have two.

Question 55

What is an affix?

Answer 55

An affix is either a prefix (a morpheme that appears before a root word) or a suffix (a morpheme that appears at the end of a root word). Examples of prefixes are non-, un- and pre-; examples of suffixes are -ment, -er, and -ly.

Question 56

What is a bound morpheme?

Answer 56

A prefix or suffix that cannot occur alone; bound morpheme must be attached to a root word (e.g., un-, -est).

Question 57

What is a free morpheme?

Answer 57

Can be uttered alone with meaning (e.g., test).

Question 58

What is a syllable?

Answer 58

Pronounced with a single, uninterrupted sounding of the voice. A single vowel can be a syllable, as in the a in a-bout, but a single consonant cannot compose a syllable because all syllables must have at least one vowel.

Question 59

What is an open syllable?

Answer 59

End with a vowel (e.g., the single-syllable words be and go, and the first syllable in bee-tle or re-sign.

Question 60

What is a closed syllable?

Answer 60

Ends in a consonant (e.g., both syllables in kick-ball and nor-mal).

Question 61

What is fluency?

Answer 61

The fluent reader reads accurately, at an appropriate rate and with appropriate expression. Achieving fluency is important because the nonfluent reader struggles to understand what theyre reading.

Question 62

What are the three indicators of fluent reading?

Answer 62

1. Accuracy: Fluent readers pronounce words correctly when reading orally (i.e., the application of all the skills - phonics, sight word, structural analysis, syllabic analysis, and orthographic knowledge). 2. Rate: Fluent readers read a text at an appropriate rate of speed, neither too fast nor too slow; there are two components here: (a) the ability to quickly decode words and (b) the ability to quickly read phrases and sentences; not all pieces of text should be read at the same rate). 3. Prosody: Fluent readers must read with appropriate expression, which includes emphasis of certain words, variation in pitch, and pausing; this is reflective of a reader's understanding of the structure of sentences, punctuation, and to a large extent, the author's purpose.