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Study Guide

Field 065: Literacy

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Sample Selected-Response Questions

Competency 0001 
Foundations of Language and Literacy Development

1. The results of longitudinal studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of skilled and dyslexic readers while reading best support which conclusion about dyslexia?

  1. Most children tend to outgrow dyslexia naturally as the brain matures, regardless of the presence or absence of remediation.
  2. Specific environmental factors are closely correlated with dyslexia, which can be ameliorated by minimizing exposure to these factors as early as possible.
  3. Dyslexia has a neurological basis that can be treated effectively through explicit and intensive instructional intervention.
  4. Children who experience early onset of dyslexia are less likely to require intervention than children whose onset comes in middle or late childhood.
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Correct Response: C. This item requires examinees to demonstrate knowledge of current research on reading processes. Longitudinal research studies by Sally Shaywitz, M.D. and others using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare skilled and dyslexic readers at different stages of development have confirmed that a key neural signature for dyslexia is underactivation of neural systems in the posterior of the brain. This "wiring glitch" is present in young children with dyslexia from the very start of reading and persists throughout adolescence and adulthood. However, these same studies have shown that effective reading interventions result not only in improved reading for children with dyslexia but also in brain repair.

Competency 0001 
Foundations of Language and Literacy Development

2. According to convergent research on language development, which instructional factor has the most beneficial effect on elementary students' acquisition of academic vocabulary?

  1. planning vocabulary instruction that focuses on teaching specific sets of general-academic and discipline-specific words at each grade level
  2. planning reference-based vocabulary instruction that focuses on teaching specific tools for seeking definitions, antonyms, and synonyms
  3. providing spontaneous vocabulary instruction that focuses on teachable moments that occur when a new word is encountered during a lesson
  4. providing explicit vocabulary instruction that focuses on both word study and word-learning strategies in the context of content-rich lessons
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Correct Response: D. This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of the importance of providing a broad range of academic experiences, including experiences in reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and representing visually, to promote students’ language and vocabulary development and support their literacy development. According to research, instruction in vocabulary should include direct, explicit teaching that focuses on word study and word-learning strategies. Word study includes the selection of meaningful and specific vocabulary targets, opportunities for repeated practice in a variety of contexts, and exposure to multiple methods of vocabulary instruction. Word-learning strategies, such as dictionary use, morphemic analysis, and contextual analysis, promote students' ability to independently determine the meaning of unfamiliar words. Collectively, instruction that includes both word study and word learning would most effectively promote students' acquisition of academic vocabulary.

Competency 0002 
Foundations of Literacy Instruction and Assessment

3. Early in the school year, a literacy specialist gathers evidence of a student's reading performance from a variety of sources including standardized test scores, results of screening and diagnostic assessments administered by the student's classroom teacher(s), and representative work samples. This would be an appropriate first step to take for which assessment purpose?

  1. determining whether a targeted intervention is having a positive effect on the student's literacy development
  2. evaluating the alignment of the student's intervention plan with grade-level literacy benchmarks
  3. developing an individual profile of the student's strengths and needs in multiple dimensions of literacy
  4. determining the student's rate of progress toward achieving specific literacy standards
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Correct Response: C. This item requires examinees to apply knowledge of the importance of using a variety of assessment results to identify reading difficulties and determine appropriate interventions for all students. Both the timing and the types of assessments described in this scenario provide key information to help answer the question. Early in the school year, a reading specialist gathers a broad range of formal and informal assessment evidence related to a particular student's reading performance. By combining an analysis of the student's standardized test scores with an analysis of his/her work and the results from screening and diagnostic assessments, the specialist can develop a comprehensive description, or profile, of the student's current knowledge, skills, and abilities related to literacy. Gathering assessment evidence is the first step in the process of identifying the student's strengths and needs in order to plan effective differentiated literacy instruction and interventions.

Competency 0002 
Foundations of Literacy Instruction and Assessment

4. A high school history teacher who is preparing to teach a class that has a demanding reading load with many lengthy passages sees that the incoming group of students will include several transitioning-level English Language Learners. The teacher consults the school's literacy coach for help developing strategies for differentiating reading assignments that will support the needs of these students. Which strategy would be most effective and appropriate for this purpose?

  1. preparing an audio-recording of the assigned texts for the students to use in lieu of trying to read the texts
  2. marking the most essential sections of the assigned texts for the students to read, annotate, and understand in depth
  3. providing students with a supplementary bibliography of ancillary texts to use to enhance comprehension of essential topics in the texts
  4. offering the students weekly opportunities to silently read the assigned texts in the classroom and ask the teacher questions as they arise
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Correct Response: B. This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge for differentiating literacy instruction, including for students who struggle in one or more areas of literacy, students who are English Language Learners, students who are gifted, and/or students who have special needs. Marking the most essential sections is a scaffolding strategy that supports English Language Learners' ability to critically analyze specific ideas in a text. When annotation is used while reading, students are more actively interacting with the text, which supports self-monitoring and reading comprehension.

start bold Use the information provided below to answer the two questions that follow. end bold

In January, a literacy specialist conducts a variety of informal reading assessments with a third-grade student who is experiencing reading difficulties. The student has received a series of Tier 2 interventions by her classroom teacher that emphasized explicit remedial phonics instruction and repeated-reading activities (e.g., rereading an assigned text up to four times, timing and graphing each reading). However, the teacher reports that the student is not making sufficient and meaningful progress toward grade-level goals in reading.

In this particular assessment, the literacy specialist asks the student to read aloud from an unfamiliar grade-level passage (Flesch-Kincaid grade level 3.5). As the student reads, the specialist makes notes about her performance on a separate copy of the text. Immediately following the oral reading, the specialist has the student reread the passage silently and then asks the student several comprehension questions. The specialist's annotated copy of the passage appears below.

Key: A circle around a word represents omission. A single vertical line represents a short pause. One word written above another represents substitution. A small C inside a circle represents self-correction. A double vertical line represents a long pause. First sentence. As Shondra and her father neared the river, the girl thought something looked different. Shonda is written above Shondra. T H O with a macron above the O is written above thought. Short pause after looked. Next sentence. Standing by the water, she wondered. Short pause after the won in wondered. Next sentence. Then she saw. Next sentence. Many trees were gone! G O N with a macron above the O is written above gone. Next sentence. “Dad! Someone chopped the trees down! How could this happen?” she cried. C O W D is written above could. Next sentence. “It’s very strange,” replied her father. S T A N G with a breve above the A is written above strange. R E P T with a breve above the E is written above replied. Next sentence. Meanwhile, their dog was following a trail. Short pause after mean in meanwhile. Short pause after follow in following. Next sentence. Suddenly he started barking. Short pause after sudden in suddenly. Next sentence. Shondra quickly ran up to him. Shonda is written above Shondra. Next sentence. “Look what Patch found! Someone built a dam in the water out of the branches—out of the missing trees!” P A T hyphen C H with a breve above the A and a self-correction symbol alongside are written above Patch. B U T with a breve above the U is written above built. Short pause after bran in branches. Short pause after miss in missing. Next sentence. “That explains the mystery,” said her father. E X P E L S with breves above both Es is written above explains. M I hyphen S T schwa R hyphen E with macrons above the I and the E is written above mystery. Next sentence. “Look at the pile of twigs over there. I think it’s a little house,” Shondra added. Long pause after over. Shonda is written above Shondra. Next sentence. “I think we have a new neighbor, Sweetie. Let’s watch awhile and see if he or she shows up.” Neighbor is circled. W A T hyphen C H, with a breve above the A, and a self-correction symbol alongside it are written above watch. Next sentence. Shondra grabbed Patch and the three sat down together, observing quietly. Shonda is written above Shondra. Short pause after grabbed. The words “To get her,” with a breve above the E in get, are written above together. Two short pauses, one after the O B and the other after the S E R in observing. Quickly is written above quietly. Next sentence. Soon they heard a flapping sound and saw a black muzzle pop up through the water. T H O with a macron above O is written above through. Next sentence. “Here is our lumberjack,” her father whispered. Long pause after our. Two short pauses, one after L U M and the other after B E R in lumberjack. Next sentence. “Let’s call her Flapjack,” Shondra replied, delighted. Shonda is written above Shondra. R E P T with a breve above the E is written above replied. Delighted is circled. Oral Reading Fluency: 83 words correct per minute, 87 percent accuracy. Notes: Winter fiftieth percentile benchmark is 92 words correct per minute. Student answered 50 percent of comprehension questions about the text correctly.

Competency 0002 
Foundations of Literacy Instruction and Assessment

5. Based on an analysis of the student's reading performance on this assessment, future interventions designed to improve the student's decoding skills should focus primarily on developing the student's

  1. knowledge of English inflectional endings and ability to segment morphologically complex words into their component parts
  2. recognition of common long-vowel and short-vowel phonics/spelling patterns and basic letter combinations (e.g., consonant digraphs)
  3. knowledge of basic English syllabication patterns (e.g., closed, open, r-controlled) and ability to apply syllabic analysis skills
  4. recognition of high-frequency irregular words and advanced phonics elements (e.g., complex vowel teams, medial consonant clusters)
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Correct Response: D. This item requires examinees to apply knowledge of assessments in foundational reading skills, including interpreting and using results from these assessments to plan instruction and interventions in phonics and word analysis. The assessment evidence presented suggests that sight-word recognition and knowledge of advanced phonics elements are two serious areas of need for this student. The student misreads several high-frequency irregular words that should be automatic (i.e., sight words) by or before third grade (e.g., thought, gone, could, watch, together, through). In addition, the student has difficulty decoding most words that contain consonant clusters (e.g., Shondra, strange, Patch, explains, watch) and completely omits words that contain complex vowel teams (e.g., neighbor, delighted). As with the sight words, the student should have mastered these advanced phonics elements by this time (January of third grade).

Competency 0004 
Reading & Writing: Foundational Skills

6. The assessment evidence most strongly suggests that instruction designed to improve the student's reading fluency should focus on which component of fluency first?

  1. accuracy
  2. automaticity
  3. rate
  4. prosody
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Correct Response: A. This item requires examinees to demonstrate knowledge of factors that can disrupt fluency. The student's accuracy in this assessment is 87 percent . This is well below the level necessary for the student to make meaning from the passage, which is confirmed by the fact that the student could only answer half the comprehension questions correctly. The student's accuracy must improve first before focusing on other components of fluency.

Competency 0003 
Role of the Literacy Professional

7. At the middle and high school levels, differentiated instruction for students who are experiencing reading difficulties should take place in which instructional setting?

  1. in reading intervention classes only
  2. in both general education classes and reading intervention classes
  3. in general education classes only
  4. in general education classes at the middle school level and reading intervention classes at the high school level
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Correct Response: B. This item requires examinees to apply knowledge of components and features of effective evidence-based intervention programs for struggling readers and writers. Students who are experiencing reading difficulties require differentiated instruction that builds on their strengths while addressing their specific area(s) of need. At the middle school and high school levels, this is not just important in reading intervention classes. Content-area teachers also need to differentiate instruction to ensure that struggling readers develop skill in disciplinary reading. Promoting reading development is a shared responsibility for all teachers who work with struggling readers.

Competency 0003 
Role of the Literacy Professional

8. A fourth-grade teacher asks the literacy specialist for help in enhancing students' ability to engage in high-level discussions about texts. The specialist plans a lesson in which students will read a poem and share in small groups their understanding of the author's purpose. The specialist models for students how to use sentence stems to guide their discussions. The stems the specialist shares are shown below.

This activity benefits students primarily by supporting which student outcome?

  1. valuing a variety of perspectives in text-based discussions
  2. practicing leadership roles in cooperative literacy groups
  3. respecting cultural diversity within collaborative literacy groups
  4. using discipline-specific vocabulary accurately during discussions
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Correct Response: A. This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of strategies for using oral language to promote and monitor reading development and text comprehension. Sentence stems are an instructional strategy that can be used to scaffold academic discussions by structuring exchanges so that students can participate actively and meaningfully. Sentence stems, such as I would like to add and I agree/disagree, encourage students to make connections during text-based discussions and are likely to elicit several differing and similar perspectives. Collaborative conversation discourse should be explicitly taught through modeling, and students should receive feedback about their ability to converse in academic situations. This helps to establish explicit expectations for student-to-student interaction and an understanding that students will be held accountable for their language during these interactions. Such academic conversations are essential if students are to gain access to complex texts that foster understanding and critical thinking.

Competency 0004 
Reading & Writing: Foundational Skills

9. A literacy specialist shows a small group of second-grade students the following pairs of words.

hiding hidden
robot robber
stages stagger

These word pairs would be most appropriate to use as examples in a targeted intervention designed to promote students' recognition of

  1. the difference between denotative and connotative word meanings
  2. the distinguishing features of regular open and closed syllables
  3. the difference between inflectional and derivational morphemes
  4. the distinguishing features of continuant and stop phonemes
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Correct Response: B. This item requires examinees to demonstrate knowledge of phonics and syllabication and to apply knowledge of effective, developmentally appropriate, data-driven instruction and intervention to promote students' development of knowledge and skills related to phonics. The specialist clearly chose the word pairs hiding and hidden, robot and robber, and stages and stagger because of their similarities—in all three pairs, both words begin with the same three or four letters and both words contain two syllables—which make it easier for the specialist to point out the words' differences. An analysis of the differences between the words in each pair reveals that in each case the first word contains a single medial consonant, while the second word contains the same consonant doubled. Not coincidentally, the first syllable of the first word ends in a vowel, while the first syllable of the second word ends in a consonant. In addition, the vowel in the first syllable of the first word is always long, while the vowel in the first syllable of the second word is always short. The distinguishing features of an open syllable are the syllable ends in a vowel and the vowel is long. The distinguishing features of a closed syllable are the syllable ends in a consonant and the vowel is short.

Competency 0004 
Reading & Writing: Foundational Skills

10. A literacy specialist is reviewing the developmental phonological progression with a group of prekindergarten and kindergarten teachers. According to convergent research on the continuum of phonological awareness development, which activity would be most appropriate for the specialist to recommend introducing to students first?

  1. guessing an orally segmented word and matching it to a picture
  2. substituting a phoneme in a spoken word to create a new word
  3. identifying words that begin with the same phoneme
  4. clapping syllables in the names of classmates
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Correct Response: D. This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of the developmental continuum of phonological and phonemic awareness skills and to apply knowledge of effective, developmentally appropriate, data-driven instruction and intervention to promote students' development of phonological awareness and phonemic awareness skills. As a first step in a phonological awareness program, it would be most appropriate to begin with clapping syllables, since children typically develop syllable segmentation before phoneme isolation, segmentation, and manipulation. The continuum of phonological awareness moves from larger, more obvious units of spoken oral language (e.g., syllables) to smaller units that are more difficult to perceive (e.g., individual phonemes).

Competency 0005 
Text Complexity and Text Comprehension

11. A tenth-grade biology text contains the following passage, which is representative of the text's overall complexity.

The cerebrum is the part of the human brain associated with conscious thought. Its structure consists of two hemispheres that are connected by a group of neurons called the corpus callosum.

Which feature of this passage contributes most to its complexity and would likely make the text challenging for tenth-grade students who are struggling readers?

  1. The text uses a significant number of Tier Two and Tier Three words.
  2. The text has multiple levels of meaning.
  3. The text's syntactic structures are unusual and complicated.
  4. The text's purpose is unclear.
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Correct Response: A. This item requires examinees to apply knowledge of text complexity. In the representative sample of the text, each sentence includes words that are likely to be challenging to students who are struggling readers. Tier Two words in the passage include associated, conscious, structure, consists, and hemispheres. Tier Three words include cerebrum, neurons, and corpus callosum.

Competency 0005 
Text Complexity and Text Comprehension

12. Which set of terms or phrases best describes three key features of a text that contribute to its  start italics qualitative end italics  responsiveness—how considerate or friendly the text is—to readers?

  1. number of unique words, sentence length, and cohesion
  2. average word length, readability level, and language conventionality
  3. structure, coherence, and audience appropriateness
  4. challenge level, word frequency, and sentence construction
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Correct Response: C. This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of qualitative tools and measures to evaluate text complexity. The three factors that determine text complexity are qualitative measures, quantitative measures, and reader and task considerations. Qualitative measures include structure (e.g., text organization), coherence (e.g., semantic consistency), and audience appropriateness (e.g., purpose of the text).

Competency 0006 
Reading and Writing: Different Types of Text

13. A literacy specialist is working with a small group of third-grade students who are struggling writers and who therefore tend to write very little. The specialist wants to teach the students a prewriting technique to help promote and stimulate their writing fluency. Which technique is best designed for this purpose?

  1. freewriting
  2. outlining
  3. self-questioning
  4. semantic mapping
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Correct Response: A. This item requires examinees to apply knowledge of strategies for supporting instruction and intervention to promote students' skill in composing. Freewriting is a technique in which students write nonstop for a period of time, such as five or ten minutes. The topic can be assigned or self-selected, or the teacher may show students a visual stimulus such as a photograph. The point is to encourage students to catch the flow of their thoughts without worrying about spelling and other aspects of writing that may cause a struggling writer to "freeze up." Freewriting may be used as an end in itself to encourage writing fluency, or students may use the ideas they generated as the foundation for a piece that they continue to work on.

Competency 0006 
Reading and Writing: Different Types of Text

14. A middle school literacy coach is working with a teacher whose eighth-grade students are rereading and discussing in small focus groups the autobiographical text, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself. The teacher charges one group with focusing on the learning standard related to analyzing the effects of specific word choices on the meaning, tone, and mood of the text. In observing the group's discussion, however, the literacy coach realizes that the students are simply defining words in the text that were unfamiliar to them (e.g., pious, chattel). Which recommendation by the literacy coach to the teacher would be most beneficial in promoting the students' achievement of the learning standard?

  1. incorporating a prompt into the lesson that asks the students to pause periodically to reflect on their responses to the text
  2. reminding the students to apply a Question-Answer-Relationship (QAR) strategy when attempting to analyze the vocabulary of a literary text
  3. reestablishing the purpose of the task for the students by having them discuss the role of vocabulary as a reflection of an author's craft
  4. analyzing the students' annotations of the text to determine where the students may have missed important ideas and details
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Correct Response: C. This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of effective, developmentally appropriate, data-driven instruction and intervention to promote students' understanding of craft and structure in texts and their development of critical-analysis and reader-response skills. In order to understand the message of the text, students must critically analyze the author's craft, which is conveyed through tone, point of view, detail, word usage, actions, and dialogue. Reestablishing the purpose of the task so that students analyze how word choice influences the meaning, tone, and mood of the text would help students apply this learning standard.

Competency 0007 
Language and Vocabulary Development

15. A middle school literacy specialist is working with a small group of struggling readers who are having difficulty comprehending and retaining new content-specific vocabulary words that are related in meaning (e.g., planetary satellite, comet, asteroid). Which instructional strategy would be most effective in helping the students distinguish nuances of meaning between different but related words?

  1. having the students work with a partner to construct and complete a cloze exercise
  2. encouraging the students to develop the habit of looking up the etymology of new words
  3. modeling how to recognize and blend multisyllabic words into pronounceable syllables
  4. showing the students how to construct a semantic features analysis chart
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Correct Response: D. This item requires examinees to apply knowledge of effective, developmentally appropriate, data-driven instruction and intervention in word study. In a semantic features analysis chart, students compare and contrast related words according to specific features. The target words are listed under the first column of the chart and the features become the headings of the succeeding columns. For example, the words planetary satellite, comet, and asteroid all relate to objects in space, so the column headings might include features such as orbits a larger object, reflects light from another object, is spheroidal in shape, and is gaseous. Students complete the chart using plus and minus signs to indicate whether an object has a particular feature. A planetary satellite, for example, would have a plus sign under orbits a larger object, reflects light from another object, and is spheroidal in shape, and would have a minus sign under is gaseous. Meanwhile, a comet would have a plus sign under orbits a larger object and reflects light from another object, but it would have a minus sign under is spheroidal in shape and would have both plus and minus signs under is gaseous. By analyzing the objects' distinguishing features and marking them on the semantic analysis chart, students develop a greater depth of understanding of new academic vocabulary.

Competency 0007 
Language and Vocabulary Development

16. A literacy coach develops a simple audience feedback form for middle school teachers to share with students whenever their classmates are giving oral presentations. Some of the questions on the feedback form are shown below.

In addition to sharing the written audience feedback forms with each student presenter, the literacy coach suggests that teachers should also select a small number of the completed forms randomly and have the students who completed them meet with the student presenter to share their comments in person.

The strategies from the literacy coach are likely to contribute to the students' development of communication skills for college and career readiness primarily by:

  1. modeling for the students how to conduct respectful collaborative presentations around topics of interest.
  2. promoting the accountability of the student listeners as well as the student presenters during oral presentations.
  3. facilitating mutual understanding among students with different perspectives about the topic of the presentation.
  4. generating interest in and enthusiasm for a topic from the student audience during presentations.
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Correct Response: B. This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of characteristics and features of effective speaking and listening, including features of spoken language and nonverbal cues that affect a speaker's ability to communicate effectively, and elements in an oral presentation that support listener comprehension and analysis. Creating opportunities in which students give and actively participate in oral presentations supports the development of communication skills necessary for college and career readiness. When scaffolded appropriately, oral presentations are likely to promote students' ability to effectively use nonverbal communication, summarize pertinent information using language that is well-organized, and actively listen to peers to provide feedback that is meaningful. The literacy coach's strategies also establish explicit expectations for student-to-student interaction and an understanding that students will be held accountable for their listening during these oral presentations.