Study Guide

Field 222: Reading Teacher 
Sample Multiple-Choice Questions

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Each multiple-choice question has four answer choices. Read each question and its answer choices carefully and choose the ONE best answer.

During the test you should try to answer all questions. Even if you are unsure of an answer, it is better to guess than not to answer a question at all. You will NOT be penalized for choosing an incorrect response.

Objective 0001 
Understand foundations of reading instruction.

1. Which of the following word parts is a morpheme?

  1. -er
  2. ight
  3. /ch/
  4. str
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
Morphemes—the smallest meaningful word or word part units—can be used to analyze and determine the meaning of a word. A morpheme may be a one-syllable word (e.g., cat, chant) or a multisyllabic word (e.g., caterpillar, merchant). It can be a whole word (e.g., in, less) or a word part (e.g., in- in the word insane, -less in the word spineless). The suffix -er is a morpheme that carries the meaning "one who" (e.g., teacher, gardener).

Objective 0002 
Understand professional roles and responsibilities, including curriculum design and implementation, and professional development in the field of reading.

2. A fourth-grade teacher requests a paraprofessional's assistance in leading small-group discussions of a story students have read. The teacher will lead one group and the paraprofessional will lead another. This activity is likely to be most successful if the fourth-grade teacher:

  1. explains to the paraprofessional the research-based rationale for literature circles and other types of student discussion groups.
  2. provides the paraprofessional with a set of questions to help promote students' comprehension and response to the story.
  3. suggests that the paraprofessional develop his or her own instructional objectives for the discussion activity.
  4. advises the paraprofessional to respond to students' comments rather than posing direct questions for the students to answer.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Generally, the role of a paraprofessional is to assist the teacher with instruction. The most beneficial way to support the paraprofessional and to ensure that the students are receiving guidance and instruction that is aligned with the targeted content is for the teacher to provide the paraprofessional with a standard set of questions to focus the students' discussion and support all students in reaching the lesson's objectives.

Objective 0002 
Understand professional roles and responsibilities, including curriculum design and implementation, and professional development in the field of reading.

3. A reading teacher wants to stay informed about new developments in reading research and instruction. The reading teacher should best address this goal by:

  1. engaging in weekly discussions with colleagues about effective reading activities and teaching methods.
  2. conducting observational research in districts where students perform well on standardized reading tests.
  3. participating actively in a national professional organization for teachers of reading.
  4. asking a more experienced reading teacher or reading specialist for information and advice.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
Membership and active participation in a national professional organization for teachers of reading provides those who join with a competitive advantage, because it helps them become active and informed with regard to their profession. Such organizations can keep reading teachers briefed on important new research, instructional trends, legislative rulings, and advances in technology.

Objective 0003 
Understand oral language foundations of literacy development.

4. A reading teacher has a first-grade small group engage in a choral reading of a grade-level literary text. The students read the text aloud in unison a number of times. An oral language activity such as this promotes students' reading acquisition primarily in which of the following areas?

  1. word consciousness
  2. multisyllabic words
  3. sight-word fluency
  4. phonemic awareness
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
Choral reading is an oral language activity in which students read a text aloud in unison. Students can be grouped and regrouped in various ways to read the text chorally a number of times. Through such repeated readings of the text, students increase their sight-word vocabulary and fluency skills.

Objective 0004 
Understand the influence of individual differences and diversity on language and literacy development and instruction.

5. Convergent research on diversity in the classroom best supports which of the following statements?

  1. Teachers should downplay cultural differences among students within a classroom.
  2. Teachers need to learn about their students' cultures and share that information with the class.
  3. Teachers should view cultural diversity in the classroom as a powerful instructional resource.
  4. Teachers need to have access to many additional resources to address the cultural differences in the classroom.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
Students from various cultural, linguistic, and ethnic backgrounds bring a wide range of knowledge, experiences, and perspectives to the classroom. Such diversity can be a powerful resource for all students as they work with classmates to learn about multiple points of perspective and experience and reflect upon their own perspectives and experiences.

Objective 0005 
Understand characteristics of educational environments that promote literacy development.

6. A middle school student who is a reluctant reader becomes interested in reading a series of science fiction books that is popular with young adults. The student finishes reading the first three books and continues to choose books from this series for independent reading. The reading teacher could best encourage this pattern of reading behavior by:

  1. supporting the student's engagement in the series and offering additional texts that build on and broaden the student's reading interests.
  2. selecting several high-interest books in other literary genres for the student to choose from for independent reading.
  3. helping expand the student's reading interests by encouraging the exploration of other popular trade books.
  4. visiting the school library with the student to help identify and select other types of texts to widen the student's reading interests.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
By providing encouragement to the reluctant reader, the reading teacher reinforces the student's desire to read. Using a professional knowledge of similar texts, the reading teacher can motivate the reader to continue reading books that may match the student's current interest or promote new interests.

Objective 0006 
Understand strategies for evaluating, securing, and managing resources to support effective reading instruction.

7. Which of the following educational practices is likely to be most effective in helping promote students' reading comprehension?

  1. grouping students by reading ability
  2. selecting high-interest reading materials
  3. giving isolated instruction on reading strategies
  4. focusing students on making predictions while reading
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Students' interests are a key consideration when a teacher is selecting texts. Interest promotes motivation to read and engagement with a text, which can aid in comprehension. Research has shown that students can often read above their reading level if the text appeals to their interests. Conversely, students tend to not perform to their full potential when reading texts that do not interest them, even if the text is written at their reading level.

Objective 0006 
Understand strategies for evaluating, securing, and managing resources to support effective reading instruction.

8. A reading teacher calculates the average number of words per sentence in a text sample, then determines the percentage of difficult words in the text based on a specially formulated list of common familiar words. The teacher's actions best demonstrate an understanding of which of the following concepts related to reading instruction?

  1. estimating the readability of a text
  2. evaluating a text for the use of providing fluency practice
  3. planning reading goals for a class
  4. determining academic vocabulary words to pre-teach
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
The reading teacher is using a readability formula, which is generally used to assign a grade level to a text. Average sentence length—the average number of words per sentence—is often used to help gauge the readability of a text. The higher the average sentence length and percentage of "difficult" words, the higher the grade level assigned to the text will be.

Objective 0007 
Understand foundations of reading assessment.

9. A teacher reads aloud a text to a group of second-grade students and then follows the read-aloud by asking them questions to measure their understanding of the text. Which of the following factors in this situation would most seriously compromise the accuracy of the assessment as a measure of the students' listening skills?

  1. telling the students beforehand to listen carefully as the text is read
  2. using a text on a topic that is unfamiliar or of limited interest to the students
  3. reading the text without showing the students the illustrations on each page
  4. asking the students inferential as well as text comprehension questions
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Listening comprehension—the ability to obtain information from the spoken word—is strongly influenced by memory and motivation. Therefore, in order for the teacher to obtain an accurate assessment of listening comprehension, the text chosen for the read-aloud should be on a topic that is both familiar and interesting to the students.

Objective 0008 
Understand assessment of essential components of reading development.

10. A reading teacher could best assess a preschool child's understanding of concepts of print by:

  1. watching and listening to the child pretend-read a book.
  2. asking the child to identify the initial sound in a familiar spoken word.
  3. pointing to a letter and asking the child to tell "what sound this letter makes."
  4. observing the child's behavior when listening to an age-appropriate read-aloud.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
Concepts of print refers to foundational literacy skills, such as the knowledge that written language carries meaning; that words are separated by spaces; and that stories have a beginning, middle, and end. A child's understanding of concepts of print can be measured by watching and listening to the way in which the child pretend-reads a book.

Objective 0008 
Understand assessment of essential components of reading development.

11. Which of the following methods would be most appropriate for assessing first-grade students' knowledge of letter-sound correspondences for use in reading single-syllable words?

  1. asking students to read aloud word families (e.g., an, can, man, pan)
  2. giving students a list of nonsense words (e.g., bon, sif, teb) to read aloud
  3. reading aloud words (e.g., sat, bed, fin, fat) and having students spell them
  4. having students read aloud books that contain familiar words (e.g., dog, cat)
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Nonsense words are nonwords made up of letter sequences that follow regular phonetic rules and are pronounceable, but have no meaning. Nonsense word fluency can be helpful in measuring students' knowledge of letter-sound correspondences, because such assessment does not rely on students' sight knowledge or word familiarity, but measures students' ability to decode individual phonemes and then blend the sounds together to form words.

Objective 0009 
Understand assessment for the purpose of diagnosing reading difficulties and principles of working with students with reading difficulties.

12. Use the information below to answer the question that follows.

Printed Word Student Response
shut shut
flame fame
mask mack
bath bath
twig tig

This assessment suggests that the student would most likely benefit from targeted instruction in how to:

  1. sound out words that contain consonant digraphs.
  2. recognize words that follow the CVCC pattern.
  3. decode words containing consonant blends.
  4. recognize high-frequency sight words.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
According to the chart, the student has mastered words with a consonant digraph (i.e., shut and bath) but not words that contain a consonant blend (i.e., flame=fame, mask=mack, and twig=tig). The teacher should therefore focus instruction on teaching the student common consonant blends.

Objective 0010 
Understand emergent literacy, including development of phonemic awareness.

13. A reading teacher is working with a small group of first-grade students. The teacher orally asks questions such as "What word is s i t?" and "What word is b a j?" The students respond orally. This approach is likely to facilitate the students' emergent literacy primarily in which of the following ways?

  1. by giving practice in phonemic blending
  2. by encouraging engagement in oral language
  3. by laying a foundation for phoneme identity
  4. by giving instruction in letter-sound correspondence
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
Phonemes—single speech sounds—are the smallest units of spoken language that affect a word's meaning. The students are blending the teacher-given phonemes together to form words (e.g., sit, badge). By providing practice in phonemic blending, the teacher is promoting an important skill that will help students learn to decode written words.

Objective 0010 
Understand emergent literacy, including development of phonemic awareness.

14. A first-grade teacher helps students learn to write simple words at the same time that they are first learning to recognize words in print. This practice is most likely to promote the students' reading development by reinforcing their:

  1. inferential comprehension.
  2. knowledge of the alphabetic principle.
  3. understanding of word structure.
  4. use of prior knowledge to construct meaning.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
The alphabetic principle is the understanding that letters and letter patterns represent the sounds of spoken language. Teaching students about predictable relationships between sounds and letters allows students to apply these relationships to printed words and learn to read the words. By giving instruction on how to write and recognize simple words in print simultaneously, the teacher is providing students with practice in and reinforcement of the alphabetic principle.

Objective 0011 
Understand the development of phonics and other word identification skills and spelling.

15. A reading teacher in an elementary school regularly reviews the writing of struggling readers to analyze their spelling. This practice is most likely to provide the reading teacher with useful information about the students' ability in which of the following areas?

  1. comprehension skills
  2. use of context clues
  3. phonics knowledge
  4. vocabulary knowledge
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
Spelling (i.e., encoding) and decoding skills are directly related. Spelling is the process of using letter-sound knowledge to build and write words, while decoding involves translating letters in printed words into the sounds that form the words. Students who are spelling phonetically are spelling words the way they sound. The reading teacher can analyze spelling error patterns in students' writing to determine the level of students' phonics knowledge.

Objective 0012 
Understand the development of reading fluency.

16. A reading teacher uses a phrase-cued text with students that visually separates text into meaningful groups (e.g., compound subjects and verbs, prepositional phrases, participial phrases). Which of the following instructional goals is most directly promoted by the use of such text?

  1. increasing automaticity in students who read at a below-average rate
  2. slowing students who read quickly and accurately but with little comprehension
  3. aiding students who frequently omit words when they are reading orally
  4. developing prosody in students who read word by word with little expression
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
Prosody, a key component of fluency, refers to the natural rhythm of speech. Prosody includes intonation, phrasing, and expression. Students who read word by word with little expression are not reading with prosody. They do not see words in meaningful groups. A phrase-cued text that visually separates meaningful groups of words alerts students to pause at each break, thereby helping them read with appropriate rhythm.

Objective 0013 
Understand the development of academic language, including vocabulary and complex language structures.

17. A teacher provides students with the sentence frames below to aid them in formulating responses when speaking and writing about texts.

1 blank in the following ways: First, blank. Next, blank. Finally, blank.
2 blank are similar in that they blank, yet they are different in that they blank.
3 blank; as a result, blank.

This practice is likely to be most effective in promoting the students' reading in the content areas primarily in which of the following ways?

  1. by enriching students' repertoire of ways to creatively express ideas
  2. by developing students' ability to focus on key details of texts
  3. by increasing students' knowledge of domain-specific vocabulary
  4. by expanding students' familiarity with academic-language structures
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
In order to be successful in school, students need to be proficient in academic language. Academic language includes the formal vocabulary, grammar, punctuation, and complex sentence structures that are found in school texts and in formal discourse. The sentence frames that the teacher provides are examples of sentence structures that authors of content-area materials use consistently. By familiarizing students with these structures, the teacher is promoting students' reading and comprehension in the content areas.

Objective 0013 
Understand the development of academic language, including vocabulary and complex language structures.

18. A third-grade teacher regularly reads aloud to students from high-interest novels that are beyond the students' independent reading level. This activity is likely to promote the literacy development of students by:

  1. motivating them to use writing as a form of self-expression.
  2. encouraging them to self-monitor their comprehension.
  3. helping them learn how to make logical inferences.
  4. introducing them to new vocabulary words in meaningful contexts.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
Students benefit from indirect exposure to vocabulary words through teacher read-alouds, as this exposure helps students understand new, higher-level vocabulary words within the context of the text being read aloud.

Objective 0014 
Understand the development of reading comprehension.

19. A reading teacher notices that a high school student has difficulty understanding long, complex sentences. Which of the following strategies is likely to be most effective in addressing this difficulty?

  1. The teacher cuts out each sentence from a complex passage, and the student arranges the sentences to re-create a meaningful passage.
  2. The teacher provides the student with a mini-lesson on the role of conjunctions and punctuation in complex sentences.
  3. The student reads aloud complex sentences and responds to literal comprehension questions posed by the teacher about each sentence.
  4. The student practices dividing complex sentences into two or more shorter sentences that convey the same meaning.
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
Through the practice of dividing a complex sentence into shorter sentences that carry the same meaning, the student is able to determine the meaning of the longer sentence and to become familiar with how short sentences can be joined properly to form more complex sentences. Proficiency in this skill is important, as the student will be asked to read increasingly more challenging texts containing complex sentences throughout the school years and beyond.

Objective 0015 
Understand literary and informational texts and how to enhance students' comprehension and analysis of different types of texts for various purposes through reading and writing.

20. A high school reading teacher is working on research skills with a student. When researching a designated topic, the student tends to spend too much time reading a single text in detail rather than exploring multiple sources to develop a broader view of the topic. The teacher could best address this problem by helping the student develop which of the following skills?

  1. activating background knowledge
  2. previewing text features (e.g., table of contents, index)
  3. outlining and note-taking
  4. interpreting graphic features (e.g., maps, charts)
Answer and Rationale. Enter to expand or collapse. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Previewing text features, such as a table of contents or index, can help the student determine quickly if the information needed about a specific topic is adequately covered in a particular text. In this manner, the student could quickly assess multiple texts to gain a broader view of the designated topic and determine if the content covered by the texts might be appropriate for the assigned project.