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Study Guide

Field 221: Multi-Subject: Teachers of Childhood
(Grade 1–Grade 6)
Part One: Literacy and English Language Arts

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Sample Selected-Response Questions

Competency 0001 
Knowledge of Literacy and Language Arts

1. Which factor is most frequently the underlying cause of children's early difficulty in learning to read?

  1. limited general background knowledge
  2. weak phonological processing skills
  3. immature knowledge of syntax
  4. poor visual acuity
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B. This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of individual variation in literacy development, including knowledge of specific reading difficulties, and knowledge of cognitive, behavioral, environmental, social, cultural, technological, and linguistic factors affecting language and literacy development. Convergent research has shown the most commonly occurring cause of early reading difficulty is weak phonological processing skills. Beginning reading instruction focuses on the development of automatic decoding skills that support the continuing development of reading comprehension, conceptual knowledge, and vocabulary development. When beginning readers have weak phonological processing skills, they have limited knowledge of the component phonemes in spoken words and thus have difficulty connecting letters in printed language to the component sounds and spoken words they represent.

Competency 0001 
Knowledge of Literacy and Language Arts

2. Read the passage below from The Phantom Tollbooth, a novel by Norton Juster; then answer the question that follows.

Milo walked slowly down the long hallway and into the little room where the Soundkeeper sat listening intently to an enormous radio set, whose switches, dials, knobs, meters, and speaker covered one whole wall, and which at the moment was playing nothing.

"Isn't that lovely?" she sighed. "It's my favorite program—fifteen minutes of silence—and after that there's a half hour of quiet and then an interlude of lull. Why, did you know that there are almost as many kinds of stillness as there are sounds? But, sadly enough, no one pays any attention to them these days.

"Have you ever heard the wonderful silence just before the dawn?" she inquired. "Or the quiet and calm just as a storm ends? Or perhaps you know the silence when you haven't the answer to a question you've been asked, or the hush of a country road at night, or the expectant pause in a roomful of people when someone is just about to speak, or, most beautiful of all, the moment after the door closes and you're all alone in the whole house? Each one is different, you know, and all very beautiful, if you listen carefully."1

In the passage, a series of questions is used primarily to:

  1. highlight the imaginary setting's blend of fantasy and reality.
  2. characterize the Soundkeeper as overly curious and rude.
  3. reveal the hidden motivation for Milo's visit to the little room.
  4. suggest that the world abounds with unheard experiences.
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D. This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of characteristics, elements, and features of a range of text types in children's literature from a broad range of cultures and periods, including stories (e.g., folktales, legends, fables, fantasy, realistic fiction, myths), drama, poetry, and multimedia versions of texts. In the passage, the Soundkeeper asks Milo a series of questions that describe various ways to experience stillness, such as the "silence just before the dawn," "the quiet and calm just before a storm ends," and "the hush of a country road at night." The Soundkeeper's questions suggest that the world abounds with unheard experiences because people fail to listen attentively to nuances of stillness.

Competency 0002 
Instruction in Foundational Literacy Skills

3. As an integral part of planning reading instruction, a fifth-grade teacher provides students with opportunities to interact with objects or illustrations related to important content in planned texts. For example, during an earth science unit, before students read an informational passage about the effects of pollution on the ecosystem of a vernal pool, the teacher arranges a guided class visit to a vernal pool in the area. Which statement best explains a research-based rationale for this practice?

  1. Literacy activities that appeal to multiple intelligences promote the reading motivation of all students.
  2. Multisensory approaches are effective for reinforcing print-based skills.
  3. A text-rich environment plays an important role in the literacy development of elementary readers.
  4. Background knowledge is an important factor in reading comprehension.
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D. This question requires the examinee to demonstrate knowledge of the role of background knowledge in text comprehension and strategies for planning a content-rich, text-rich classroom environment and for promoting independent reading in a wide range of text types and genres to support text comprehension through the development of academic background knowledge. Background knowledge is prior knowledge about a topic that supports reading comprehension and learning new concepts. In the scenario described, the teacher ensures that students have concrete experiences that build background knowledge directly related to the topic of the planned reading assignment. Students will then be able to draw on this prior knowledge when they read the text, supporting and enhancing both their literal and inferential comprehension of the material.

Competency 0002 
Instruction in Foundational Literacy Skills

4. A fourth-grade student struggles with literal and inferential comprehension of complex grade-level texts. The teacher has determined that the student meets benchmark oral fluency expectations and has at-grade-level vocabulary and spelling skills. Given this information, which method would be most appropriate for the teacher to use to promote the student's comprehension skills?

  1. selecting texts for the student that follow the compare/contrast organizational style
  2. having the student write down unfamiliar words from the texts, and then look up the words' meanings
  3. modeling think-aloud and brainstorming strategies to help the student activate prior knowledge
  4. assigning the student to take notes, and then write text summaries independently
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C. This question requires the examinee to apply knowledge of factors affecting students' development of text comprehension (e.g., vocabulary, background content knowledge, decoding skills, reading fluency). Background knowledge is necessary to help students connect what they know to what they are reading—to understand and make inferences about a text, one must have some understanding of what it is about. To promote this student's comprehension, the teacher should help the student learn to activate and build on prior knowledge. This can be accomplished by modeling strategies such as think-aloud and brainstorming for the student. Such prior knowledge activation is linked to the ability to understand texts that might otherwise be slightly above the student's comprehension level.

Competency 0003 
Instruction in English Language Arts

5. Students in a sixth-grade class are preparing to read Laurence Yep's novel Dragonwings, in which the narrator leaves his home in China as a young boy to join his father in California. Over the course of the novel, the father and son confront racial prejudice, experience the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and forge a friendship. Before students begin the novel, they write in their reading journals about a time when they felt like strangers in a strange land. The assignment will most likely enhance students' ability to:

  1. visualize the novel's characters and setting.
  2. draw conclusions about the novel's central themes.
  3. predict events that lead to the novel's climax.
  4. understand the perspective of the novel's narrator.
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D. This question requires the examinee to apply knowledge of developmentally appropriate, research- and evidence-based assessment and instructional practices to promote students' development of independent strategies that support reading of literature with purpose and understanding (e.g., making and verifying predictions, visualizing, making connections). Writing about a time when they felt like strangers in a strange land will help students relate their personal experience to that of the narrator of Dragonwings. When students can draw connections between themselves and the narrator, they will be more engaged with a novel whose unfamiliar setting might make it challenging. Attempting to draw connections between their own feelings and experiences with those of fictional characters is an independent strategy that will support students' ability to read literature with greater purpose and deeper understanding.

Competency 0003 
Instruction in English Language Arts

6. While reading aloud a story to first-grade students, a teacher pauses periodically to make statements about the content of the story. Students respond to each statement nonverbally by raising one finger to indicate agreement and two fingers to indicate disagreement. Which additional action by the students would best help the teacher assess their active listening skills?

  1. tallying responses on the whiteboard during the read-aloud
  2. citing evidence to support responses during the read-aloud
  3. acting out a key scene from the story after the read-aloud
  4. composing a new ending for the story after the read-aloud
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B. This question requires the examinee to apply knowledge of developmentally appropriate assessment and data-driven instructional practices to promote students' skill in using listening strategies that are appropriate for given contexts and purposes. Asking the students to indicate agreement or disagreement with statements about the story's content is a first step toward assessing the students' active listening skills. Having the students cite evidence to support their responses will allow the teacher to determine to what degree the students' nonverbal responses are the result of active listening, guessing, and/or observing their peers. In addition, the teacher will be better able to assess individual students' strengths and needs and to plan future instruction accordingly.

Acknowledgments

1 Excerpt(s) from THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH by Norton Juster, text copyright 1961, copyright renewed 1989 by Norton Juster. Used by permission of Random House Children's Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.