Study Guide

Field 115: Reading Specialist 
Sample Selected-Response Questions

Recommendation for individuals using a screenreader: please set your punctuation settings to "most."

Expand All | Collapse All

General Test Directions

This test consists of two sections: 1) a section with selected-response questions and 2) a constructed-response section that includes two writing assignments.

Each question in the first section of this test is a selected-response question with four answer choices. Read each question carefully and choose the  start uppercase ONE end uppercase  best answer. 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  start uppercase NOT end uppercase  be penalized for guessing.

The second section of this test consists of two constructed-response assignments. You will be asked to provide a written response to each assignment. Directions for completing your written responses to the constructed-response assignments will appear immediately before the assignments.

Sample Selected-Response Questions

Competency 0001 
Analyze and apply knowledge of strategies for developing students' emergent literacy skills, including phonological and phonemic awareness, concepts of print, and alphabet knowledge.

1. A reading specialist working with first-grade students places a "start here" sticker in the upper-left corner of a poster listing several short sentences. The specialist points to each word, traveling left to right, and has the students read the sentences in unison. The primary benefit of this activity is to:

  1. provide skills practice in auditory/visual association.
  2. reinforce the tracking motions used in reading.
  3. encourage self-control and attention to teacher direction.
  4. assess fluency in reading word combinations.

Correct Response: B. The activity described will promote students' understanding that printed English should be read starting at the top of a page and from left-to-right on each line of text. By following along as the teacher points to each word on the poster while reading aloud, the students can connect this tracking motion with the order in which the teacher reads the words.

Competency 0002 
Analyze and apply knowledge of strategies for developing students' phonics skills and related spelling skills.

2. A reading specialist is collaborating on an introductory lesson on letter-sound correspondence with a kindergarten teacher. Which of the following approaches would be most appropriate when choosing letters and sounds to introduce to the students first?

  1. introducing pairs of letters with and without voiced sounds that are articulated similarly in the mouth
  2. introducing similar-looking letters and then clarifying any confusion students may have with their sounds
  3. introducing all consonants and their sounds at once and reviewing them frequently as needed with students
  4. introducing the most common letters with sounds that allow students to begin to read simple words

Correct Response: D. Beginning readers learning letter-sound correspondence benefit most from being introduced first to letters with high utility and predictable sounds. Learning the most frequently occurring consonants, some vowels, and their sounds allows students to use their expanding understanding of phonics to decode many simple VC and CVC words.

Competency 0004 
Analyze and apply knowledge of strategies for promoting students' fluency development at all stages of reading development.

3. A reading specialist working closely with an elementary teacher suggests that the teacher highlight three to five high-frequency words every week as part of literacy instruction, introducing them at the beginning of the week and including the words in spelling lists, in teacher-generated texts, and in student oral reading practice. This instructional strategy will most likely contribute to students' fluency development primarily by:

  1. advancing students' interest in words.
  2. expanding students' sight vocabulary.
  3. increasing students' word awareness.
  4. deepening students' vocabulary knowledge.

Correct Response: B. Words that can be read effortlessly, with both accuracy and automaticity, are referred to as sight vocabulary. Sight vocabulary contributes to students' fluency development by eliminating the need for decoding a word sound-by-sound. Providing multiple and varied exposures to a small number of high-frequency words over a short period of time, as described in the scenario, supports students' development of their sight vocabulary.

Competency 0005 
Analyze and apply knowledge of strategies for promoting students' vocabulary and academic-language development in order to support their effective listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

4. A reading specialist working with a small group of fifth-grade students has them participate in a weekly vocabulary activity that targets key discipline-specific words. Students use online resources to determine the words’ origins. They break words into syllables and identify the words’ roots and affixes. Finally, they find examples of the words in context and use them in their own classroom writing about the topic. These activities benefit students' word analysis skills primarily by:

  1. promoting their understanding of cognate relationships between English and other languages to expedite solving unfamiliar words.
  2. developing their dictionary skills to inform syllable division, pronunciation, and meaning.
  3. expanding their word inquiry to include the relationship of a word's spelling, pronunciation, usage, and etymology.
  4. applying their skills in orthographic knowledge to authentic tasks in reading and writing.

Correct Response: C. The activities described in the scenario benefit the students' word analysis skills by offering multiple opportunities to interact with new vocabulary in a variety of contexts, and in meaningful ways. Additionally, dividing the words into syllables and making explicit connections between the words' etymology, component parts (e.g., affixes and roots), and their meanings helps students begin to see the relationships between these discipline-specific words.

Competency 0006 
Analyze and apply knowledge of strategies for promoting students' reading and writing processes with a variety of texts, including multimodal content.

5. A health class is beginning a new unit on nutrition. The teacher asks students to complete a prereading activity in which they keep a personal log of their eating habits for one week. This instructional activity is likely to be most effective for accomplishing which of the following instructional goals?

  1. establishing text-to-text connections between old and new material
  2. providing guided practice for development of students' research skills
  3. increasing students' understanding of their own cognitive processes
  4. making meaningful connections between new material and students' current knowledge and life experiences

Correct Response: D. Text comprehension is often highly dependent on the background knowledge a reader can apply while engaging with the text. Making students aware of connections between content-area topics and their own experiences and background knowledge provides scaffolding for the newly introduced material.

Competency 0007 
Analyze and apply knowledge of strategies for promoting students' critical reading and writing of literary/narrative and informational texts, including their research and disciplinary-literacy skills.

6. While planning a lesson on narrative writing, a middle school teacher wants to emphasize to students how to use figurative language in their writing pieces to engage readers. Which of the following concepts would be most appropriate to include in the lesson?

  1. relevant similes and metaphors
  2. rhyming words and rhythmic phrasing
  3. content in diverse media and formats
  4. descriptive language and sensory details

Correct Response: A. Both similes and metaphors are examples of figurative language. In these examples of figurative language, the meaning transcends the literal definition of the words they are composed of by comparing seemingly unrelated concepts to illustrate a more complex idea. Similes include the words start italics like end italics or start italics as end italics when making a comparison. start italics My love is like a red, red rose end italics is an example of a simile. Likewise, metaphors compare two seemingly unrelated concepts but without using the words start italics like end italics or start italics as end italics. start italics All the world's a stage end italics is an example of a metaphor.

 start bold Use the information below to answer the 2 questions that follow. end bold 

At the beginning of the school year, a first-grade teacher completes a checklist for each student in the class. The following is an excerpt from one of the completed checklists.

an excerpt of a completed student checklist

There is a chart with four columns.
The first line says Name colon student A.

The second line has the following heading for the columns: When listening to literature… the options are, rarely, sometimes, and usually.

The first bullet says, recalling main characters and setting. There is an x under the column for usually.
The second bullet says, recalls facts and details from a story. There is an x under the column for usually.
The third bullet says, recalls events of a story in sequence. There is an x under the column for usually.
The fourth bullet says, recognizes rhyming words. There is an x under the column for rarely.
The fourth bullet says, recognizes words that begin with the same sound. There is an x under the column for rarely.

Competency 0008 
Analyze and apply knowledge of basic principles of literacy assessment, including procedures for interpreting assessment results and using assessment information to plan instruction that supports students' literacy development.

7. Given the information in this checklist, the student would likely benefit most from instruction designed to help them:

  1. increase their oral vocabulary.
  2. foster their understanding of story structure.
  3. enhance their phonemic awareness.
  4. improve their aural memory.

Correct Response: C. The oral language checklist shows that the student rarely recognizes words that rhyme or words that begin with the same sound. This indicates that the student does not yet understand that words can be divided into discrete segments and that some word segments may sound similar to other word segments. The student would therefore benefit from further instruction to enhance their phonemic awareness.

Competency 0010 
Analyze and apply knowledge of characteristics and uses of screening and diagnostic procedures.

8. Which of the following would be the most appropriate use for this checklist?

  1. screening for potential reading difficulties
  2. diagnosing a specific reading disability
  3. identifying specific auditory processing deficits
  4. determining an appropriate reading placement level

Correct Response: A. This checklist shows the observations made by the first-grade teacher regarding the student's reading behaviors. This checklist provides sufficient information to act as a screener for potential reading difficulties but would not be useful for other purposes.

Competency 0011 
Analyze and apply knowledge of foundations of literacy development, including factors affecting literacy development.

9. An English language learner whose primary language uses definite and indefinite articles has little difficulty understanding the use of articles in English. This is an example of which of the following linguistic processes?

  1. positive transfer
  2. interlanguage
  3. phonemic awareness
  4. code-switching

Correct Response: A. Positive transfer occurs when a property of a student's first language promotes the acquisition of a second language. In this case, the student demonstrates positive transfer when they apply their knowledge of the article system in the first language to the article system in the second language.

Competency 0012 
Analyze and apply knowledge of evidence-based instructional principles and practices.

10. A reading specialist is evaluating the text complexity of various reading materials for use in the reading program. Which of the following strategies would be most effective for the reading specialist to use to measure qualitative dimensions of text complexity?

  1. analyzing factors such as the text's levels of meaning, language clarity, and knowledge demands
  2. applying a proprietary formula to the text that takes into account the variables of word frequency and syntactic complexity
  3. using readability software that is able to measure the text's word and sentence length quickly and accurately
  4. evaluating reader and task considerations such as background knowledge relevant to the text, reading purpose, and motivation

Correct Response: A. Qualitative dimensions of text complexity refer to factors that can generally only be evaluated by a human reader. Such dimensions include the degree of conventionality and clarity of the language used in the text, the levels of meaning embedded in the text (e.g., irony, figurative language, and idioms), and knowledge demands required by the text.