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Making a Clay Mask

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Step 4Reading Components Typical Types of Tasks and Test Formats

Phonological/Phonemic AwarenessAwareness of/access to the basic sound structure of oral language, specifically addressing phonemes.

Elision tasks (phoneme deletion): Measures how well an individual can say a word and then say what is left after omitting specified sounds.Phoneme blending: Measures how well an individual can listen to separate sounds and then put them together to make a whole word.

Phonological DecodingThe process of matching phonemes with the letters they represent and blending them together to "sound out" whole words.

Non-word identification tasks (accuracy): Requires accurate reading of pronounceable printed non-words (e.g. hap) presented in isolation (without a context), thus requiring use of decoding skills only.Non-word identification tasks (efficiency): Requires identification (naming) of lists of real words within a fixed time limit; lists typically ordered from simple and frequent to more complex, infrequent words.

Sight-Word IdentificationRecognizing printed words by sight without conscious decoding, with information about pronunciation retrieved automatically.

Word identification tasks (accuracy): Requires reading of real printed words presented in isolation (without a context), thus requiring use of visual/spelling information only.Word identification tasks (efficiency): Requires identification (naming) of lists of real words within a fixed time limit; lists typically ordered from simple and frequent to more complex, infrequent words.

Reading FluencyAccurate reading at the fastest rate that allows for the deepest understanding, with little conscious attention to reading mechanics such as decoding.

Passage reading rate and accuracy: Measured as the time in seconds it takes to read a passage combined with accuracy of reading.Sentence reading fluency: Measured as the number of correct responses to true/false sentences statements within a time limit.

VocabularyKnowledge of word meanings.

Expressive vocabulary: Task often requires naming objects or pictures of objects (recognition of the object/picture and matching to the appropriate word.)Receptive vocabulary: Task may require listening to a spoken words and identifying the picture/drawing that best captures the meaning of the word. Also measured by selecting a synonym or antonym for a vocabulary term presented in a sentence or phrase.

Reading ComprehensionThe process of extracting and constructing meaning through active involvement with text.

Passage comprehension tasks: Cloze assessment requires identification of key words missing from passages.Also measured by appropriateness of responses to questions about the content of a story read by the individual, with questions in multiple-choice format or asked and answered orally.

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