Language Arts

Big Ideas

• A good teacher in the state of Texas likes for his/her students to DISCUSS

• A good teacher in the state of Texas provides opportunities for children to examine an write from OTHER PERSPECTIVES.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows that an activity that promotes HOTS is DEBATE.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas allows students to direct their own learning - the more students are doing for themselves, the better. A teacher’s goal is for children to become INDEPENDENT LEARNERS.

• Joseph, a fourth grader, reads on grade level, but has trouble following written directions and is much better at following directions given orally. Which of the following would be the teacher’s best strategy for addressing this need?

• A) Meet regularly with Joseph to provide him with oral directions for written assignments.

• B) Guide Joseph to develop the habit of reading written directions aloud quietly to himself.

• C) Make an audio tape of each class assignment for Joseph to listen to as he reads the directions.

• D) Have Joseph rewrite the teacher’s directions in his own words.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas allows students to COLLABORATE and work together in COOPERATIVE GROUPS. Working together in a group is ALWAYS preferable to working independently.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows that MODELING and BRAINSTORMING are good strategies to use.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas does not give a list of questions to answer.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows that the best activities to suggest to parents who want to work with their children are the most INFORMAL.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows that the Language Experience Approach (LEA) helps students connect ORAL language to WRITTEN language.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows the activities that build on oral language skills.– Dramatic Play (ROLE PLAYING)– Discussion– Puppets– Wordless Picture Books– Debate– Interactive Reading (READERS’ THEATRE AND

CHORAL READING)

• A good teacher in the state of Texas can foster a collaboration with families to promote ORAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT by encouraging parents to read aloud to their children.

• A teacher is developing instructional activities to promote the literacy development of a small group of young children who are English Language Learners. The teacher plans an activity in which the students tell stories in English while the teacher writes what the students say. Which of the following guidelines would be most important for the teacher to follow when writing the stories told by the English Language Learners?

• A) Have the student pause after each sentence and listen as the teacher reads aloud what the student has dictated so far.

• B) Reinforce the students’ understanding of the relationship between written and oral language by making sure the students see the teacher writing down their exact words.

• C) Paraphrase the dictated stories as necessary to clarify the main ideas and improve students’ use of English vocabulary or syntax.

• D) Strengthen the students’ understanding of the reading process y having them close their eyes to visualize the story as the teacher reads the dictated narratives aloud.

• Ms. Oliveras, a fourth grade teacher, has invited a guess speaker to discuss the important events related to the upcoming science fair. Knowing the speaker will need to speak for over a 30 minute time frame, which of the following would be the best listening practice to implement for the children to use as they listen to the speaker?

• A) Have the children develop a list of purpose-setting questions.

• B) Arrange the children in cooperative groups.• C) Provide a summary of the speaker’s

discussion.• D) Provide the children with an open note-taking

sheet.

Phonological Awareness and Phonemic Awareness

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows the difference between PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS and PHONEMIC AWARENESS.

• Phonological and phonemic awareness are both ORAL LANGUAGE SKILLS

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS includes identifying and manipulating the large parts of ORAL language – syllables and words. Phonological awareness begins developing Before phonemic awareness.

A good activity for developing phonological awareness is working with syllables in words.

• PHONEMIC AWARENESS is identifying and manipulating individual sounds in spoken words.

• Rhyming games and activities work well to develop phonemic awareness.

• Phoneme: sound.– There are 3 phonemes in the word that, /th/

/a/ /t/.

• Onset: the letters before a vowel in a word.– “M” is the onset in the word map.

• Rime: the letters in a word that follow the onset.– “AP” is the rime in the word map.

• Word Family: a group of words with the same rime.

• Map, lap, cap, gap, are a word family.

• The father of a preschool child asks the teacher how he can help develop the child’s phonemic awareness. The teacher could best respond by:

• A) Providing the parents with a copy of the teacher’s lesson plan for phonemic awareness instruction.

• B) Having the parent create flash cards to help his child associate letters with sounds.

• C) Advising the parent to have his child role play familiar stories.

• D) Suggesting some rhyming games and other types of simple wordplay for parents and children.

• A first grade teacher asks a child to tap out the number of sounds in the word spin. The child taps out the sounds - /s/ /p/ /i/ /n/. The teacher then asks the child to do the same thing with the word plant. This time the child taps out the sounds - /p/ /l/ /a/ /n/ /t/. As an informal assessment strategy, this activity would be most effective evaluating the child’s:

• A) Ability to identify syllables in word.• B) knowledge of letter-sound relationships.• C) Oral language development• D) Ability to segment a word into phonemes.

• The ALPHABETIC PRINCIPLE is the idea that words are composed of printed letters and there is a relationship between printed letters and spoken sounds. IN OTHER WORDS, letters in written words relate to sounds in spoken words.

• Alphabetic principle skills include:– Letter Sound Association – The letter t makes the /t/

sound.– Visually discriminating between similar letters –b/d.– Blending letter sound correspondences to decode

words - /m/ /a/ /n/ is blended to form man.

• Which of the following activities would best help kindergarten students develop the concept of alphabetic principle?

• A) The teacher reads nursery rhymes and other poems to children.

• B) The children play a matching game in which they match pictures of objects with their initial consonant letter.

• C) The teacher and student sing the alphabet song at the start of each day.

• D) The teacher calls out a letter of the alphabet. The children then write the letter that the teacher has named.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows what Emergent Literacy is.– EMERGENT LITERACY: The oral language,

reading, and instruction begins – at home, preschool, and in social settings.

– CONCEPTS OF PRINT: Emergent literacy skills that help children understand how the printed word is found on a page.

• DIRECTIONALITY: We read form left to right, top to bottom and front to back.

• BIG BOOKS: Enlarged book of favorite stories that can be used to teach concepts of print.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows how to promote literacy development.– Oral and written DISCUSSION of books.– REREAD favorite stories to children.

• A first grade teacher is planning a language activity for a small group of students whose experience with books and other written material has been extremely limited. Which of the following activities would best promote these students’ understanding of both the format and the function of print?

• A) Providing them with name labels that they may attach to their desks, coat hooks, etc.

• B) Reading Big Books aloud to them, pointing to each word as it is read.

• C) Providing them with copies of books in which they can follow along as the teacher reads a story aloud.

• D) Asking them to make up stories that tell about the pictures in wordless books.

• Word analysis skills include:– Context Clues – using information obtained

from text.– Phonetic Analysis – associating speech

sounds with letters and blending these sounds into words.

– Structural Analysis – breaking down a word into word parts.

• Word recognition is also dependent upon an adequate SIGHT WORD VOCABULARY.

• Sight Words: Words recognized immediately without applying word analysis skills.

• Which of the following general guidelines should a first grade teacher follow when selecting texts for beginning readers?

• A) Provide mostly texts in which the vocabulary consists of regular and irregular sight words that students have already memorized.

• B) Provide students primarily with texts that relate to content area learning.

• C) Provide mostly phonetically regular texts that allow students to apply their knowledge of letter-sound relationships.

• D) Provide students primarily with texts that the teacher has already read aloud in class.

Use the passage below to answer the question that follows.

Derrick was telling several of his friends about his family’s summer vacation. “We went to the Grand Canyon,” he said. “It’s unbelievable! I’ve never seen anything as big as that in my whole life. And wait until you hear about our adventure!”

Structural analysis is likely to be most useful in decoding which of the following words in the passage above?A) SeveralB) VacationC) AdventureD) Unbelievable

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows that READING FLUENCY is the:– Ability to read a text accurately.– Ability to comprehend effectively.– Ability to provide expression.– Ability to read at an appropriate pace.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows how to develop fluency in children:– Have children read text they are familiar with.– Have children read text at their

INDEPENDENT READING LEVELS.– Have children engage in READERS’

THEATRE.– Have children engage in CHORAL READING.

• Reading fluency and reading comprehension are directly related.

At the beginning of the school year, a third grade teacher wants to assess students’ reading fluency. Which of the following assessment methods would be most appropriate for this purpose?

A) The teacher gives students a short story to read silently and records how long it takes each student in the class to finish reading each story.

B) Each student silently reads and appropriate text for fifteen minutes and then the teacher records how much of the text the student read.

C) The teacher records how many words a student reads aloud without hesitating for more than a few seconds.

D) Each student reads aloud an appropriate text for one minute and the teacher records how many words the student read incorrectly.

• Which of the following strategies would be most effective in helping third graders improve their reading rates and reading fluency?

• A) Providing frequent opportunities for students to read and reread texts written at their independent reading levels.

• B) Expanding students’ vocabulary knowledge by assigning challenging texts at and beyond their instructional reading levels.

• C) Encouraging students to use various comprehension strategies such as self-monitoring, predicting, and questioning.

• D) Administering timed reading tests to students each week to motivate them to read more quickly and accurately.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows there are three levels of reading comprehension.

• Literal: Students respond to questions from stated text. Ss. Do not need to think beyond the print.

• INFERENTIAL: Students use the ideas that are n the text along with their own background information to reach a conclusion. PREDICTING is an example of using inferential skills.

• EVALUATIVE: Students are asked to JUDGE, make VALUE statements about a piece of literature.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas know how to maximize comprehension.

• Activate prior knowledge.

• Set a purpose for reading.

• Ask predicting questions.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows to guide students to increased knowledge of their own culture and the cultures of others through reading.

• A third grade class has been reading folk tales from around the world. Which related activity would likely be most affective in promoting students’ multicultural awareness and appreciation?

• A) Reading aloud and then discussing descriptions of the climate, landforms, and cultural characteristics of each country whose folk tales the class has read.

• B) Holding a directed discussion in which students are led to discover some of the common features among folk tales as well as some of the unique features of each culture’s folk tales.

• C) After students have written their own “folk tales”, having them read folk tales from various countries and decide which of the real folk tales each of their own “folk tales” is most similar to.

• D) Having each student choose a folk tale from a different country to memorize and present to the rest of the class followed by a question-and-answer period during which classmates may ask the student questions about the meaning and significance of the folk tale.

• Ms. Santiago’s fourth grade English Language Arts class includes several English Language Learners who participate in mainstream content-area classes. Ms. Santiago considers how to address the needs of English Language Learners in ways that enrich the class as a whole. Her instructional plan involves the use of a wide variety of authentic reading materials and texts that English Language Learners use in other content-area classes.

Some of the English Language Learners in Ms. Santiago’s class frequently look up words in the dictionary, yet they still have difficulty understanding some texts. She could best help these students by:

A) Encouraging them to read aloud challenging passages.B) Explaining to them the limitations of dictionary

definitions.C) Providing them with an outline of strategies for dictionary

usage.D) Teaching them a range of strategies for comprehending

text.

First Learn to Read.Then Read to Learn.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows how to enhance CONTENT AREA READING.– Activate prior knowledge.– Pre-teach vocabulary.– Preview chapter.– Develop purpose for reading.– Teach self-monitoring strategies (have

students ask themselves questions as they read)

When beginning a research report, students in a fourth grade class are encourage by their teacher to ask the following types of questions about their topic.

This practice represents an application of which of the following strategies for increasing one’s comprehension of content area reading?

How do/does..?

Why don’t..?

What if..?

A) Making use of knowledge of reference sources.

B) Monitoring one’s own understanding of information.

C) Skimming a text to determine if the content is relevant.

D) Having a purpose in mind as one reads.

• The students in Mr. Davis’s fourth grade science class are beginning a research project on invertebrates that will be used as a summative assessment tool. Te students have already chosen a topic and received the go-ahead from Mr. Davis to begin. What is the next step the students should take?

A) Go to the library an internet to find sources of information about the topic.

B) Have the students skim and scan their textbooks for relevant information.

C) Develop a set of questions that the research will attempt to answer.

D) Take a pretest that will be used to compare background knowledge on the topic to knowledge gained from the research project.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows the sages of spelling development.

• Stage 1– PREPHONETIC: Children scribble; do not understand that

writing is made up of letters.

• Stage 2– PHONETIC: Children use a letter or a word for a thought, but

their conventions are incorrect. Vowels are often eliminated, children write only the sounds they hear.

• Example: kr (car), scrz (scissors), plez (please), frt (first)

• Stage 3– TRANSITIONAL: Children spell words as they sound, but use

vowels and consonants.• Examples: be kus (because), hav (have), abel (able)

• Stage 4– CONVENTIONAL: Children spell approximately 90% of words

correctly. They are able to apply spelling rules around age 8 or 9.

• A first grade student wrote the following sentence in his journal:

MME GV ME A N KR 2 PLA W

My mommy gave me a new car to play with

• As evidenced by the above writing sample, in what stage of spelling development is this student?

• Prephonetic• Phonetic• Transitional• Conventional

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows the WRITING PROCESS.– Prewriting

• Drafting –Revising

»Editing » Publishing

Steps of the Writing Process

• Prewriting – Choose a topic, decide on a purpose and audience.

• Draft – Get ideas on paper.

• Revise – Refine ideas, check for content and reorganization.

• Edit – Focus on writing mechanics.

• Publish – Share with audience; reflect on the writing process.

• A good teacher in the state of Texas knows that during the REVISION STAGE, corrections in spelling and grammar are NOT made.

A fourth grade class is reading a novel written in the form of a diary. The main character is a farm girl who, after the death of her parents, is sent to live with her aunt in Dallas. Which of the following assignments related to this story would best introduce students to the concept of point of view?

A) Write telegram informing the aunt that her niece’s parents have just died.

B) Write an essay describing the differences between rural and urban life.

C) Write a journal entry in which the aunt describes her first days as the girl’s guardian.

D) Write a newspaper article announcing the niece’s arrival at her aunt’s home.

• Each student in Ms. Burgess’s third grade class has been working on writing a story for the past week. Ms. Burgess observes that several of her students are spending their daily writing period adding on to their stories, making them longer but not necessarily better and doing no revision except occasional corrections of misspelled words. She wants to encourage these students to take a broader, more exploratory approach to revision – to review and evaluate their work and then reshape according to their new insight. Which of the following teaching strategies would b most effective in achieving this goal?

Which of the following teaching strategies would b most effective in achieving this

goal?A) Asking students to think about what parts of their story

are most important and whether they have described these parts clearly and effectively.

B) Encouraging each student to place an appropriate limit on the length of his or her story based on the number of characters and events the student intends to include.

C) Having students brainstorm words related to the subject of the stories they are writing and decide which words might be incorporated into their work.

D) Suggesting that students begin each writing period by drawing an illustration that depicts the main story idea they wish to convey that day and then resume work on their own writing.

A good teacher in the state of Texas knows how to assess literary instruction.

. INFORMAL READING INVENTORY: series of increasingly difficult passages, followed by comprehension questions. IRI is used to determine INDEPENDENT reading level, INSTRUCTIONAL reading level, and FRUSTATIONAL reading level.

. MISCUE ANALYSIS: Helps teacher determine whether reading words differently than from what is written prevents them from understanding text. A miscue is any oral response that differs from the printed text.

• . CLOSE PROCEDURE: Fast, accurate tool for determining level of reading comprehension. Teacher omits every 5th word (20% of text) in a passage that students have previously read. The students read the passage silently and write in the words they feel go in the blanks.

A second grade teacher is assessing the performance of her students individually. As each student reads, she makes notes on her copy of

the text. Printed below is a portion of the teacher’s notes on one of the student’s reading performance:

» (c) red» The boy read the book last night.

» Key:» Cat (c) self-

correction» Cow substitution go to repetition

» The teacher’s note suggest that this student was utilizing which of the following reading skills to confirm the pronunciation and meaning of the word read?

» . Using semantinc and syntantic cues.» . Recognizing a word root.» . Recalling a sight word.» . Analyzing word structure.