Early Childhood Education (Birth to Grade 3)
Subtest 1 Sample Items
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Question 1
1. A teacher is considering whether a five-year-old child is ready to begin learning to sound out simple,
regular printed words. Which of the following questions would be most important for the teacher to ask
when making this determination?
- Can the child invent a nonsense word that rhymes with a simple spoken word?
- Can the child form a new word by adding a phoneme to a simple spoken word?
- Can the child blend phonemes to form a simple spoken word?
- Can the child substitute one phoneme for another in a simple spoken word?
Answer to question 1
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C. (Objective 0001) A solid foundation of phonological and phonemic awareness is a prerequisite for learning to sound out printed words. Determining whether the child is able to blend phonemes to form simple spoken words would thus be an important step to take in assessing readiness to begin learning to sound out simple, regular printed words.
Question 2
2. A kindergarten teacher sets up a lending library of books in English that parents/guardians/caregivers can check out to read to their children outside of school. The teacher is aware that the parents/guardians/caregivers of some English learners in the class would like to read to their children but have limited English skills. The teacher could most effectively support the students' literacy development by taking which of the following steps?
- suggesting that the parents/guardians/caregivers ask family friends or relatives with more advanced English skills to read to their children
- adding to the lending library children's books written in the parents'/guardians'/caregivers' home language(s)
- assuring the parents/guardians/caregivers that their children will receive extra one-on-one reading time in school with a bilingual aide
- recommending that the parents/guardians/caregivers take their children to read-alouds for children at the local public library
Answer to question 2
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: B. (Objective 0001) To ensure that the lending library can support the foundations for all students' literacy development, it is important that parents/guardians/caregivers with limited English skills be able to choose books in their home languages so they can be active participants in reading to their children. Including books in students' home languages is an effective strategy for supporting literacy outside of school.
Question 3
3. After a first-grade class has sung "This Land Is Your Land," the teacher overhears one student explain to another that "the nooyorkiland" (the New York island) is "a place in California." Upon hearing this, the teacher decides to write the words of the chorus on the board and talk to the children about their meaning. Seeing the words written down would be especially useful in helping the children:
- detect word boundaries.
- understand syllabication.
- analyze word structures.
- identify homophones.
Answer to question 3
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A. (Objective 0001) Determining where one word ends and another one begins is an essential literacy skill. Most students begin to develop this ability in regard to oral language at a very young age. However, unfamiliar words or phrases, such as "the New York island," can confuse students, prompting them to make sense of the words as best they can. Because writing the words on the board allows students to see the individual words as well as the spaces between the words, students can more easily determine where one word begins and ends.
Question 4
4. A kindergarten teacher conducts a literacy activity with a small group of students. The teacher gives
each student a piece of paper with three connected boxes drawn on it. Each box represents a phoneme
in a three-letter word. The teacher says a word slowly, pronouncing each phoneme distinctly. As the
students hear each phoneme, they move a marker into the corresponding box. This activity provides the
students with practice in:
- sound substitution.
- sound segmentation.
- sound deletion.
- sound blending.
Answer to question 4
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: B. (Objective 0001) Sound segmentation
activities require students to isolate each constituent sound in a word. Moving each marker into its
own box to represent each sound encourages the students to associate one marker with one sound, thus
laying a conceptual foundation for students' later association of individual letters with their sounds.
Question 5
5. Whenever a preschool class goes on an excursion, the teacher asks the children to take turns afterward dictating sentences about their experiences. As they dictate, the teacher writes their statements on a large pad of paper, saying each word while writing it. Then, after writing a child's statement, the teacher reads it aloud, pointing at each word while reading it, and checks with the child to ensure that the written word reflects what the child wants to say. This activity would be most effective for building children's understanding of the:
- connection between written language and oral language.
- relationship between individual letters and specific sounds.
- difference between expressive language and receptive language.
- relationship between nouns and verbs in a sentence.
Answer to question 5
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A. (Objective 0001) By watching as their
own speech is transcribed into print and listening as the teacher reads their own words back to them,
children begin to understand that print represents spoken language. Understanding the relationship between
print and speech is a key foundational concept of literacy development.
Question 6
6. A teacher wants to promote young children's ability to identify the letters of the alphabet, starting with the capital letters. Which of the following initial instructional approaches is likely to be most effective for this purpose?
- showing children a large alphabet strip at the front of the room and asking them to point to the letters in their names
- supporting children's abilities to visually attend to the shapes and features of each letter by describing the letters and demonstrating how they are formed
- encouraging children to use letter shapes frequently during art projects, such as pasting cut-out letters to a piece of paper to make designs
- providing children with a set of cardboard strips and arcs and asking them to combine them to make
letters named by the teacher
Answer to question 6
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: B. (Objective 0002) Young children generally find it easiest to learn to recognize an alphabet letter when it is presented as a sequence of strokes that the teacher describes aloud while forming the letter. Presenting a letter as a fully formed shape is less effective in helping children attend to and recall the letter's key identifying features.
Question 7
7. The children in a preschool class have learned to recite the alphabet, and the teacher now wants to focus on building the children's letter recognition skills. Which of the following approaches would be most effective for this purpose?
- teaching visually similar letters (e.g., b and d) together and pointing out the differences
between them
- teaching both the uppercase and lowercase forms of each letter at the same time
- teaching letters in groups that can be used immediately to begin writing words (e.g., c, a, t)
- teaching individual uppercase letters and including tactile and kinesthetic letter formation activities
Answer to question 7
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D. (Objective 0002) The ability to recognize individual letters is a prerequisite skill for understanding the nature of letter-sound relationships in English and learning how to use the alphabetic principle to decode words in print. Young children typically find it easier to identify the uppercase letters because uppercase letters have more distinct shapes than lowercase letters, which makes them easier to differentiate. Explicit instruction that directs children's attention to the shapes of individual uppercase letters, along with tactile and kinesthetic activities to reinforce children's knowledge of the features of individual letters, has been demonstrated to be an especially effective approach for building children's early letter recognition.
Question 8
8. A kindergarten teacher wants to obtain general information about a student's development in several areas of emergent literacy. Which of the following informal assessments would be most effective in providing information across several areas of emergent literacy?
- asking the student to sing the alphabet song for the teacher
- holding up a book and asking the student to point at the book's cover
- asking the student to draw a picture and to write a word or words to describe the picture
- saying a word and requesting that the student respond with a rhyming word
Answer to question 8
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C. (Objective 0002) Asking a kindergartner to draw a picture and write a word or words to describe the picture would provide the teacher with a variety of information. This task would show whether the student understands that writing is different from drawing and that print is directional. It would demonstrate the student's letter-formation skills. It would also provide information on the student's understanding of letter-sound correspondence (e.g., if the student uses letters and words that correspond to the names of the objects in the drawing).
Question 9
9. A kindergarten teacher periodically takes small groups of students around the school to find examples of printed text (e.g., directional signs, labels on doors, information on bulletin boards). When the group finds an example, the teacher gathers the students together for a discussion of what the text says and why it is there. This activity would be especially effective for promoting students' abilities to:
- distinguish print from pictures.
- read print with expression.
- use structural analysis to decode print.
- understand functions of print.
Answer to question 9
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D. (Objective 0002) As the students tour the halls, they are likely to encounter print that serves various functions. For example, they might see a "Welcome" sign in the front hallway, directional signs that show the way to the school office or library, restroom signs, and labels describing displays of students' work. Discussing these examples and their purposes will foster students' awareness that print has a variety of functions.
Question 10
10. A preschool teacher is developing lessons to promote the children's understanding of letter-sound
correspondence. The teacher plans to start by introducing letters whose sounds can be pronounced in
isolation with a minimum of distortion. Which of the following consonants would best meet this criterion?
- b
- z
- g
- t
Answer to question 10
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: B. (Objective 0002) Some alphabet letters
have continuous sounds, while others have stop sounds. Continuous sounds are sounds that a speaker can
sustain for an ongoing period of time, as in the letter z: /zzzz/. Letters with stop sounds
(e.g., /b/) can be spoken for only an instant unless the speaker distorts the sounds by adding an additional
sound such as the schwa (e.g., by pronouncing the letter b as /buh/). A letter with a continuous
sound can easily be joined with a subsequent letter (e.g., as in the word zip), thus facilitating
the blending and sounding-out of printed words.
Question 11
11. During a conference, the parents of a second grader ask the teacher for advice about fostering their child's literacy skills. They tell the teacher that they have been reading aloud to their child every night since infancy. Which of the following teacher responses would be most appropriate to support the parents' request?
- suggesting that they ask their child to read aloud to them on a nightly basis rather than reading aloud to their child
- asking them to consider introducing their child to phonics or reading comprehension apps on a tablet or other electronic device
- demonstrating for them how to model the use of decoding strategies to use when their child is having difficulty with certain words during reading sessions
- making them a copy of a sight-word list that they can use to support their child's memorization skills in reading
Answer to question 11
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C. (Objective 0003) The information provided by the student's parents about reading aloud to their child since infancy tells the teacher that this is an important routine to the family. It is also a routine that is very effective in promoting a child's literacy skills. It would be important for the teacher not to interfere with such a positive tradition but to suggest ways to build upon it. Showing the child's parents how to model comprehension strategies used by fluent readers such as themselves (e.g., using decoding strategies) would be an especially effective way to build on this routine and support them in promoting the student's ongoing development of literacy skills.
Question 12
12. A first-grade teacher is preparing a small-group phonics lesson focused on decoding CVCC words.
Which of the following sets of words would be most appropriate to include in the initial lesson?
- ball, doll, full
- with, path, math
- stop, spot, shop
- lamp, ramp, damp
Answer to question 12
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D. (Objective 0003) In the sequence of phonics instruction, CVC words (i.e., words with three distinct sounds, such as pat) are taught before CVCC words (i.e., words with four distinct sounds, such as lamp). This sequence builds students' skills in attending to more letter-sound connections as they begin to decode longer words. The words lamp, damp, and ramp are especially appropriate for the phonics lesson described, not only because each word contains four distinct sounds but also because the final two consonants consist of a continuous consonant (/m/) and a stop consonant (/p/), allowing the teacher to draw out the sounds when pronouncing them for students.
Question 13
13. A second-grade teacher wants to improve students' fluency in the area of prosody. Which of the following activities would be most effective for the teacher to conduct with students for this purpose?
- choral reading
- round robin reading
- guided reading
- sustained silent reading
Answer to question 13
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A. (Objective 0003) Prosody is the component
of fluency that focuses on the appropriate use of phrasing and expression. During choral reading, the
teacher provides an active model of prosody for students by reading aloud with them, embedding prosodic
elements such as appropriate volume emphasis, tone, and phrasing, and offering ongoing feedback on their
performance.
Question 14
14. Which of the following words contains a consonant digraph?
- bitter
- pencil
- laugh
- network
Answer to question 14
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C. (Objective 0003) A consonant digraph
is a single sound represented by two consonants. In the word laugh, the consonants g
and h re combined to make the /f/ sound.
Question 15
15. A teacher is planning to conduct an informal assessment of a first grader's reading fluency. In the assessment, the teacher will ask the student to read aloud a passage from a grade-level text for one minute. Which of the following criteria would be appropriate for the teacher to apply in the context of this assessment?
- Does the student read with at least 50% accuracy?
- Does the student maintain a consistent vocal loudness and intensity?
- Does the student read at a rate of at least 100 words per minute?
- Does the student use prosody appropriately to convey meaning?
Answer to question 15
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D. (Objective 0003) Fluent readers employ prosody (e.g., pitch, stress, timing) to interpret and convey the meaning of the text they are reading. A student who reads an author's words with appropriate phrasing and expression is demonstrating key indicators associated with reading fluency.
Question 16
16. While reading sections of a social studies textbook, a third-grade student is having difficulty
identifying the main ideas and supporting details. Which of the following strategies would most effectively
address this student's needs?
- instructing the student to read through a list of comprehension questions before reading the text
- providing the student with a simplified version of the text to read
- preteaching the student important vocabulary words from the text
- teaching the student how to use a graphic organizer to show how concepts in the text are related
Answer to question 16
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D. (Objective 0004) In the situation described, the teacher could best address the student's needs by teaching the student how to use a graphic organizer. A graphic organizer is a tool that promotes students' conceptual understanding by reinforcing the logical connections between ideas and that can be used across content areas to support students' development as independent learners.
Question 17
17. Which of the following four-year-olds is demonstrating skills that are likely to have the greatest benefit for the child's reading development?
- a child who is able to focus on learning tasks for relatively long periods of time
- a child who uses and understands sophisticated vocabulary when speaking
- a child who shows an advanced level of emotional maturity in interactions with peers
- a child who enjoys and displays strengths in the areas of art and music
Answer to question 17
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: B. (Objective 0004) Young children who have a large vocabulary are more likely to comprehend what they are reading or hearing. A child's sophisticated speaking vocabulary will benefit reading development because the child will recognize these familiar spoken words when encountering them in print, which will promote greater comprehension of the text.
Question 18
18. A kindergarten teacher regularly engages students in word-play games involving riddles, puns, and
nonsense rhymes. This strategy is likely to benefit students' vocabulary development primarily by promoting
their:
- knowledge of words and their meanings.
- use of vocabulary-learning strategies.
- word consciousness and love of words.
- independent vocabulary growth.
Answer to question 18
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C. (Objective 0004) Word play, including punning, rhyming, and riddling, is a source of fun that builds students' understanding of the literal and figurative meanings of words. Students who are conscious of and curious about words demonstrate enjoyment of words and eagerness to learn new words.
Question 19
19. A third-grade class has been studying affixes and how they can change the meaning of words and sentences. When the teacher asks for a volunteer to demonstrate actions associated with the prefixes un- and re-, a student comes to the front of the room and unties and then reties a shoe. This student is demonstrating understanding in which of the following areas?
- phonology
- semantics
- morphology
- syntax
Answer to question 19
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C. (Objective 0004) Morphemes are the smallest linguistic units that have meaning; they can be whole words or parts of words, such as prefixes and suffixes. The student's demonstration is an application of morphological knowledge.
Question 20
20. A second-grade teacher is planning to set aside a block of time each day for students to engage in independent reading. The teacher plans to create comfortable areas for reading, provide varied reading materials, and create opportunities for students to share what they have read. To promote all students' abilities to benefit from this activity, it would be especially important for the teacher to provide guidance to students in how to:
- develop an adequately varied list of independent reading materials for the year.
- self-select appropriate independent reading materials.
- determine a realistic number of books to read independently over a given span of time.
- maintain a constant reading rate when doing independent reading.
Answer to question 20
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: B. (Objective 0004) In order to support students' development as engaged, proficient readers, independent reading must be managed and guided by the teacher. One important teacher role is to teach students how to self-select appropriate reading materials. Teachers can prepare students for independent reading by instructing students in recognizing when a book is too easy or too hard, judging whether a book is relevant to their interests, and demonstrating willingness to branch out and try new subjects, authors, and genres.
Question 21
21. A third-grade teacher is working with a small group of students who are reading a chapter book together. Periodically, the teacher asks the students to stop and fill out the following chart individually. They then discuss their predictions together.
The chart includes three columns. Each column has a title. The first column is titled "My Prediction about the Story". The second column is titled "Why I Made This Prediction". The third column is titled "Changes in My Prediction". Each column contains four rows of space below in which students can write their answers.
My Prediction about the Story
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Why I Made This Prediction
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Changes in My Prediction
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blank
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This strategy is likely to promote students' comprehension of narrative text primarily by:
- guiding them in determining the main idea and supporting details.
- fostering their abilities to adjust their reading rates as needed.
- encouraging them to form images in their minds of important events.
- activating their prior knowledge and providing a purpose for reading.
Answer to question 21
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D. (Objective 0005) Making predictions is an important reading strategy that requires students to activate their prior knowledge (e.g., their experiences with the world, including past reading experiences). In addition, making predictions before and during reading provides students with a purpose for reading: to see if their predictions were accurate and to understand why they were or were not, based on details from the text. The use of individual prediction charts and the small-group discussion of students' predictions are effective ways to organize the teaching of this strategy while also creating a positive learning environment for literacy development.
Question 22
22. A third-grade teacher listens as students in a literature circle discuss the characters in a novel they have been reading. After hearing their discussion, the teacher decides it would be beneficial to assign students to compare and contrast two key characters in the novel. The teacher could best support the students as they begin this assignment by teaching them how to use which of the following graphic organizers?
- Venn diagram
- story map
- KWL chart
- word web
Answer to question 22
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A. (Objective 0005) To understand and complete a compare/contrast assignment, students would benefit from learning how to use a Venn diagram. Venn diagrams consist of two partially overlapping circles. In the region of the Venn diagram where the two circles overlap, students would write down ways in which the two characters are alike. In the two regions where the circles do not overlap, students would write down the unique features of one or the other character, respectively. The Venn diagram would thus serve as a useful tool for organizing relevant information in a way that facilitates the students' understanding of the two characters' similarities and differences.
Question 23
23. A preschool teacher regularly gathers children on the rug for reading time with storybooks in a "big book" format. The teacher makes sure that all the children are seated comfortably and can see the pictures and words. The teacher often chooses books that start with familiar patterns (e.g., "Once upon a time...") and that contain recurring phrases that the children can anticipate and contribute as the teacher reads them. Which of the following outcomes describes the primary benefit of this activity?
- involving children as active participants in the reading process before more formal reading instruction begins
- prompting children to begin associating individual letters of the alphabet with the specific sounds they represent
- fostering children's recognition that there are many different types of books and development of personal literary preferences
- encouraging children to notice the differences between pictures and letters and to understand the uses of each
Answer to question 23
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A. (Objective 0005) Early participation in shared reading activities such as the one described in this scenario promotes children's enjoyment of reading and also encourages children to think of themselves as readers. Such activities help children develop confidence in their ability to read and encourage them to look forward to more formal reading instruction and activities.
Question 24
24. A second-grade teacher reads the following paragraph to the class, and then discusses the paragraph with the class.
A Costume Party
On Saturday, we had a small costume party at our house. Our guests arrived at four p.m. I dressed up as a magician and I had a cape, a special magician hat, a magic wand, and lots of magic tricks. My sister dressed up like a soccer player and wore her soccer uniform. Three of our neighbors came, and they were dressed as a fairy, a rabbit, and a doctor. My parents were dressed as a tiger and a lion. We ate lots of food like pizza, fruit salad, and cookies. We were full and there were six pieces of pizza left over. Everything was going well until we noticed the leftover pizza was gone, and my dog in the kitchen with a ripped up pizza box! My dog had sauce all over its fur. We played games and danced to music. Our friends went home at eight p.m. We had so much fun, except for the pizza disaster!
Which of the following questions would require the children to draw an inference about the story?
- What was the narrator wearing in the story?
- Where did the pizza go that was left in the narrator's kitchen?
- For how many hours were the guests at the narrator's house?
- Who attended the narrator's party?
Answer to question 24
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: B. (Objective 0005) An inferential question about a text is a question for which a direct answer is not directly provided. Instead, the readers (or listeners) must search for clues or hints that will allow them to infer the answer to the question. In this story, clues are provided, such as the dog in the kitchen, pizza sauce in the dog's fur, and a ripped up pizza box. From a conversation about these clues, readers can infer that the narrator's dog ate the leftover pizza. From learning how to make this inference together, students can learn to apply inferencing skills to independent reading.
Question 25
25. A first-grade student is a highly proficient reader. The student reads at a fourth-grade level and completes reading assignments quickly and accurately. Which of the following actions by the teacher would most effectively address the literacy needs of the student?
- developing cognitively challenging reading and literacy activities related to the student's interests
- arranging for the student to receive reading and literacy instruction in a higher-grade-level classroom
- preparing puzzles or brain-teasers for the student to work on after completing reading and literacy
assignments
- asking the student to provide tutoring to classmates who struggle with reading and literacy assignments
Answer to question 25
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A. (Objective 0005) A teacher's responsibility toward every student, including those with exceptionalities, is to provide an education appropriate for that student. In the situation described, the teacher must design instruction that takes into account not only the student's need for an accelerated level of challenge but also the student's specific interests, which may differ in depth or breadth from those of classmates and will further engage the student in the material.
Question 26
26. Which of the following sentences includes a prepositional phrase?
- When will we be eating dinner tonight?
- Sometimes it takes a long time to drive home.
- The playful puppy buried its bone, and then it fell asleep.
- The student put the book on the table.
Answer to question 26
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D. (Objective 0006) A prepositional phrase
is a phrase that expresses a relation between the elements in a clause. It consists of a preposition
and its object and functions as an adjective or adverb. In Response D, the preposition on introduces
the prepositional phrase on the table, which functions as an adverb modifying the verb put.
Question 27
27. A first-grade teacher includes the following student activities in a unit on money.
- writing a list of adjectives to describe the attributes of a penny, nickel, dime, and quarter
- completing a poem titled "How much is the coin in my pocket?" by filling in blanks with a coin's name
or value to make a rhyme
These activities would likely be most effective for:
- building students' knowledge of written language structures.
- promoting students' understanding of the writing process.
- fostering students' ability to use standard writing conventions.
- developing students' facility with writing across the curriculum.
Answer to question 27
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D. (Objective 0006) To integrate different curricular areas effectively, teachers must ensure that the selected activities promote significant learning in each of the areas. The first-grade teacher has accomplished this by designing activities that promote both writing-related literacy learning (e.g., identifying and writing appropriate adjectives and rhyming words) and mathematics-related learning (e.g., identifying attributes of different coins and matching coins with their names and values). These activities would be especially effective in supporting students in applying writing skills across the curriculum.
Question 28
28. A second-grade teacher who frequently reads stories aloud to the class employs various techniques to promote students' active engagement in the reading activity. For example, during one read-aloud, the teacher pauses to ask students two questions about the story. The teacher first asks, "How did the kitten feel when the little bird flew away?" The teacher then asks, "How do we know how the kitten felt?" These two questions would be especially effective for encouraging students to reflect on which of the following features of the story?
- different layers of meaning a story may have
- characteristics of various genres of literature
- strategies an author may use to convey meaning
- specific characters a writer may choose to write about
Answer to question 28
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C. (Objective 0006) The teacher's questions
address two related issues: (1) what the kitten felt and (2) how the reader knows what the kitten felt.
Answering the second question requires determining the writing technique or strategy the author used
to provide this information to the reader. For example, one strategy could be to include the sentence,
"This made the kitten feel very sad," while an alternative strategy might be to say, "A big tear rolled
down the kitten's cheek."
Question 29
29. A child in a preschool class draws a picture of a dog and then adds a number of letter-like forms all around the picture. The child shows the picture to the teacher and says, "I writed what it says, it says my dog Harry." Which of the following teacher responses would be most supportive of the child's use of visual and written language to communicate to others?
- "What a great picture! You drew your dog and then wrote lots of letters. Can you tell me the names of some of your letters?"
- "Did you know that 'Harry' starts with the letter H? Would it be okay if we added an H to the letters on your picture?"
- "I like your picture. It's great that you added letters to tell about your dog. Did you know that the letters d-o-g spell the word dog?"
- "May I put your picture up on the wall? Then, if you like, you could show it to your classmates and tell them what you wrote."
Answer to question 29
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D. (Objective 0006) The teacher's best response in this situation would be to build on the communicative start the child has already made. By affirming the child's communicative intentions and encouraging the child to share the writing product with classmates, the teacher would demonstrate support and recognition of the child's work product without imposing the teacher's ideas about how the child could improve.
Question 30
30. The students in a second-grade class have been learning about sentences used in English writing: declarative, imperative, interrogative, and exclamatory. The teacher has provided students with examples of these types of sentences (e.g., "The park is a good place to ride a bike."; "Ride on the bike path."; "Do you know how to ride a bike?"; "Jump on your bike and follow me!"). Which of the following actions would be most authentic for the teacher to use as an informal assessment of students' knowledge of sentence types?
- pausing when conversing with a student to ask what type of sentence the student or teacher just used
- distributing writing paper and asking students to write an example of each type of sentence the class
has been studying
- writing several sentences on the board and calling on students at random to identify a given type of
sentence
- handing out worksheets on which the students must change sentences from one type to another
Answer to question 30
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A. (Objective 0006) By assessing students
in the context of actual conversations, the teacher can informally obtain information about each student's
understanding of the targeted concept. Formative assessments such as this one that occur during an everyday
event in students' lives provide teaching moments and authentic information about students' knowledge.
Question 31
31. A small group of kindergartners is learning how to identify the numerals 0 through 9. Which of the following would be the teacher's best initial strategy for fostering students' numeral recognition?
- creating flash cards with the numeral written on one side and the word written on the other for students to use to drill one another
- asking students to practice writing numerals neatly on lined paper with a pencil, saying the name of each numeral as they write it
- creating a large mobile made from wires and cut-out wooden numerals to hang from the ceiling of the classroom where students can see it daily
- placing large numeral mats on the floor and instructing students to take turns moving to a numeral called out by the teacher or another student
Answer to question 31
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D. (Objective 0007) Building students' numeral recognition skills depends on the teacher choosing activities that are developmentally appropriate. Using numbered mats and asking students to take turns moving to the mat with the numeral that is called out provides a game-like, kinesthetic experience, one that is developmentally appropriate for reinforcing kindergartners' initial learning of how to identify numerals.
Question 32
32. Which of the following examples best illustrates the commutative property of addition?
- 49 + 3 = 49 + 1 + 1 + 149 plus 3 equals 49 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1
- 2 + 9 = 9 + 22 plus 9 equals 9 plus 2
- 100 + 0 = 100100 plus 0 equals 100
- 356 = 300 + 50 + 6356 equals 300 plus 50 plus 6
Answer to question 32
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: B. (Objective 0007) The commutative property
of addition states that when two numbers are added together, the sum is the same regardless of the order
of the addends (e.g., 2 + 9 = 9 + 22 plus 9 equals 9 plus 2).
Question 33
33. A third-grade teacher wishes to provide the class with a hands-on manipulative tool that will support
students' understanding of the geometric concept of area. Which of the following types of manipulatives
would be most useful for this purpose?
- interlocking cubes
- tangram puzzles
- pattern blocks
- square geoboards
Answer to question 33
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D. (Objective 0007) A square geoboard has
a grid of raised knobs or pins around which rubber bands can be stretched to create geometric shapes
(e.g., triangles, squares, rectangles). By counting the grid units (both whole units and fractions of
units) that are enclosed by a given shape, students can determine the shape's area. The square geoboard
provides students with physical and visual representations of the concept of area that will provide
an experiential basis for their understanding of more abstract geometry skills and tasks (e.g., multiplying
length times width to determine area).
Question 34
34. A kindergarten teacher is planning a variety of interdisciplinary activities promoting students'
understanding of the mathematical concept of pattern. Which of the following art activities
would be most appropriate for the teacher to plan for this purpose?
- asking students to use crayons to color the stripes on outline drawings of zebras in a coloring book
- showing students how to glue torn paper and natural objects to a piece of cardboard to make a collage
- instructing students in using sponge stamps of various shapes to design and print a repeating border on a fabric square
- teaching students to rub paint of multiple colors through a screen with a toothbrush to make a spatter painting
Answer to question 34
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C. (Objective 0007) An art activity in which students use sponge stamps to design a repeated border would be especially appropriate for illustrating the mathematical concept of pattern, not only because a stamp creates the same image each time it is printed but because the students would be creating their own unique patterns by applying their own chosen stamps in their own preferred sequence.
Question 35
35. Every day at lunchtime, students in a first-grade class enjoy discussing what they brought for lunch and their opinions about various foods. The teacher decides to use the students' interest in the topic as the basis for a math activity on how to represent numerical data graphically. Which of the following representations would be most appropriate for the teacher to introduce for this purpose?
- word web of food-related words
- pictograph of preferred foods
- concept map of food sources
- food pyramid of an ideal diet
Answer to question 35
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: B. (Objective 0007) A pictograph is a type of graph that represents the frequency of data through images. Given the students' ongoing interest in what they and their classmates have brought for lunch, as well as in their own food preferences, a pictograph of the preferred foods would be the representation most likely to capture the students' attention and promote their interest in learning to interpret—and understanding of—the graph.
Question 36
36. A first-grade student who has 8 marbles tells the teacher that a total of 15 marbles are needed to solve a math problem. When the teacher offers the student the marble jar, the student takes out the marbles that are needed, saying, "Nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen." Which of the following strategies is the student using to achieve this objective?
- counting on
- aligning sets
- skip counting
- simple addition
Answer to question 36
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: A. (Objective 0008) In the situation described, the student knows that a total of 15 marbles are needed to solve a problem. The student also recognizes that since the existing amount of 8 marbles is already known, it is not necessary to start counting again from the beginning (1, 2, 3...). The student therefore decides simply to count on from 8 by taking additional marbles one at a time (...9, 10, 11...) until reaching the target number of 15.
Question 37
37. A first-grade teacher has taught students to play the mathematics games described below.
- Concentration: Cards with the numbers 1 through 9 are placed face down in a 4 by 5 array. Players take
turns turning over a pair of cards and trying to make a sum of ten.
- Go Fish for Ten: Players try to make different combinations of ten with cards numbered 1 through 9.
After laying down all of the combinations of ten they have been dealt, they take turns asking other
players for a card (e.g., "Sam, do you have a two?").
- Number Cubes: Players take turns rolling a pair of number cubes. Players accumulate points for rolling
combinations that add up to ten.
Teaching students to play games such as these on a regular basis is an effective strategy for supporting students':
- understanding of the concepts of greater than and less than.
- abilities to make reasonable estimates when solving problems.
- application of mathematics concepts in their daily lives.
- development of fluency with basic arithmetic facts.
Answer to question 37
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: D. (Objective 0008) The mathematical games
that the teacher has selected promote students' development of strategies for finding combinations of
whole numbers that add up to ten. Playing such games effectively promotes students' development of fluency
with basic arithmetic facts.
Question 38
38. As two five-year-olds play with some stuffed animals, their teacher hears the following conversation.
Child 1: Hey, I know. Let's make paper hats for all the animals.
Child 2: Okay. I'll get some paper. How many pieces do we need?
Child 1: I don't know. Let's ask our teacher how many pieces of paper we need.
Which of the following responses by the teacher would best promote the children's problem-solving skills in this situation?
- "Start making hats and then you'll see how many you need as you go along."
- "What do you think you should do first to figure this out?"
- "Try counting the number of animals that you have."
- "Do you think you need to add or subtract to get the answer?"
Answer to question 38
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: B. (Objective 0008) Promoting reasoning
and thinking skills in young children is essential to facilitate their mathematical learning. Open-ended
questions are particularly effective in helping children develop their own strategies for solving real-world
problems. In this situation, the teacher is modeling how to use reasoning and thinking skills by asking
a question rather than directing the children to apply one specific strategy or solution.
Question 39
39. A third-grade student asks the teacher for help with the following math word problem:
A student has a bag of ribbons. The student has 5 blue ribbons, 2 yellow ribbons, and 1 purple ribbon. What fraction of the ribbons are blue?
The teacher wants to support the student's ability to solve the problem independently. The teacher could best achieve this objective by asking the student which of the following questions?
- "Have you tried guessing and checking?"
- "What if you drew a picture?"
- "Could you write a number sentence?"
- "Would it help to look for a pattern?"
Answer to question 39
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: B. (Objective 0008) Instead of explaining
how to solve the problem, the teacher asks the student a question that suggests a particular approach
to try. This hint may provide the student with enough information to determine the answer himself from
this point. For example, drawing a picture may help the student realize that there are a total of 8
ribbons and that 5 of them are blue; this realization may in turn lead him to recognize that 5/85 eighths
of the ribbons are blue. Prompting students to try out an appropriate strategy, rather than explaining
step-by-step how to solve a problem, is often an effective way to set them on the right path to solve
the problem independently.
Question 40
40. A kindergarten teacher brings a large jar full of buttons to class. The teacher asks students to choose their favorite buttons, draw a picture of the buttons, and think of words that describe their buttons. The students then gather on the meeting rug and dictate to the teacher a list of words and phrases (e.g., blue, tiny, square, four holes) that describe their buttons while the teacher writes them on a white board. The teacher's best next step for building students' understanding of the concept of attributes would be asking students to:
- think of words or phrases that are related to buttons (e.g. button up, buttonhole).
- select another button and repeat the activity using their new buttons.
- identify broad categories for grouping their words (e.g., color, shape).
- see if they can think of additional words to add to their original list.
Answer to question 40
- Answer Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
- Correct Response: C. (Objective 0008) Students of kindergarten age enjoy being given choices, and they are keen observers. By asking students to choose a favorite button and to think of words to describe it, the teacher is taking advantage of students' natural inclinations to engage them in an examination of the button's specific characteristics. By then asking students to think about these specific characteristics in terms of larger categories, the teacher is scaffolding students' understanding of descriptive words to the more abstract concept of general attributes such as size, shape, and color.