STR Exam teachers of tomorrow
01. According to findings in the Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority
Children and Youth which of the following curricular adjustments would most effectively support
the literacy development of English learners with respect to text comprehension? -
ANS-integrating comprehensive oral language instruction with literacy instruction
02. Which of the following actions by elementary school teachers in the early grades would best
demonstrate understanding that decoding and encoding are reciprocal skills that develop
synchronously during the early stages of reading development? - ANS-creating regular
opportunities for students to apply new syllable patterns in their daily writings that have been
explicitly taught during phonics instruction.
03. A teacher would like to help students identify their literacy skills and strengths as part of an
assets-based approach to literacy instruction. Which of the following teacher actions is
consistent with this type of approach? - ANS-Providing students with explicit feedback about
what they already know and are able to do well and helping them use this information to
establish realistic yet challenging learning goals.
04. A school district in Texas has adopted the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) model of
instruction in their K-3 literacy program which includes a core reading program (Tier 1)
supplemental instruction (Tier 2) and intensive instruction (Tier 3) Instructional grouping in Tier 2
is restricted to five or fewer students. This limitation enhances the effectiveness of literacy
instruction for the students primarily by: - ANS-Providing students with increased opportunities
to practice developing skills with teacher feedback.
05. A second-grade student has been identified with dysgraphia but does not have difficulty with
decoding or encoding. Which of the following approaches to instruction would be most effective
in promoting the student's development with respect to the identified area of need? -
ANS-Providing the student with explicit instruction in letter formation and frequent, short,
guided-practice sessions to build the student's handwriting fluency and automaticity in letter
memory and formation.
06. In which line in the table below is the underlined portion of the example word accurately
matched to the phonics term that is used to describe that phonics element?
Line Phonics Term Example word
1 blend they
2 digraph factor
3 diphthong power
4 trigraph scrap - ANS-Line 3
07. Use the information below to answer the two questions that follow. Students in a third-grade
class have been studying ways in which Earth's surface is always changing. As the culminating
project students choose a topic that they would like to learn more about (e.g. volcanic eruptions
earthquakes landslides floods) and establish a research group focused on that topic. The
students in each group generate questions to focus their research read a variety of texts to
,gather information related to their questions and engage in focused discussions of the texts
based on their questions. The teacher's role is to support the groups by helping them gather a
range of print and digital informational texts related to their chosen topic modeling norms for
equitable discussions and monitoring each group's task progress to ensure group members stay
focused.
In which of the following ways can the teacher best foster the students - ANS-by providing
students' with a rubric with which they can self-evaluate their text analysis
08. Several research groups include students with a diverse range of reading skills. The teacher
wants to differentiate instruction for students in a way that will also strengthen their capacity for
reading more complex text. Which of the following approaches best aligns with research-based
best practices to accomplish this purpose? - ANS-providing a set of texts representing a range
of text-complexity levels and interactive formats, and allowing student to work collaboratively to
read the texts.
09. A kindergarten teacher regularly has students write and draw in their journals in response to
an open-ended prompt. During these writing sessions the teacher circulates among students
asks them to read aloud what they have written and documents their performance with
anecdotal notes in a teacher record.
This type of informal assessment strategy would be most appropriate to use for which of the
following instructional purposes? - ANS-observing individual student's development in various
dimensions of literacy over time.
10. Which of the following writing samples provides evidence that the student is beginning to
develop understanding of the alphabetic principle?
KLD
"Casey loves Dancing"
ABCDEF
"Those are letters"
MIA
"I write my name!"
T Lo LE O
"The dog went home" - ANS-KLD
"Casey loves Dancing"
11. When planning assessments to measure students' comprehension of literary texts an
elementary school teacher selects a variety of passages from a range of cultures including
those that reflect the diverse cultural experiences of the students. The teacher also considers
students' familiarity with cultural content when evaluating students' responses to texts. The
teacher's actions best demonstrate the importance of taking which of the following factors into
consideration when selecting texts for assessments? - ANS-A reader's cultural background
knowledge can be an important factor affecting their comprehension of a literary text.
, 12. Which of the following statements identifies a characteristic of criterion-referenced tests that
in general makes them unsuitable for use as a formative assessment of foundational reading
skills? - ANS-While criterion referenced assessment can measure students mastery of target
skills, they provide little information about the extent of students skill development toward
mastery.
13. A second-grade student demonstrates grade-level oral reading fluency but is reluctant to
participate in post-reading discussions and frequently exhibits comprehension difficulty when
answering questions about assigned literary texts. The teacher would like to better understand
the student's process of constructing meaning from text.
Which of the following assessment procedures administered individually would be most effective
for the teacher to use? - ANS-having the student read aloud a short narrative text and then retell
the story in the student's own words
14. How could a teacher best determine if a particular text is written at an appropriate level for a
student to read independently (i.e. with little or no teacher support) - ANS-by having the
students read aloud a section of the text and answers questions about and then determining if
the students accuracy is at least 95 percent and comprehension is at least 90
15. A third-grade teacher meets regularly with individual students to discuss their reading. At the
beginning of one student's conference the student enthusiastically shows the teacher an
illustrated children's book about the Apollo space program that the student selected for
independent reading. The student points out favorite photographs and graphics in the text.
When the teacher asks the student to read aloud a paragraph the student encounters difficulty
understanding some longer technical words in the text. Which of the following approaches to
providing feedback would be most effective for the teacher to use to support the student's
continued growth in reading? - ANS-Praising the student for finding such an exciting book and
showing the student where to find more information about the technical terminology included
(eg. looking for a glossary in the book, finding appropriate online resources)
16. Use the information below to answer the three questions that follow. A second-grade
teacher has been using a Tier 2 (targeted) intervention with a small group of students who have
difficulty producing oral and written retellings of narrative texts. The intervention includes the
following steps. 1. The students listen to or read a narrative text. 2. The teacher uses written
sentence frames to support the students in orally generating sentences about the story focused
on key elements of story grammar (e.g. main characters)] setting initiating event internal
response internal plan attempt[s] consequence resolution). 3. The teacher helps the students
put the sentences together in an oral group retelling of the story. 4. The students in the group
work in pairs to engage in an oral rehearsal of the retelling. The teacher monitors the pairs of
students and provides feedback as needed. 5. The students draft an individual - ANS-during
step 3, explicitly teaching the students how to use transition words such as but, so, because,
and then to connect the sentences logically to reflect relationships between story elements
17. Which of the following strategies for assessing students' performance in steps 4 and 5 would
provide the teacher with the most appropriate data to determine if the students are making
adequate progress in oral language and writing related to retelling texts? - ANS-developing an
observational checklist to assess students' oral retelling in step 4 and a rubric to assess their
01. According to findings in the Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority
Children and Youth which of the following curricular adjustments would most effectively support
the literacy development of English learners with respect to text comprehension? -
ANS-integrating comprehensive oral language instruction with literacy instruction
02. Which of the following actions by elementary school teachers in the early grades would best
demonstrate understanding that decoding and encoding are reciprocal skills that develop
synchronously during the early stages of reading development? - ANS-creating regular
opportunities for students to apply new syllable patterns in their daily writings that have been
explicitly taught during phonics instruction.
03. A teacher would like to help students identify their literacy skills and strengths as part of an
assets-based approach to literacy instruction. Which of the following teacher actions is
consistent with this type of approach? - ANS-Providing students with explicit feedback about
what they already know and are able to do well and helping them use this information to
establish realistic yet challenging learning goals.
04. A school district in Texas has adopted the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) model of
instruction in their K-3 literacy program which includes a core reading program (Tier 1)
supplemental instruction (Tier 2) and intensive instruction (Tier 3) Instructional grouping in Tier 2
is restricted to five or fewer students. This limitation enhances the effectiveness of literacy
instruction for the students primarily by: - ANS-Providing students with increased opportunities
to practice developing skills with teacher feedback.
05. A second-grade student has been identified with dysgraphia but does not have difficulty with
decoding or encoding. Which of the following approaches to instruction would be most effective
in promoting the student's development with respect to the identified area of need? -
ANS-Providing the student with explicit instruction in letter formation and frequent, short,
guided-practice sessions to build the student's handwriting fluency and automaticity in letter
memory and formation.
06. In which line in the table below is the underlined portion of the example word accurately
matched to the phonics term that is used to describe that phonics element?
Line Phonics Term Example word
1 blend they
2 digraph factor
3 diphthong power
4 trigraph scrap - ANS-Line 3
07. Use the information below to answer the two questions that follow. Students in a third-grade
class have been studying ways in which Earth's surface is always changing. As the culminating
project students choose a topic that they would like to learn more about (e.g. volcanic eruptions
earthquakes landslides floods) and establish a research group focused on that topic. The
students in each group generate questions to focus their research read a variety of texts to
,gather information related to their questions and engage in focused discussions of the texts
based on their questions. The teacher's role is to support the groups by helping them gather a
range of print and digital informational texts related to their chosen topic modeling norms for
equitable discussions and monitoring each group's task progress to ensure group members stay
focused.
In which of the following ways can the teacher best foster the students - ANS-by providing
students' with a rubric with which they can self-evaluate their text analysis
08. Several research groups include students with a diverse range of reading skills. The teacher
wants to differentiate instruction for students in a way that will also strengthen their capacity for
reading more complex text. Which of the following approaches best aligns with research-based
best practices to accomplish this purpose? - ANS-providing a set of texts representing a range
of text-complexity levels and interactive formats, and allowing student to work collaboratively to
read the texts.
09. A kindergarten teacher regularly has students write and draw in their journals in response to
an open-ended prompt. During these writing sessions the teacher circulates among students
asks them to read aloud what they have written and documents their performance with
anecdotal notes in a teacher record.
This type of informal assessment strategy would be most appropriate to use for which of the
following instructional purposes? - ANS-observing individual student's development in various
dimensions of literacy over time.
10. Which of the following writing samples provides evidence that the student is beginning to
develop understanding of the alphabetic principle?
KLD
"Casey loves Dancing"
ABCDEF
"Those are letters"
MIA
"I write my name!"
T Lo LE O
"The dog went home" - ANS-KLD
"Casey loves Dancing"
11. When planning assessments to measure students' comprehension of literary texts an
elementary school teacher selects a variety of passages from a range of cultures including
those that reflect the diverse cultural experiences of the students. The teacher also considers
students' familiarity with cultural content when evaluating students' responses to texts. The
teacher's actions best demonstrate the importance of taking which of the following factors into
consideration when selecting texts for assessments? - ANS-A reader's cultural background
knowledge can be an important factor affecting their comprehension of a literary text.
, 12. Which of the following statements identifies a characteristic of criterion-referenced tests that
in general makes them unsuitable for use as a formative assessment of foundational reading
skills? - ANS-While criterion referenced assessment can measure students mastery of target
skills, they provide little information about the extent of students skill development toward
mastery.
13. A second-grade student demonstrates grade-level oral reading fluency but is reluctant to
participate in post-reading discussions and frequently exhibits comprehension difficulty when
answering questions about assigned literary texts. The teacher would like to better understand
the student's process of constructing meaning from text.
Which of the following assessment procedures administered individually would be most effective
for the teacher to use? - ANS-having the student read aloud a short narrative text and then retell
the story in the student's own words
14. How could a teacher best determine if a particular text is written at an appropriate level for a
student to read independently (i.e. with little or no teacher support) - ANS-by having the
students read aloud a section of the text and answers questions about and then determining if
the students accuracy is at least 95 percent and comprehension is at least 90
15. A third-grade teacher meets regularly with individual students to discuss their reading. At the
beginning of one student's conference the student enthusiastically shows the teacher an
illustrated children's book about the Apollo space program that the student selected for
independent reading. The student points out favorite photographs and graphics in the text.
When the teacher asks the student to read aloud a paragraph the student encounters difficulty
understanding some longer technical words in the text. Which of the following approaches to
providing feedback would be most effective for the teacher to use to support the student's
continued growth in reading? - ANS-Praising the student for finding such an exciting book and
showing the student where to find more information about the technical terminology included
(eg. looking for a glossary in the book, finding appropriate online resources)
16. Use the information below to answer the three questions that follow. A second-grade
teacher has been using a Tier 2 (targeted) intervention with a small group of students who have
difficulty producing oral and written retellings of narrative texts. The intervention includes the
following steps. 1. The students listen to or read a narrative text. 2. The teacher uses written
sentence frames to support the students in orally generating sentences about the story focused
on key elements of story grammar (e.g. main characters)] setting initiating event internal
response internal plan attempt[s] consequence resolution). 3. The teacher helps the students
put the sentences together in an oral group retelling of the story. 4. The students in the group
work in pairs to engage in an oral rehearsal of the retelling. The teacher monitors the pairs of
students and provides feedback as needed. 5. The students draft an individual - ANS-during
step 3, explicitly teaching the students how to use transition words such as but, so, because,
and then to connect the sentences logically to reflect relationships between story elements
17. Which of the following strategies for assessing students' performance in steps 4 and 5 would
provide the teacher with the most appropriate data to determine if the students are making
adequate progress in oral language and writing related to retelling texts? - ANS-developing an
observational checklist to assess students' oral retelling in step 4 and a rubric to assess their
