Praxis Elementary Education – Reading and Language Arts
Subtest Study Guide with Key Concepts and Practice Questions
Emergent Literacy - correct answer ✔✔ Idea that children grow into reading and writing; no
beginning or end point; reading and writing develop concurrently and interrelated; starts long
before entering school; does not depend on mastery of letter-sound skills; term first coined by
Marie Clay
Concepts About Print - correct answer ✔✔ The way students learn "how books work" - cover,
back, right side up, turning pages, print versus pictures, directionality of print; best learned
when read aloud to and words/pictures pointed to; students will imitate reader's behavior and
pretend to read
Sight Vocabulary - correct answer ✔✔ Words that a reader recognizes without having to sound
them out (decode)
Phoneme - correct answer ✔✔ Smallest unit of sound in language
Grapheme - correct answer ✔✔ A written representation of a sound using one or more letters.
Phonemic Awareness - correct answer ✔✔ The understanding that spoken words are made up
of individual sounds called phonemes; ability to manipulate large units of oral language-words,
syllables, onsets, rimes, phonemes
Decoding - correct answer ✔✔ Applying knowledge of letter-sound relationships, including
knowledge of letter patterns, to correctly pronounce written words; "Sound out" words
Phonics - correct answer ✔✔ Ability to make the correct association between the sounds and
the symbols of a language. (Graphophonic Relationships)
, Analogy-based Phonics - correct answer ✔✔ Students use their knowledge of word families to
identify new words that contain the same word part (ex: reads "hat" using prior knowledge of /-
at/ from "cat", "sat" and "mat")
Word Analysis - correct answer ✔✔ The process readers use to figure out unfamiliar words
based on written pattern and comparing new words with known words
Letter-sound Correspondence - correct answer ✔✔ The matching of an oral sound to its
corresponding letter or group of letters.
Auditory Discrimination - correct answer ✔✔ The ability to hear phonetic likenesses and
differences in phonemes and words.
Syllabication - correct answer ✔✔ Forming or dividing words into syllables; the ability to
conceptualize and separate words into their basic pronunciation components
Rhyming - correct answer ✔✔ When two words have or end with a sound that corresponds to
another, ex: Balloon and Moon
Segmenting and Blending - correct answer ✔✔ Breaking down a word into syllables or
phonemes and then putting back together; , Sound out, blend together C-A-T CAT
Alphabetic Principle - correct answer ✔✔ An understanding that letters and letter patterns
represent the sounds of spoken words.
Social Interaction - correct answer ✔✔ As an important element of emergent literacy: how
students interact with and are supported by adults and peers
Subtest Study Guide with Key Concepts and Practice Questions
Emergent Literacy - correct answer ✔✔ Idea that children grow into reading and writing; no
beginning or end point; reading and writing develop concurrently and interrelated; starts long
before entering school; does not depend on mastery of letter-sound skills; term first coined by
Marie Clay
Concepts About Print - correct answer ✔✔ The way students learn "how books work" - cover,
back, right side up, turning pages, print versus pictures, directionality of print; best learned
when read aloud to and words/pictures pointed to; students will imitate reader's behavior and
pretend to read
Sight Vocabulary - correct answer ✔✔ Words that a reader recognizes without having to sound
them out (decode)
Phoneme - correct answer ✔✔ Smallest unit of sound in language
Grapheme - correct answer ✔✔ A written representation of a sound using one or more letters.
Phonemic Awareness - correct answer ✔✔ The understanding that spoken words are made up
of individual sounds called phonemes; ability to manipulate large units of oral language-words,
syllables, onsets, rimes, phonemes
Decoding - correct answer ✔✔ Applying knowledge of letter-sound relationships, including
knowledge of letter patterns, to correctly pronounce written words; "Sound out" words
Phonics - correct answer ✔✔ Ability to make the correct association between the sounds and
the symbols of a language. (Graphophonic Relationships)
, Analogy-based Phonics - correct answer ✔✔ Students use their knowledge of word families to
identify new words that contain the same word part (ex: reads "hat" using prior knowledge of /-
at/ from "cat", "sat" and "mat")
Word Analysis - correct answer ✔✔ The process readers use to figure out unfamiliar words
based on written pattern and comparing new words with known words
Letter-sound Correspondence - correct answer ✔✔ The matching of an oral sound to its
corresponding letter or group of letters.
Auditory Discrimination - correct answer ✔✔ The ability to hear phonetic likenesses and
differences in phonemes and words.
Syllabication - correct answer ✔✔ Forming or dividing words into syllables; the ability to
conceptualize and separate words into their basic pronunciation components
Rhyming - correct answer ✔✔ When two words have or end with a sound that corresponds to
another, ex: Balloon and Moon
Segmenting and Blending - correct answer ✔✔ Breaking down a word into syllables or
phonemes and then putting back together; , Sound out, blend together C-A-T CAT
Alphabetic Principle - correct answer ✔✔ An understanding that letters and letter patterns
represent the sounds of spoken words.
Social Interaction - correct answer ✔✔ As an important element of emergent literacy: how
students interact with and are supported by adults and peers
