STR EXAM QUESTIONS AND CORRECT ANSWERS
(VERIFIED ANSWERS)|AGRADE
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? - Answer -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? - Answer -
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? - Answer -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: - Answer -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? - Answer -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 - Answer -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 - Answer -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? - Answer -
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? - Answer -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" - Answer -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? -
Answer -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? - Answer -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? - Answer -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) - Answer -
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? - Answer -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
(VERIFIED ANSWERS)|AGRADE
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? - Answer -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? - Answer -
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? - Answer -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: - Answer -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? - Answer -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 - Answer -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 - Answer -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? - Answer -
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? - Answer -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" - Answer -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? -
Answer -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? - Answer -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? - Answer -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) - Answer -
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? - Answer -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
