STR Exam Teachers of Tomorrow FINAL EXAM STUDY GUIDE 2025/2026 COMPLETE QUESTIONS AND CORRECT DETAILED ANSWERS WITH RATIONALES || 100% GUARANTEED PASS <RECENT VERSION>

STR Exam Teachers of Tomorrow FINAL EXAM STUDY GUIDE 2025/2026 COMPLETE QUESTIONS AND CORRECT DETAILED ANSWERS WITH RATIONALES || 100% GUARANTEED PASS &lt;RECENT VERSION&gt; 1. Phonology - ANSWER The study of sound patterns and their meaning, it observes sound patterns across a language (Ex. Phonetics how the letter t in the word tip is spoken) 2. Morphology - ANSWER The study of words, the structure of words (ex. Stems, prefixes, suffixes) 3. Syntax - ANSWER The formation of words into sentences (Ex. subject + verb + direct object formula) 4. Lexicon - ANSWER The set of meaningful vocabulary in a language (ex. A dictionary) 5. Semantics - ANSWER study of meaning. Ex.) destination and last stop. (They mean the same thing) 6. Phonemes - ANSWER Smallest unit of sound (ex. letter sounds, "c") 7. Phonological Awareness - ANSWER identifying and manipulating oral language. (sound structure of words) 8. Morpheme - ANSWER - The smallest unit of language (ex. Prefix like pre, or suffix like -ed) 9. Syllables - ANSWER Sound units in language that include a vowel typically surrounded by a consonant. Ex.) "book" - 1 syllable, "reading" 2 syllables 10. R Controlled Syllables - ANSWER A syllable with a vowel which is controlled by the letter "r" or the /r/ sound. Ex.) Tar, far, car, bar, star 11. Onset - ANSWER the initial phonological unit of any word (c in cat) 12. Rime - ANSWER refers to the string of letters that follow (example: at in cat) 13. Blending - ANSWER a way of decoding words and building the different sounds together. (ex. Breakfast and lunch to brunch or m-o-m- to mom) 14. Segmenting - ANSWER this involves hearing a word and splitting it up into phonemes, into individual sounds (example: r-u-n) 15. Substitution in a Running Record - ANSWER the student substitutes a word in the text for another word and replaces the original word (Example: child reads went instead of want in text without correcting themselves) 16. Omission in a Running Record - ANSWER the students leave out a word or a phrase in a sentence when reading it. Example: In the sentence, "The family went to the park.", the student leaves out the "the" in the sentence reading " The family went to park." 17. Addition in a Running Record - ANSWER The student adds in a word or phrase in the text that wasn't there. (EX: The dog ran in the park. The student reads 'The dog ran fast in the park.') 18. Pragmatics - ANSWER is the study of the relationship between linguistic forms and the users of those forms. In other words, how people react to different symbols. Example: "Destination" and "last stop" 19. Semantics - ANSWER The branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. Ex: Walt Whitman referring to Abraham Lincoln as "Captain" and the United States as "Ship" in one of his poems. 20. Criterion-referenced test - ANSWER Tests designed to measure student performance against a fixed set of predetermined criteria or learning standards. Ex: Entry Skill Tests which are given to students prior to instruction. 21. Curriculum based Assessment - ANSWER process of gathering and analyzing information from multiple sources to improve student learning. 22. Informal Reading Inventory - ANSWER Individually-administered diagnostic tool that assesses a student's reading comprehension and reading accuracy. The IRI measures three reading levels: independent, instructional and frustrational. This information is used to match students with appropriate reading materials, place children in guided reading groups, design instruction to address strengths and needs, and document reading progress over time. 23. Vowel/consonant patterns - ANSWER Vowels are the letter A,E,I,O,U, and consonants are all the other letters together. A CVC word is a three letter word that follows spelling pattern. 24. Trigraphs - ANSWER a single sound that is represented by three letters, for example: In the word 'match', the three letters 'tch' at the end make only one sound, or 'igh' in the word 'sig 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. 25. A third-grade teacher has introduced common prefixes and suffixes in word context and would like to promote students' ability to use their knowledge of affixes to support their recognition of longer, more difficult words when reading connected text. Teaching students to use which of the following strategies when encountering challenging words in texts would best address the teacher's goal? - ANSWER Isolating and reading any prefix or suffix in an unfamiliar word before attempting to read the rest of the word 26. A struggling reader has difficulty reading multisyllabic words. In a word pattern assessment the student easily decodes the majority of single-syllable words yet has difficulty reading longer words with the same syllable patterns. For example, the student reads the word plain but misreads the word explain; the student accurately reads the words pass, send, and her but misreads the word passenger. Given this assessment data, which of the following intervention strategies would be most effective and appropriate for the teacher to use to address the student's assessed needs? - ANSWER reteaching syllable division skills and common affixes systematically using both isolated words and appropriate-level connected text 27. Use the information below to answer the two questions that follow. Early in the school year, a fifth-grade teacher administers a words-correct per-minute (wcpm) screening with comprehension check to each student in the class, using a grade-level passage. Several students in the class score ten words or more below the fifth-grade 50th percentile beginning-of-year (BOY) norm of 121 words per minute. A chart of the students' performance on the screening is shown below. (chart) Given the information and data provided, which of the following conclusions would be most appropriate for the teacher to draw regarding fluency instruction for these students? - ANSWER Students C,S and V need a targeted intervention focused on improving their automaticity reading grade- level words in order to improve their reading rate while maintaining comprehension. 28. The teacher is concerned that students A, F, and M do not read grade-level text with sufficient accuracy to support comprehension. The teacher plans to administer diagnostic assessments to these students in phonemic awareness, phonics, syllabication, and word analysis to determine the cause(s) of their word-reading errors. Which of the following assessment strategies would be most effective for the teacher to use to determine if the students' reading difficulties are related to a critical gap in phonemic awareness? - ANSWER having individual students segment sequentially each of the sounds in four- and five-sound words (e.g., space, branch, slump) presented orally by the teacher 29. Use the information below to answer the four questions that follow. Several times a year, a second-grade teacher uses a classroom fluency snapshot (CFS) to provide a quick assessment of students' oral reading fluency development. In the assessment, the teacher selects a grade-level benchmark passage, then briefly meets with all of the students individually and has them read the passage aloud. The teacher notes any reading errors and calculates the number of words each student reads correctly in one minute. The teacher records the information in a class chart, organized from highest to lowest words-correct-per-minute (wcpm). The December CFS chart is shown below. Letters of the alphabet are used to identify the 26 students in the class. (totally not typing out THAT chart) 30. This type of fluency assessment best provides a measure of students': - ANSWER general ability to read grade level materials with efficacy 31. Which of the following interventions would be most appropriate for the teacher to use to promote the fluency development of students T through Z, who performed below the 25th percentile benchmark on the assessment? - ANSWER providing targeted instruction to improve decoding accuracy and automaticity 32. The teacher would like to ensure that all students in the class receive instruction that addresses their specific learning strengths and needs. To develop an appropriate differentiation plan for student A, which of the following steps should the teacher take first? - ANSWER asking text based questions to ascertain if the student's reading rate compromises comprehension 33. Which of the following strategies would be most beneficial for the teacher to use during the CFS to ensure that the data collected provide a measure of individual students' fluency development across all fluency indicators? - ANSWER Assigning scores for accuracy and prosodic elements such as expression and phrasing 34. A second-grade teacher examines students' results on the TPRI measure for reading rate and prosody. Several students in the class received reading rate scores at the 75th percentile and prosody rubric scores of two (out of four). The teacher wants to develop differentiated activities for students that reflect their performance on both component measures of reading fluency. Which of the following student activities is most likely to benefit the students with the fluency profile described? - ANSWER preparing for and performing readers theater scripts using assisted reading and repeated reading 35. Given the continuum of fluency development described in the Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines and the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for English Language Arts and Reading (ELAR), which of the following fluency-building activities would be most appropriate for students entering kindergarten? - ANSWER naming letters of the alphabet presented in random order and then arranging them in sequence. 36. A first-grade teacher administers middle-of-year benchmark assessments in phonemic awareness, word reading, oral reading fluency, and comprehension. One group of students performs at the 50th percentile benchmark in oral reading fluency, with an accuracy rate of less than 90%. Which of the following instructional strategies would be most effective for the teacher to use to address the assessed needs of these students in reading fluency? - ANSWER Reteaching the students grade level decoding skills and high frequency words that they lack based on the results of the word reading benchmark assessment 37. Use the information below to answer the two questions that follow. A prekindergarten teacher is planning to conduct a whole-class read-aloud of Animal Homes by Debbie Martin as part of a unit about the relationship of organisms to their environment. Following is an excerpt from the book. (chart) The teacher plans to use the word den in the excerpt to introduce children to the concept of words with discipline-specific meanings. After reading aloud the text, the teacher shows children pictures of the various meanings of the word den (e.g., an animal's burrow, a small room where a person studies or reads, a group of Cub Scouts). Which of the following instructional strategies would best help the children understand how to determine the meaning of a multiple-meaning word such as den when they encounter it in a text? - ANSWER Discussing how the content of nature can be used as a clue to connect due to its meaning in the text. 38. The teacher reads aloud the text multiple times over a period of time. During each reading, the teacher focuses on a different aspect of the text. Following is a transcript of one of the teacher's think-alouds while reading aloud the text. Teacher: "A bramble bush is a good place for a dormouse's nest. The nest is made of bark and leaves." When I hear the word bark, I usually think of my dog barking. But in this sentence, I realized that the word bark means something used to build a nest, I used the words bramble bush and leaves to figure out that bark must be part of a tree or bush. In this think-aloud, the teacher promotes the children's use of independent word-learning strategies by modeling which of the following contextual strategies? - ANSWER locating clues in the text that explain or clarify the meaning of the word 39. A third-grade teacher is teaching a cross-curricular unit on government and collects data about students' content-specific vocabulary development with respect to the unit. Below is an excerpt of the teacher's anecdotal notes for one student. (chart) Given the assessment evidence provided, which of the following conclusions would be most appropriate for the teacher to draw regarding the student's academic-vocabulary development? - ANSWER The student uses a range of strategies to learn unfamiliar Tier Three vocabulary words. 40. A second-grade teacher plans to begin a science unit with a discussion about the experiments that the students will conduct during the unit. Prior to the whole-class discussion, the teacher displays and explicitly reviews the following chart with a group of Spanish-speaking English learners in the class. (chart) The teacher's actions best demonstrate understanding of the importance of which of the following factors that affect vocabulary development? - ANSWER varying levels of English learners' use of cognates as a learning strategy 41. A teacher supports vocabulary learning by having students each create a thesaurus featuring words that the teacher has explicitly taught. Students record target vocabulary words and then list synonyms and antonyms for each entry. The teacher encourages students to include in their entries synonyms and antonyms from class and independent reading as well as from their oral vocabulary, including slang. The teacher's decision to have students include less formal words and phrases in their thesaurus entries best demonstrates awareness of which of the following important principles related to vocabulary acquisition? - ANSWER Associating new or unfamiliar words with words from their own cultural and family backgrounds promotes students' vocabulary development. 42. A third-grade teacher is planning a series of academic-vocabulary mini-units for a small group of students that includes some English learners. Assessment data indicate that the students' limited academic vocabulary is contributing to reading comprehension difficulties. To anchor each mini unit, the teacher selects several short, high-interest informational passages that are thematically related to an upcoming content-area unit. In keeping with evidence-based best practice, which of the following instructional protocols would be most effective for the teacher to use with these texts to promote the students' academic vocabulary development and support their overall literacy development? - ANSWER Providing a variety of writing, reading, and oral language experiences that focus on the texts content and promote the students concept development and use of key general academic and content specific words from the texts 43. A second-grade teacher has established the routine of introducing and defining new target vocabulary words during reading instruction, providing examples for the words' use in multiple contexts, and supporting students in using the words. Which of the following extension activities would be most appropriate for the teacher to add to the routine to address the needs of a small group of gifted and talented students in the class? - ANSWER Creating their own analogies for the vocabulary words to deepen understanding of word meanings 44. Use the information below to answer the three questions that follow. Before students in a second-grade class read a challenging informational text about animal and plant life in the Sonoran Desert, the teacher reads aloud a picture book about the seasons of the Sonoran Desert and shows students a short documentary about birds and other organisms that live in a saguaro cactus. The teacher then constructs the chart below with students. The teacher lists information the students recall from the picture book and documentary in the left column and interpretations the students make in the right column. When students suggest an interpretation, the teacher encourages them to identify parts of the book and/or documentary that relate to their ideas. The teacher then rereads the section(s) and/or replays the scene(s) to help the students clarify their ideas. The class's completed chart is shown below. (chart) The teacher's - ANSWER the importance of helping students accumulate background knowledge to support their making inferences from texts 45. What is a conjunctive adverb? - ANSWER Indicates the relation in meaning between two sequential independent clauses. 46. What is an indefinite pronoun? - ANSWER Does not refer to any specific person, thing or amount. It is vague and 'not definite'. 47. Which of the following scenarios presents the LEAST appropriate way to implement culturally responsive instruction that supports content, language, and literacy development in a 4th-grade science lesson? -Pose an open-ended challenging question to students and facilitate a class discussion that examines all possible answers to the question -connect a scientific concept to students' experiences and lives in the real world. -Model the use of a graphic organizer to record information -use singular approaches to monitor students' understanding of directions and instruction. - ANSWER -Model the use of a graphic organizer to record information Teachers should use multiple approaches to monitor students'' understandings, particularly among English learners. 48. Ms. Tan is planning an animal science unit for her kindergarten class. Ms. Tan has several English learners in her class whose native language is Spanish. Each of these students is at the intermediate level of ELL proficiency in listening and speaking. for the first lesson, Mrs. tan wants to learn an interactive activity with the class where students sort animals by their physical characteristics. To support oral language development among her ELLS during the lesson, which of the following should Ms. Tan do to help facilitate language transfer? -Meet with the ELLs before the lesson to provide instruction. on English and Spanish words with common sounds. -Encourage the ELLs to ask for assistance with unknown words from the teacher or a peer