BEA - Bilingual Education Assessment Target Language Reading Skills Questions and Answers

Question 1

A teacher wants to help bilingual students read a complex historical text in the target language.
Which pre-reading strategy would be most effective for activating prior knowledge and setting a purpose for reading?

Accepted Answer

Using a K-W-L (Know, Want to know, Learned) chart with the students before they begin reading.

Answer

Having students write a summary of the text after they have finished reading it.

Answer

Asking students to create a detailed timeline of events as they read.

Answer

Assigning a set of literal comprehension questions to be answered upon completion of the text.

Question 2

A student is carefully sounding out every word in a target language sentence and trying to construct meaning by piecing together the dictionary definition of each individual word. This student is primarily relying on which reading process?

Accepted Answer

Bottom-up processing

Answer

Top-down processing

Answer

Metacognitive processing

Answer

Interactive processing

Question 3

Which of the following statements best describes the relationship between reading and writing skills in a target language for bilingual learners?

Accepted Answer

They are reciprocal processes; reading provides models for writing, and writing helps solidify reading comprehension.

Answer

They are separate skills that should be taught in isolation to avoid confusion between text production and reception.

Answer

Reading proficiency must be fully developed before writing instruction can begin.

Answer

Writing skills develop naturally from oral language proficiency and are not significantly impacted by reading ability.

Question 4

A teacher in a Spanish-English bilingual program encourages students to identify cognates when encountering unfamiliar words in an English text. What is the primary linguistic benefit of this strategy?

Accepted Answer

It allows students to leverage their L1 vocabulary to infer the meaning of new words in the L2.

Answer

It helps students master the phonological system of the target language.

Answer

It guarantees perfect comprehension because cognates always have the exact same meaning.

Answer

It is the most effective way to learn complex grammatical structures and syntax.

Question 5

To support his students' reading comprehension of a complex science chapter in the target language, Mr. Chen provides a simplified summary in the students' L1, pre-teaches key vocabulary with visuals, and has them work in pairs to complete a graphic organizer while reading. This multi-faceted approach is best described as an example of:

Accepted Answer

Scaffolding

Answer

Free voluntary reading

Answer

The audio-lingual method

Answer

Direct instruction

Question 6

A teacher wants to assess students' comprehension of a short story in the target language in a way that moves beyond literal recall. Which assessment task would be most effective for evaluating inferential reading skills?

Accepted Answer

Requiring students to write a letter from one character to another explaining their motivations.

Answer

Asking students to list the main characters and describe the setting.

Answer

Giving students a true/false quiz about the key plot events.

Answer

Having students fill in a cloze passage with words deleted from the story.