Target Language Reading Skills Flashcards

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?

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

A K-W-L chart is a classic pre-reading strategy designed to activate students' existing background knowledge (Know), set a purpose for reading by having them generate questions (Want to know), and later confirm their understanding (Learned). [14, 15] The other options are during-reading or post-reading activities.

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?

Answer: Bottom-up processing

Bottom-up processing is a reading model that focuses on decoding the smallest units of text first—letters and words—and then building up to derive meaning. [1, 3] The student's focus on individual words rather than using background knowledge (top-down processing) is characteristic of this model.

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

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

Research strongly supports the view that reading and writing are reciprocal and interconnected processes. [18, 25, 29] Reading exposes learners to vocabulary, sentence structures, and text organization which they can then use in their own writing. Writing about a text requires students to think critically about it, thereby deepening their comprehension.

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?

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

Cognates are words in different languages that share a similar meaning, spelling, and origin. [5] For students whose L1 shares roots with the target language (like Spanish and English), recognizing cognates is a powerful strategy to expand vocabulary and infer meaning by making connections to their existing linguistic knowledge. [16, 20]

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:

Answer: Scaffolding

Scaffolding involves providing a variety of temporary supports to help students access content and complete tasks that would otherwise be too difficult. [2, 11, 12] Mr. Chen is using multiple scaffolds (L1 summary, vocabulary pre-teaching, graphic organizers, and pair work) to make the complex text accessible.

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?

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

Inferential comprehension requires students to 'read between the lines' and understand what is implied but not explicitly stated. [23, 26, 30] Writing a letter from a character's perspective forces the student to infer motivations, feelings, and relationships, which is a higher-order thinking skill. The other options assess more literal, text-based recall.