CTEL CTEL English Literacy Development 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which reading comprehension strategy involves students generating questions before, during, and after reading to monitor their understanding?
- Summarizing
- Self-questioning (Correct answer)
- Visualizing
- Text coding
Correct answer: Self-questioning
Self-questioning is a metacognitive comprehension strategy where students generate their own questions to actively monitor and deepen understanding as they read.
Question 2: Research on biliteracy suggests that when EL students have strong literacy skills in their L1, they:
- Experience more interference and slower L2 literacy development
- Can transfer many literacy skills to L2 learning (Correct answer)
- Must completely relearn phonics concepts in English
- Rely too heavily on L1 and never achieve L2 fluency
Correct answer: Can transfer many literacy skills to L2 learning
Cummins' Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP) theory demonstrates that conceptual and literacy skills transfer across languages, accelerating L2 literacy acquisition.
Question 3: A teacher asks students to identify signal words, headings, and graphics before reading a chapter. This pre-reading activity primarily develops:
- Phonological processing
- Text structure awareness and previewing skills (Correct answer)
- Decoding automaticity
- Morphological analysis
Correct answer: Text structure awareness and previewing skills
Previewing text features such as headings, signal words, and graphics activates text structure awareness and builds a schema for comprehension before reading begins.
Question 4: Which of the following is the MOST effective way to build background knowledge before EL students read an unfamiliar informational text?
- Assign the reading as homework the night before
- Provide a brief video clip, discussion, and key vocabulary introduction before reading (Correct answer)
- Tell students to use a dictionary for any unknown words
- Have students begin reading and ask questions only when stuck
Correct answer: Provide a brief video clip, discussion, and key vocabulary introduction before reading
Activating and building background knowledge through multimedia, discussion, and pre-taught vocabulary makes subsequent reading comprehensible for ELs.
Question 5: An EL student at the Bridging/Reaching proficiency level should be able to demonstrate which literacy skill?
- Copying words from the board with teacher support
- Using pictures and single words to convey meaning in writing
- Analyzing and evaluating complex texts using academic language independently (Correct answer)
- Reading only simple, highly contextualized texts
Correct answer: Analyzing and evaluating complex texts using academic language independently
At Bridging/Reaching, ELs can engage independently with complex, abstract texts and produce analytical writing using academic English with minimal scaffolding.
Question 6: Which graphic organizer would be MOST helpful for English learners analyzing how two historical events are similar and different in a social studies text?
- Story map
- Venn diagram or T-chart (Correct answer)
- Sequence chain
- Cause-and-effect web
Correct answer: Venn diagram or T-chart
Venn diagrams and T-charts visually organize comparison and contrast information, scaffolding the compare-contrast text structure for ELs.
Question 7: Under IDEA and California law, when a student is both an English learner and suspected of having a learning disability, the evaluation team must:
- Test the student only after full English proficiency is achieved
- Assess the student in both English and the primary language to distinguish language acquisition from a disability (Correct answer)
- Classify the student as having a disability based on low English test scores alone
- Provide only ELD services and delay special education evaluation indefinitely
Correct answer: Assess the student in both English and the primary language to distinguish language acquisition from a disability
Evaluations must be conducted in the student's primary language and in English to ensure low performance reflects a disability rather than language acquisition status.
CTEL CTEL English Literacy Development 5
Which reading comprehension strategy involves students generating questions before, during, and after reading to monitor their understanding?