Reading & Literacy Instruction Flashcards

A fourth-grade teacher is planning a unit using complex informational text. Which scaffolding strategy best supports students who are reading below grade level?

Answer: Providing audio support, graphic organizers, and vocabulary pre-teaching while using grade-level text

Providing scaffolds such as audio support, graphic organizers, and pre-taught vocabulary allows struggling readers to access grade-level complex texts without lowering expectations.

What is a key distinction between an 'independent reading level' and an 'instructional reading level' when using an Informal Reading Inventory (IRI)?

Answer: Independent level (95%+ accuracy) requires no teacher support; instructional level (90-94% accuracy) benefits from teacher guidance

On an IRI, the independent level (≥95% accuracy) means the student can read without help, while the instructional level (90-94% accuracy) is where learning is optimal with teacher support.

Which of the following is the MOST evidence-based approach for improving reading comprehension for students in grades 3-5?

Answer: Explicit instruction in comprehension strategies such as summarizing, questioning, and inferencing

Explicit, direct instruction in comprehension strategies (e.g., summarizing, self-questioning, making inferences) is consistently supported by research as the most effective approach for improving comprehension.

When analyzing a student's reading miscues during a running record, which type of miscue is considered the LEAST significant in terms of meaning construction?

Answer: Self-correcting an error that initially changed the meaning

A self-correction indicates the student is actively monitoring for meaning and using multiple cueing systems, making it the least disruptive miscue for comprehension.

A DESE teacher wants to use a 'close reading' approach with a complex literary text. Which sequence of activities best reflects this instructional strategy?

Answer: Read the text multiple times with different text-dependent questions at each reading

Close reading involves multiple readings of the same complex text, with text-dependent questions at each pass to move from literal understanding to deeper analytical thinking.

According to Massachusetts literacy standards, which element of writing instruction is most closely aligned with developing students' reading comprehension of argumentative texts?

Answer: Teaching students to construct written arguments using text-based evidence

Writing arguments with text evidence requires students to closely read and analyze texts, directly strengthening argumentative reading comprehension through the reciprocal nature of reading and writing.

A school literacy coach is helping a teacher analyze DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) data for a class. Which DIBELS measure best predicts later reading comprehension outcomes for students in kindergarten?

Answer: Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF)

Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF) measures a student's ability to segment spoken words into individual phonemes and is one of the strongest early predictors of later reading success.