OSAT OSAT Language and Literacy Development 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which of the following is an example of a derivational morpheme?
- The '-s' added to 'cat' to form 'cats'
- The '-ed' added to 'walk' to form 'walked'
- The prefix 'un-' added to 'happy' to form 'unhappy' (Correct answer)
- The '-ing' added to 'run' to form 'running'
Correct answer: The prefix 'un-' added to 'happy' to form 'unhappy'
Derivational morphemes like 'un-' change the meaning or part of speech of a base word, unlike inflectional morphemes which only mark grammatical features.
Question 2: A teacher conducts a miscue analysis and finds a student frequently substitutes words that make semantic sense but are graphophonically dissimilar. What does this pattern suggest?
- The student is over-relying on meaning cues and under-using phonics knowledge (Correct answer)
- The student has strong decoding skills but weak comprehension
- The student relies primarily on syntactic cues when reading
- The student is reading below frustration level and needs easier text
Correct answer: The student is over-relying on meaning cues and under-using phonics knowledge
Semantically appropriate but graphophonically dissimilar substitutions indicate the student prioritizes meaning over letter-sound information.
Question 3: Which text structure signal words — 'however,' 'on the other hand,' and 'in contrast' — indicate?
- Cause and effect
- Chronological sequence
- Compare and contrast (Correct answer)
- Problem and solution
Correct answer: Compare and contrast
Signal words such as 'however' and 'in contrast' cue readers that the author is presenting opposing or differing ideas, indicating a compare-contrast structure.
Question 4: A student can decode words accurately in isolation but struggles with comprehension when reading connected text. The teacher should prioritize:
- Additional phonics drills to reinforce decoding automaticity
- Vocabulary instruction and comprehension strategy instruction (Correct answer)
- Repeated readings to increase reading rate
- Phonemic awareness activities with onset and rime
Correct answer: Vocabulary instruction and comprehension strategy instruction
When decoding is adequate but comprehension fails, the instructional focus should shift to vocabulary and comprehension strategies rather than further phonics work.
Question 5: Which of the following best describes the alphabetic principle?
- The understanding that letters of the alphabet appear in a fixed order
- The concept that spoken sounds are systematically represented by written letters (Correct answer)
- The awareness that print conveys meaning and is read left to right
- The ability to identify and produce rhyming words
Correct answer: The concept that spoken sounds are systematically represented by written letters
The alphabetic principle is the foundational understanding that phonemes in spoken words correspond to graphemes in written words.
Question 6: Which of the following is the most appropriate formative assessment for evaluating students' phonological awareness at the syllable level?
- Asking students to blend onset and rime in spoken words
- Having students clap the number of syllables in spoken words (Correct answer)
- Asking students to identify the initial phoneme in a word
- Having students segment a word into individual phonemes
Correct answer: Having students clap the number of syllables in spoken words
Syllable clapping directly assesses syllable-level phonological awareness, which is a coarser level than phoneme manipulation.
Question 7: A teacher wants to help students understand the difference between formal and informal registers. Which activity best achieves this goal?
- Diagramming sentences from a textbook chapter
- Comparing a personal text message with a formal letter on the same topic (Correct answer)
- Memorizing a list of academic vocabulary words
- Reading aloud from a classic novel using expressive prosody
Correct answer: Comparing a personal text message with a formal letter on the same topic
Comparing texts written for different audiences and purposes makes register differences visible and meaningful for students.
OSAT OSAT Language and Literacy Development 3
Which of the following is an example of a derivational morpheme?