PRAXIS Teaching Reading: Phonics and Word Analysis

Question 1

What is phonemic awareness?

Accepted Answer

The understanding that spoken words are made up of individual sounds (phonemes)

Answer

Phonemic awareness is an oral/aural skill — the ability to hear, identify, and manipulate individual phonemes in spoken words.

Question 2

Which of the following is a phoneme?

Accepted Answer

The sound /k/ in 'cat'

Answer

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language. The /k/ sound is a phoneme — it is not a letter, word, or syllable.

Question 3

A teacher says a word aloud and asks students to tell how many sounds they hear. What phonemic awareness skill is this?

Accepted Answer

Phoneme segmentation

Answer

Phoneme segmentation involves breaking a spoken word into its individual sounds — the skill of counting or identifying each phoneme.

Question 4

What is the alphabetic principle?

Accepted Answer

The understanding that spoken sounds are represented by written letters

Answer

The alphabetic principle is the understanding that written letters systematically represent spoken sounds (phonemes), forming the basis of phonics instruction.

Question 5

Which of the following words contains a digraph?

Accepted Answer

ship

Answer

A digraph is two letters that together represent a single phoneme. 'Sh' in 'ship' is a digraph — both letters together make one sound /ʃ/.

PRAXIS Practice Test

PRAXIS Practice Test

PRAXIS Teaching Reading: Phonics and Word Analysis