RICA Word Analysis 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which assessment would most directly measure a student's ability to apply the alphabetic principle?
- Asking the student to retell a story
- Having the student decode a list of pseudowords (nonsense words) (Correct answer)
- Asking the student to identify rhyming words
- Having the student sort pictures by initial sound
Correct answer: Having the student decode a list of pseudowords (nonsense words)
Pseudoword decoding isolates the application of letter-sound knowledge without relying on sight word memory or context.
Question 2: The word 'signal' contains which type of syllable as its second syllable?
- Open syllable
- Vowel team syllable
- Consonant-le syllable
- Closed syllable (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Closed syllable
The second syllable '-nal' ends in a consonant, making it a closed syllable with a short vowel sound.
Question 3: A teacher uses Elkonin (sound) boxes to help students segment the word 'ship.' How many boxes should be drawn?
- 4
- 3 (Correct answer)
- 2
- 5
Correct answer: 3
'Ship' has three phonemes: /ʃ/, /ɪ/, /p/, so three boxes are needed.
Question 4: Which term describes the process by which frequent words become stored as whole units in memory, allowing instant recognition without decoding?
- Phonemic awareness
- Orthographic mapping (Correct answer)
- Structural analysis
- Phonological recoding
Correct answer: Orthographic mapping
Orthographic mapping is the process by which readers permanently bond a word's pronunciation, spelling, and meaning into memory.
Question 5: A student reads 'circus' and 'city' correctly but misreads 'cat' as /sæt/. This error pattern suggests the student over-applied which phonics rule?
- The soft-c rule (c before e, i, y says /s/) (Correct answer)
- The hard-c rule (c before a, o, u says /k/)
- The consonant digraph rule for 'ch'
- The silent-e rule
Correct answer: The soft-c rule (c before e, i, y says /s/)
The soft-c rule applies when 'c' is followed by e, i, or y; the student incorrectly applied it to 'ca-' where 'c' should make the /k/ sound.
Question 6: Which of the following is the best example of a decodable text appropriate for students who have just learned short-vowel CVC patterns?
- 'The big red dog ran to the shed.' (Correct answer)
- 'The night sky had a bright light.'
- 'Once upon a time there lived a princess.'
- 'She walked through the beautiful garden.'
Correct answer: 'The big red dog ran to the shed.'
Decodable texts should be matched to students' current phonics skills; short CVC words like 'big,' 'red,' 'dog,' 'ran' align with CVC instruction.
Question 7: When teaching the prefix 'un-' in words like 'unhappy' and 'unkind,' a teacher is helping students use which word analysis strategy?
- Phonological awareness
- Morphological analysis (Correct answer)
- Syntactic cueing
- Semantic mapping
Correct answer: Morphological analysis
Analyzing prefixes, suffixes, and roots to determine word meaning is morphological analysis.
RICA Word Analysis 3
Which assessment would most directly measure a student's ability to apply the alphabetic principle?