Oral Language and Listening Comprehension Flashcards

Which of the following describes the language comprehension component in Scarborough's Reading Rope?

Answer: A set of strands including background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge

Scarborough's Reading Rope represents language comprehension as multiple strands that become increasingly automatic as they are woven together with word recognition strands.

A pre-kindergarten teacher notices that several students speak mostly in two-word utterances while their peers are using full sentences. What is the most appropriate first step?

Answer: Conduct targeted oral language screening to determine the nature and extent of the gap

Before making referrals or designing intervention, the teacher should conduct systematic oral language screening to identify the degree and type of language delay, informing next steps.

Which instructional strategy explicitly develops students' syntactic awareness?

Answer: Sentence combining exercises that teach students to join simple sentences into complex ones

Sentence combining directly develops syntactic awareness by requiring students to understand and manipulate grammatical structures to create more complex sentences.

Why is background knowledge particularly important for reading comprehension?

Answer: It allows readers to make inferences, fill gaps, and build mental models of text meaning

Background knowledge provides the conceptual scaffold for inference-making and mental model construction, which are essential for deep comprehension.

In the context of language acquisition, what is meant by 'decontextualized language'?

Answer: Language about topics, events, or ideas not immediately present in the here and now

Decontextualized language refers to language used to discuss things not present in the immediate context, such as past events, future plans, and hypotheticals, which is the type of language heavily used in academic settings.

A teacher uses the sentence 'Even though she was tired, Maria finished her homework' to teach a grammar concept. Which concept is being illustrated?

Answer: A complex sentence with a subordinating conjunction

'Even though' is a subordinating conjunction that introduces a dependent clause, making this a complex sentence with one independent and one dependent clause.