As a second-grade teacher reads his students a fable about a fox and a rabbit, he stops at key points and asks himself questions aloud such as, “I wonder why the fox said that?” or “I wonder what the rabbit will do next?”" Rather than answering the questions, he tells the students that he will hold the questions in his mind and think of possible answers as the story progresses. He also invites the students to pose their own questions as they listen. This activity is useful in illustrating for students that:

texts generally have only one correct interpretation.
oral reading fluency facilitates comprehension.
readers interact with text and construct meaning as they read.
readers need to recall story events in a sequential order.

A fifth-grade class is about to read a play about the life of Harriet Tubman called “Travels on the Railroad.” Which of the following prereading activities would best promote students’ comprehension of the text?

introducing the common elements of plays as a genre and looking at sections of a printed play together as a class
asking students to predict what will happen in the first act based on the play’s title and on a list of the play’s main characters
asking students to share what they already know about Harriet Tubman and the time period during which she lived
encouraging small groups of students to create and perform their own short skits about the same subject

Read the passage below; then answer the question that follows.

For the second time that week, Saul forgot to wash his hands after working on his painting. He had gotten so involved filling in the ocean in his picture that he had barely even heard the teacher telling everyone it was time to put away their easels and wash up for lunch. He had put his supplies away, but, still thinking about the ocean, he had gone straight to his desk. Now he saw that he was leaving blue-paint handprints on his desk, on his shirt, on his books — even on his lunchbox. Estella looked over at him and joked, “Hey, Saul! You’re the new King Midas! Only you turn everything to blue!” Saul rolled his eyes at her as he got back up to go to the sink.

This passage would be most suited for helping students:

recognize a literary allusion.
analyze story elements.
predict future events.
analyze an author’s point of view.

A teacher can best help sixth graders to draw inferences from informational text by asking them to complete which of the following statements?

In my opinion...
The passage suggests...
In comparison...
The author’s first point is...

A third-grade teacher periodically reads aloud from a chapter in content-area textbooks and describes his thought processes as he reads. Following is an example:

“‘The moon does not shine on its own. The sun’s light reflects off the moon.’ Hmm. I’m imagining that the sun is like a flashlight shining on the moon in the dark. ‘As the moon rotates, only the part that faces the sun is visible from the Earth.’ I’m not quite sure what ‘visible’ means, but it sounds kind of like vision, which I know has to do with eyes. It probably means the part that we can see from the Earth. Now, that makes me wonder — why do we see different amounts of the moon at different times? Let’s see if the next part of the chapter explains this...”

This practice is most likely to promote students’ reading proficiency by:

exposing them to new vocabulary in context.
modeling for them metacognitive comprehension strategies.
giving them an example of fluent oral reading.
summarizing for them the main ideas of an expository text.

A fifth-grade class is about to begin reading a text about the European exploration of North America. Before they begin, the teacher has the students brainstorm what they already know about the topic. After reading the text, she encourages them to share any additional information that they may have thought of as they were reading. These activities are likely to promote the students’ comprehension primarily by:

encouraging them to connect new information to prior knowledge of the topic.
helping them determine the author’s purpose and point of view.
encouraging them to use context cues to make appropriate inferences.
helping them analyze the text in terms of main ideas and supporting details.

A third-grade teacher observes that students who read aloud fluently also demonstrate greater comprehension of expository texts. The best explanation for this is that fluent readers:

possess a self-awareness that allows them to use metacognitive skills efficiently.
have already developed the base of background knowledge typically covered by textbooks.
have well-developed skills for decoding any level of text word by word.
are able to focus their full attention and cognitive resources on the meaning of a text.

Use the information below to answer the question that follows.

A sixth-grade teacher has students work in small groups to begin to develop a KWL chart before they read a textbook chapter about the human brain.

The Human Brain
K W L

Using a KWL chart in this way is most likely to help the students:

connect their background knowledge to information in the chapter.
identify main ideas and supporting details in the chapter.
synthesize information from various sections of the chapter.
visualize the terms and concepts in the chapter.

Two proficient readers are answering postreading comprehension questions about a chapter in a content-area textbook.

The first student demonstrates exceptional recall of details from the chapter but has difficulty answering questions about the gist of the chapter.
The second student can give an outstanding summary of the chapter but has difficulty remembering specific facts from the chapter.

Which of the following best explains the most likely reason for the students’ varied understanding of the text?

The first student is more proficient than the second student at using metacognitive comprehension strategies to make sense of the text.
Each student applied different reading comprehension skills when reading the text.
The second student is more proficient at reading for literal understanding than for inferential understanding.
Each student brought a unique set of prior experiences to the reading of the text.

An English Language Learner reads academic texts fluently in her primary language but is struggling to understand her content-area textbooks in English. This student would likely benefit most from engaging in which of the following activities?

translating textbook reading assignments from English into her primary language
receiving reading comprehension instruction with texts written in her primary language
learning to use metacognitive reading strategies with English text
reading texts in her primary language that cover the same material as her English textbooks