TExES English Language Arts and Reading 4-8 (217)
TExES English Language Arts and Reading 4-8 (217) is a trademark of its owner, which is not affiliated with and does not endorse Test Treasure Publication or TTP Prep.
TExES English Language Arts and Reading 4-8 (217) is a trademark of its owner, which is not affiliated with and does not endorse Test Treasure Publication or TTP Prep.
10 sample questions for the TExES English Language Arts and Reading 4-8 (217), with the correct answer and an explanation for each. No account needed. Try each one before you open the answer.
Sections covered on the exam: Foundations of Reading.
Question 1 · Foundations of Reading
Answer: C. Language comprehension, including vocabulary and background knowledge
Luis decodes accurately and reads at a good rate, yet he struggles even when text is read to him, which points to a weakness in language comprehension rather than word recognition. In the simple view of reading, comprehension depends on both decoding and language comprehension, so the gap here is vocabulary and background knowledge. Phonics, phonemic awareness and fluency work would target skills that are already in place.
Question 2 · Foundations of Reading
A fourth grader writes the following words in a journal entry:
Answer: C. Rules for adding endings: drop the final e and double the final consonant
Each error happens where an inflectional ending is added: the student keeps the final silent e (hope, make) and fails to double the final consonant after a short vowel (run, stop). Teaching the drop-e and doubling rules directly targets the pattern. Plurals, homophones and syllable division do not explain these misspellings. Read the sentence. The wind was too strong for us to wind the kite string back onto the spool.
Question 3 · Foundations of Reading
Answer: C. Using both texts, explain whether a later start would help or hurt students overall.
Synthesis requires readers to combine information and perspectives from more than one source to reach a new conclusion, and weighing both texts to judge the overall effect does exactly that. Listing facts from the article or describing the parent's reason each draws on only one source. A preference question asks for personal response rather than integration of ideas.
Question 4 · Foundations of Reading
A seventh grader wrote the following draft paragraph for an informational report.
(1) Monarch butterflies travel thousands of miles each fall. (2) Many of them fly from Canada and the northern United States to forests in central Mexico. (3) My cousin lives in Mexico and has a dog named Pepper. (4) Scientists believe monarchs use the position of the sun to stay on course. (5) The trip is so long that no single butterfly completes the round trip.
Answer: C. Deleting sentence 3
Sentence 3 is about the writer's cousin and a dog, which has nothing to do with monarch migration, so deleting it sharpens the paragraph's focus. Sentence 4 supplies relevant scientific information and should stay. Moving or combining sentences might affect flow, but neither removes the off-topic detail that weakens unity.
Question 5 · Foundations of Reading
Answer: D. Post accountable-talk stems such as I agree with ... because... and Can you show where the text says that?
Accountable-talk stems give students language for linking to peers' ideas, asking for evidence, and respectfully disagreeing, which builds genuine discussion. Reading prepared answers in turn keeps talk isolated, and having one reporter share leaves others passive. Counting comments rewards quantity rather than thoughtful responses to classmates.
Question 6 · Foundations of Reading
Answer: B. It is consistent with characteristics of dysgraphia and should be documented and shared
Illegible handwriting, inconsistent letter formation and spacing, slow writing and fatigue, combined with strong oral expression, are common indicators of dysgraphia described in the Texas Dyslexia Handbook. The teacher should document the pattern and follow the campus process. The strong oral answers show the student understands the content, and this pattern is not a typical eighth-grade stage.
Question 7 · Foundations of Reading
A sixth grader writes the following sentences:
The dog wagged it's tail when we arrived.
Answer: D. Teach that it's means it is, and have students test each use by reading it as it is
The student confuses the contraction it's (it is) with the possessive pronoun its, which never takes an apostrophe. Teaching students to substitute it is gives a reliable self-check. The idea that every s word needs an apostrophe is false, spell-check usually misses these errors because both forms are real words, and plurals are unrelated.
Question 8 · Foundations of Reading
Answer: D. Ask how the student's experience helps explain the girl's feelings about moving
Text-to-self connections help comprehension only when readers use them to understand the text more deeply, so linking the experience back to the girl's feelings refocuses the discussion. Inviting more vacation stories keeps the talk off the text. Banning personal connections discards a useful strategy, and moving on misses the teaching opportunity.
Question 9 · Foundations of Reading
Answer: D. Listing school rules or routines the student would change, then freewriting about the strongest one
Prewriting strategies such as listing and freewriting help writers discover ideas they care about: listing changes the student would make turns everyday experience into debatable claims, and freewriting on the strongest one tests whether there is enough to say. Assigning a topic removes ownership without teaching how to find ideas, and drafting a conclusion first requires the claim the student does not yet have. Changing a few words in a model essay is copying, not idea generation.
Question 10 · Foundations of Reading
Answer: B. Use roles as preparation only, and have groups open with a question that invites response to peers
Roles are meant to scaffold preparation, not to script the conversation; opening with a genuine question pushes students to respond to one another. Longer role sheets and fixed roles keep the reading-aloud pattern in place, and replacing talk with written work eliminates the discussion.
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