A third-grade teacher reviews data for Malik. He reads grade-level word lists and nonsense words accurately and at benchmark rate. When the teacher reads a grade-level informational passage aloud, Malik answers only 3 of 10 questions correctly and cannot define several key words, such as habitat and migrate . Based on the Simple View of Reading, which instructional focus would be most appropriate for Malik?

Building oral vocabulary, background knowledge, and listening comprehension

Teaching him to check unknown words against the pictures and the sentence context

Adding daily lessons on vowel teams and multisyllabic word decoding

Increasing repeated readings of passages to raise his reading rate

A second grader describes his older brother: "He be working at the store every Saturday." In his home and community, this sentence form is used regularly to show an action that happens habitually. Which teacher response best reflects an assets-based approach to oral language development?

Recognize the sentence as rule-governed and explicitly contrast it with the school form for formal settings.

Tell the student the sentence is incorrect and have him repeat the standard form several times.

Refer the student to the speech-language pathologist for an evaluation of his grammar development.

Avoid commenting on any language differences so that the student never feels self-conscious.

A first-grade teacher dictates words and records one student's spellings. Dictated spelling Target Student wrote ship sip chin cin that tat math mat bed bed fun fun The student's spellings suggest that the teacher should first provide explicit instruction in which of the following?

Consonant digraphs that represent one sound with two letters

Initial consonant blends in which both sounds are heard

Short vowel sounds in closed, single-syllable words such as bed and fun

Final silent e as a marker for long vowel sounds

A fourth grader, Sam, scores at benchmark on phonemic awareness and reads grade-level words with 98% accuracy. However, he sounds out even very common words, such as when and because , sound by sound each time he sees them, and his oral reading rate is well below the grade-level target. His listening comprehension is strong. In terms of Scarborough's Reading Rope, Sam's difficulty lies primarily in which strand?

Sight recognition, within the word-recognition strands

Phonological awareness, within the word-recognition strands

Background knowledge, within the language-comprehension strands

Verbal reasoning, within the language-comprehension strands

A kindergarten teacher is concerned about a student who seems to understand directions but speaks in short, simple sentences. She wants to gather information specifically about the child's expressive oral language. Which assessment approach would provide the most useful information?

Recording the child's retelling of a wordless picture book and analyzing sentence length and vocabulary

Timing how many letter names the child can say correctly from a printed alphabet chart in one minute

Asking the child to answer yes-or-no questions after listening to a short passage read aloud

Having the child point to pictures that match words the teacher says on a receptive vocabulary test

First-grade writing sample words Target Student wrote car cr bird brd her hr start strt sun sun chip chip The student's spellings suggest that the teacher should next teach which of the following?

R-controlled vowels as units such as ar, er, ir, and or

Short vowel sounds in closed, single-syllable words

Vowel teams that spell long vowel sounds

Consonant blends in which two consonant sounds are heard

A fourth-grade class has read an article arguing that their town should build a new skate park. The teacher plans four questions. Which question requires an evaluative level of comprehension?

"Did the author give enough evidence to convince the city council? Explain."

"How do you think students felt when they learned the old park was closing for good?"

"What is the main reason the author gives for building the skate park?"

"According to the article, how many students signed the petition?"

TExES Science of Teaching Reading (293)

Free TExES Science of T 293 Practice Questions

10 sample questions for the TExES Science of Teaching Reading (293), 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: Reading Pedagogy, Reading Development: Foundational Skills, Reading Development: Comprehension.

Question 1 · Reading Pedagogy
A third-grade teacher reviews data for Malik. He reads grade-level word lists and nonsense words accurately and at benchmark rate. When the teacher reads a grade-level informational passage aloud, Malik answers only 3 of 10 questions correctly and cannot define several key words, such as habitat and migrate.
Based on the Simple View of Reading, which instructional focus would be most appropriate for Malik?
- A.Building oral vocabulary, background knowledge, and listening comprehension
- B.Teaching him to check unknown words against the pictures and the sentence context
- C.Adding daily lessons on vowel teams and multisyllabic word decoding
- D.Increasing repeated readings of passages to raise his reading rate
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Building oral vocabulary, background knowledge, and listening comprehension
Malik's word recognition is at benchmark, but his comprehension of text read aloud to him is weak, so the Simple View points to a language comprehension need. Vocabulary and background-knowledge instruction targets that need. More decoding or rate work addresses a strength he already has.
Question 2 · Reading Development: Foundational Skills
A second grader describes his older brother: "He be working at the store every Saturday." In his home and community, this sentence form is used regularly to show an action that happens habitually.
Which teacher response best reflects an assets-based approach to oral language development?
- A.Tell the student the sentence is incorrect and have him repeat the standard form several times.
- B.Refer the student to the speech-language pathologist for an evaluation of his grammar development.
- C.Recognize the sentence as rule-governed and explicitly contrast it with the school form for formal settings.
- D.Avoid commenting on any language differences so that the student never feels self-conscious.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. Recognize the sentence as rule-governed and explicitly contrast it with the school form for formal settings.
Habitual be is a systematic feature of a rule-governed dialect, not a grammar error or disorder. An assets-based teacher values the home language while explicitly teaching when and how to use the formal school register (often called code-switching). Labeling the sentence wrong devalues the student's language, and never addressing differences withholds instruction he needs for academic settings.
Question 3 · Reading Development: Foundational Skills
A first-grade teacher dictates words and records one student's spellings.
Dictated spelling
Target Student wrote
ship sip
chin cin
that tat
math mat
bed bed
fun fun
The student's spellings suggest that the teacher should first provide explicit instruction in which of the following?
- A.Consonant digraphs that represent one sound with two letters
- B.Initial consonant blends in which both sounds are heard
- C.Short vowel sounds in closed, single-syllable words such as bed and fun
- D.Final silent e as a marker for long vowel sounds
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Consonant digraphs that represent one sound with two letters
Every error drops the second letter of a digraph (sh, ch, th) while vowels and single consonants are correct, so the student needs instruction that two letters can spell one phoneme. Short vowels are not the problem, since bed, fun, and the vowels in every error word are spelled correctly.
Question 4 · Reading Development: Foundational Skills
A fifth-grade class lists words from science and social studies: spectator, inspect, spectacles, spectrum.
Analyzing the shared root most directly helps students understand that all four words relate to which meaning?
- A.light or color
- B.look or see
- C.glass or lens
- D.judge or check
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. look or see
The Latin root spect means look or see, which links a spectator who watches, inspecting by looking closely, spectacles that help a person see, and a spectrum that can be seen. Light or color fits only spectrum , checking fits only inspect , and glass fits only spectacles , so none of these meanings links all four words.
Question 5 · Reading Development: Foundational Skills
A sixth-grade teacher is deciding whether to use a novel for whole-class reading. Its readability measure falls in the grade 6–8 band. She notes that the story moves back and forth between the present and the narrator's memories without clear signals, the narrator often says the opposite of what she means, and the ending is left open.
The features the teacher notes are part of which dimension of text complexity?
- A.Reader and task
- B.Qualitative
- C.Decodability
- D.Quantitative
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Qualitative
Text structure (shifts in time without signals), irony or unclear meaning, and an open ending are qualitative features, which a careful reader must judge because formulas cannot measure them. The readability band is the quantitative measure, decodability concerns phonics patterns in beginning-reader texts, and reader-and-task factors concern the particular students and what they will do with the text.
Question 6 · Reading Pedagogy
A fourth grader, Sam, scores at benchmark on phonemic awareness and reads grade-level words with 98% accuracy. However, he sounds out even very common words, such as when and because, sound by sound each time he sees them, and his oral reading rate is well below the grade-level target. His listening comprehension is strong.
In terms of Scarborough's Reading Rope, Sam's difficulty lies primarily in which strand?
- A.Sight recognition, within the word-recognition strands
- B.Phonological awareness, within the word-recognition strands
- C.Background knowledge, within the language-comprehension strands
- D.Verbal reasoning, within the language-comprehension strands
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Sight recognition, within the word-recognition strands
Sam decodes accurately but has not developed automatic recognition of familiar words, which is the sight-recognition strand of word recognition. His phonemic awareness is at benchmark, so phonological awareness is not the primary issue. His strong listening comprehension argues against a language-comprehension weakness.
Question 7 · Reading Development: Foundational Skills
A kindergarten teacher is concerned about a student who seems to understand directions but speaks in short, simple sentences. She wants to gather information specifically about the child's expressive oral language.
Which assessment approach would provide the most useful information?
- A.Recording the child's retelling of a wordless picture book and analyzing sentence length and vocabulary
- B.Timing how many letter names the child can say correctly from a printed alphabet chart in one minute
- C.Asking the child to answer yes-or-no questions after listening to a short passage read aloud
- D.Having the child point to pictures that match words the teacher says on a receptive vocabulary test
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Recording the child's retelling of a wordless picture book and analyzing sentence length and vocabulary
Expressive language is what a child produces, so an oral retelling sample lets the teacher analyze sentence length, grammar, and word choice. A picture-pointing vocabulary test and yes-or-no listening questions mainly measure receptive language because the child only selects or confirms. Letter-naming fluency measures alphabet knowledge, not oral language.
Question 8 · Reading Development: Foundational Skills
First-grade writing sample words
Target Student wrote
car cr
bird brd
her hr
start strt
sun sun
chip chip
The student's spellings suggest that the teacher should next teach which of the following?
- A.R-controlled vowels as units such as ar, er, ir, and or
- B.Short vowel sounds in closed, single-syllable words
- C.Vowel teams that spell long vowel sounds
- D.Consonant blends in which two consonant sounds are heard
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. R-controlled vowels as units such as ar, er, ir, and or
The student writes the vowel in sun and chip but omits it only before r, a common pattern because the vowel and r blend into one sound. Teaching ar, er, ir, ur, and or as units fixes this; short vowels are already spelled correctly.
Question 9 · Reading Development: Foundational Skills
A sixth-grade class learns that biography combines Greek parts meaning "life" and "write."
Which word contains a Greek part with the same meaning as the part of biography that means "write"?
- A.telegram
- B.symphony
- C.biology
- D.telescope
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. telegram
The Greek gram , like graph , means "written" or "write," so a telegram is a message written and sent from far away. Biology is tempting because it shares bio , but bio means "life," not "write"; scope means "see" and phon means "sound."
Question 10 · Reading Development: Foundational Skills
A fourth-grade class has read an article arguing that their town should build a new skate park. The teacher plans four questions.
Which question requires an evaluative level of comprehension?
- A."How do you think students felt when they learned the old park was closing for good?"
- B."What is the main reason the author gives for building the skate park?"
- C."According to the article, how many students signed the petition?"
- D."Did the author give enough evidence to convince the city council? Explain."
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. "Did the author give enough evidence to convince the city council? Explain."
Judging whether the evidence is strong enough to persuade requires students to make a reasoned judgment about the text, which is evaluative comprehension. The petition question is literal, the main-reason question asks for a reason the author states, and asking how students felt is inferential, because it requires reading between the lines but not judging the text.

Dictated spelling
Target	Student wrote
ship	sip
chin	cin
that	tat
math	mat
bed	bed
fun	fun

First-grade writing sample words
Target	Student wrote
car	cr
bird	brd
her	hr
start	strt
sun	sun
chip	chip

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