TExES ELAR Practice

Alliteration

The repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables as in "round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran."

Archetypal Human Experience

An experience that fits the original pattern or model of which all things of the same type are representations or copies. A human experience shared by all regardless of gender, culture, ethnicity, class, etc., e.g., quest for happiness, birth, and death.

Argumentation

A form of discourse, the purpose of which is to convince a reader or hearer by establishing the truth or falsity of a proposition. It is often combined with exposition. It differs from exposition technically in its aim, exposition being content with simply making an explanation. Taking a position and persuasive essays are forms of argumentation.

Auditory Discrimination

The ability to differentiate and recognize sounds. A child can respond appropriately to a request for a "bat" as opposed to a "ball," because the child can hear the difference in the final phoneme of each word.

Author's Purpose, Craft, Perspective

An understanding of author's intention, style and presentation, and impact on audience.

Balanced Approach to Reading

The instructional usage of different strategies to teach reading, such as phonemic awareness, basal readers, and language experience.

Basal Reader

A collection of literary stories and poems that match the instructional level of students (often the book series adopted by the school for reading).

Blending

Is the combination of individual sounds, as when the teacher asks what /c/, /a/, /t/ spell and a student replies "cat."

Bloom's Taxonomy

Categorizing the level of abstraction of questions that commonly occur in educational settings. This provides a useful structure in which to categorize questions in order to direct student thinking to appropriate levels.

Analysis

Seeing patterns; organization of parts; recognition of hidden meanings; identification of components. Question Cues :analyze, separate, order, explain, connect, classify, arrange, divide, compare, select, explain, infer.

Application

Use of information; using methods, concepts, theories in new situations; solving problems using required skills or knowledge. Question Cues: apply, demonstrate, calculate, complete, illustrate, show, solve, examine, modify, relate, change, classify, experiment, discover.

Comprehension

Understanding information; grasping meaning; translating knowledge into new context; interpreting facts, comparing, contrasting; ordering, grouping, inferring causes; predicting consequences. Question Cues: summarize, describe, interpret, contrast, predict, associate, distinguish, estimate, differentiate, discuss, extend.

Evaluation

Comparison and discrimination between and among; assessing value of theories, presentations; making choices based on reasoned argument; verifying value of evidence; recognizing subjectivity. Question Cues: assess, decide, rank, grade, test, measure, recommend, convince, select, judge, explain, discriminate, support, conclude, compare, summarize.

Knowledge

Observation and recall of information; knowledge of dates, events, places; knowledge of major ideas; mastery of subject matter. Question Cues: list, define, tell, describe, identify, show, label, collect, examine, tabulate, quote, name, who, when, where, etc.

Synthesis

Use of old ideas to create new ones; generalization from given facts; relating knowledge from several areas predicting, drawing conclusions. Question Cues: combine, integrate, modify, rearrange, substitute, plan, create, design, invent, what if?, compose, formulate, prepare, generalize, rewrite.

Causation

The force behind an effect or result. Cause/effect is an expository text structure.

Characteristics of Texts

Components of texts that make them similar to other texts in a particular genre, for example, title page, table of contents, glossary, boldface headings, and index for informational texts.

Choral Reading

Students and teacher reading aloud from a text as the teacher models fluency and expression. This reading in unison helps children understand that print is speech written down as they hear the patterns of language and see the words. Choral reading also develops sight word vocabulary.

Conventions

Accepted practices in spoken or written language, such as rules for grammar and language; "mechanics" in/of writing.

Semantic

Refer to the meaning attached to individual words and the interrelationships of words (knowledge of language). Readers use semantic cues to make sense of the text.

Syntactic

Concern the order of words in phrases and sentences. Readers use syntactic cues to predict and confirm words.

Graphphonic

Readers use this or visual cues to identify and associate print with letter sounds.

Culminating Performance

Final product/outcome, usually referring to an end-of-semester, end-of-course, or end-of-high-school assessment task.

Dolch Word List

List of basic sight words most frequently used in the English language.

Emergent Literacy

It refers to children"s beliefs about experiences with reading and writing prior to formal instruction.

Enumeration

An expository text structure in which ideas are listed in a prescribed order.

Etymology

Study of the origin and historical development of words.

Exposition

A form of discourse, the purpose of which is to explain the nature of an object, an idea, or a theme. Exposition may exist apart from the other types of composition, but frequently two or more of the types are blended, description aiding exposition, argument being supported by exposition, narration reinforcing by example an exposition.

Expository Text

Text that is written by authors to explain, to describe, to present information, or to persuade. Expository text is subject- oriented and contains facts and information using little dialogue. Examples of expository text structures: Compare/contrast, cause/effect, enumeration, classification, chronology, problem solving.

Grapheme

It refers to the letter or letters that represent a phoneme. For example, the word "ball" consists of three graphemes: a "b" for the /b/ sound, an "a" for the /a/ sound, and an "ll" for the /l/ sound.

Graphophomemic knowledge

It refers to knowledge about specific relationships between graphemes and phonemes; that is, between letters and sounds.

Inferential Comprehension

It refers to the understanding of information that is not explicitly given but rather implied in a written passage.

Inferential/Implicit Questions

MEAP multiple choice questions which are based on the theme, key concepts, and major ideas of the reading passage. These questions often require students to interpret information from across parts of a text and to connect knowledge from the text with their own general background knowledge.

Inquiry Teaching

Teachers ask and then help students answer questions by proposing hypotheses, gathering and evaluating data, and generating conclusions. It is essential to the development of critical thinking. In Social Studies instruction, inquiry teaching becomes increasingly important in helping students solve problems and make decision about real-life issues.

Integrated/Interdisciplinary Curriculum

A knowledge view and curriculum approach that consciously applies methodology and language from more than one discipline to examine a central theme, issue, problem, topic, or experience (Jacobs, 1989).

Invented Spelling

A predictable pattern of children's spelling that progresses through developmental stages. In invented spelling, students use their personal logic, knowledge of phonics, and print conventions to spell words. Invented spelling is decodable!

Jargon

A specialized vocabulary of those in the same work or profession; redundant or wordy writing.

Language Experience Approach (LEA)

Commonly used instructional method that integrates oral and written language skills.

Figurative Language

Language enriched by word images and figures of speech.

Explicit Theme

Is stated openly and in universal terms.

Consonance

Repetition of consonants sounds anywhere in the words: "The sight of the apple and maple trees pleased the people."

Assonance

Repetition of vowel sounds in a phrase: "The owl swept out of the woods and circled the house."

Allusion

An indirect reference to something outside the current literary work; to something in literature, history, modern culture, or another area.

Hyperbole

Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

Implicit Theme

Is not directly stated, but is one which the reader can infer.

Integral Setting

Essential to the plot; it influences action, character, or theme.

Irony

A figure of speech in which the literal meaning of the words is the opposite of their intended meaning.

Limited Omniscient

Reader is told the thoughts and feelings of only one character.

Meter

The regular rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables found in a line of poetry. The less regular rhythm sometimes found in prose is often called cadence.

Omniscient

Reader is told everything about the story, including the thoughts and feelings of all the characters, and even information in the author's mind which no character knows.

Onomatopoeia

The use of words that imitate sounds

Person Against Fate

Protagonist must contend against a fact or life or death over which people have little control.

Personification

A figure of speech in which the characteristics of a human being are attributed to an animal, a thing, or an idea.

Simile

A comparison between two essentially different items expressly indicated by a term such as like or ''as.''

Loaded Words

Words used to influence opinion; words that carry meaning beyond their surface definitions - for example, a word with an emotional association such as cult.

Metacognition

Reflection on the process of learning or knowing; thinking about one's thinking. Self-knowledge, monitoring, and selection of thinking and analytical strategies to promote understanding when reading text and create effective messages when using oral and written language. Application of strategies.

Modeling

Demonstrating application of a skill to develop a sense of language and comprehension skills. Children need to compare their reading and writing with a model they have heard or seen. The teacher might serve as an example in oral and silent reading, writing, or any other activity. For example, in modeled writing, the teacher writes in front of the students as she talks aloud about the process.

Morphology

A study and description of word formation (as inflection, derivation, and compounding) in language; the system of word- forming elements and processes in a language.

Phonemic Awareness

The auditory discrimination of individual sounds in spoken words.

Phonics

Identification of sound-symbol relationships and spellings in written language (phonemes and graphemes).

Phonology

The study of how sounds are organized and used in natural languages.It is just one of several aspects of language; other aspects are phonetics, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics.

Pragmatics

Consists of rules for effective communication in different contexts. The rules that govern and describe how language is used in different contexts and environments. For example, the words and tone of voice will be more formal when talking with the principal and may be very casual and include slang when talking with other children.

Profundity Scale

A theoretical construct to guide students thinking. The scale was devised to aid readers in determining and evaluating the profundity of authorsÔÇÖ themes. The scale consists of five levels or planes: physical, mental, moral, psychological, and d philosophical.

Prosody

The melody (rhythm) and flow of language.

Segmentation

Is the division of words into sounds, as when a teacher asks a child to identify the first sounds in "cat" and the child says "c" or makes a /c/ sound.

Semantics

Acquiring the literal or inferential meaning of text-sources.

Skim

To visually review a given passage to gather the main ideas of the text.

Socratic Seminar

Not simply class discussion. A Socratic seminar fosters active learning as participants explore and evaluate the ideas, issues, and values in a particular text. A good seminar consists of four interdependent elements: (1) the text being considered, (2) the questions raised, (3) the seminar leader, and (4) the participants.

Structure Analysis

It consists of the identification of morphemes, the smallest units of meaning in a word.

Syntax

Refers to the structure of a phrase or sentence. Taken together, syntax and morphology (set of rules for combining sounds into meaningful units) constitute the grammar of a language.

Substantive Conversation Standards

Students engage in extended conversational exchanges with the teacher and/or peers about subject matter in a way that builds an improved and shared understanding of ideas or topics.

Deep Knowledge Standards

Instruction addresses central ideas of a topic or discipline with enough thoroughness to explore connections and relationships and to produce relatively complex understanding.

Higher-Order Thinking Standards

Instruction involves students in manipulating information and ideas by synthesizing, generalizing, explaining or arriving at conclusions that produce new meaning and understanding of them.

Text Elements

The dimensions of content that relate the ideas in text; in narrative text: setting, characters, events, problem, solution, and theme; in expository text: central purpose, major ideas, and supporting details.

Text Structure

The various patterns of ideas embedded in the organization of text. Common patters include cause-effect, comparison- contrast, problem-solution, description, and sequence.

Thematic Units

Instructionally generated learning activities that center on an umbrella topic of interest (pumpkins, bats, apples, butterflies, etc.) with a variety of content areas brought to relate to that topic.

Bottom-up Model

Top-down model suggests that the learner predicts meaning of a word and then identifies a word; the bottom-up model suggests that the learner first identifies a word then considers the meaning of the word.

Texas Primary Reading Inventory (TPRI)

Used for assessing skills such as phonemic awareness, listening comprehension, and reading, among children ranging from kindergarten through second grade.

"K-W-L" Write

When a new topic is being introduced (or reviewed or assessed) students make a list of all the things they already Know (or believe they know) about the subject. Then they make a list of things they Want to know or investigate. When the lesson is done, they make a list of what they've Learned.

Clustering

A special form of writing-to-learn using a kind of right-brained outlining. Students put key concepterm, or name in a circle at the center of a page and then free-associate, jotting down all the ideas which occur tothem in circles arrayed around the kernel term, in whatever patter "seems right." Often clustering reveals unrecognized connections and relationships.

Dialectics

Divide a page in half. Left side is used for note-taking during reading, lecture, or activity. The right half is used for reactions and questions. In mathematics, one side can be used for doing problems and the other for telling in words how kids attacked them

Metacognitive Analysis

Students write to describe their own thinking processes in the subject, perhaps up to the point where difficulties are encountered, for example, showing how a math problem is tackled and worked through up to the point where the student becomes stumped.

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

The distance between a child's actual developmental level as determined through independent problem solving and his/her potential development (level) as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or a collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978).