Praxis 5205 Teaching Reading: Elementary

Praxis 5205: Teaching Reading: Elementary Overview and Test Format

• Test Code: $5205$

• Test Duration: $150$ minutes ($2$ hours and $3$ minutes), with no separately timed sections.

• Format: The exam consists of $90$ selected-response questions (approximately $75\%$ of the total score) and $3$ constructed-response questions (approximately $25\%$ of the total score).

• Grade Band: Covers Kindergarten through Grade 6.

• Passing Score (Tennessee): $159$ on a scale of $100–200$. Tennessee utilizes the uniform ETS passing score.

• Framework Origins:

  • Standards for the Preparation of Literacy Professionals (ILA).

  • International Dyslexia Association (IDA) standards.

  • Built around the "Science of Reading" and the $5$ pillars from the National Reading Panel.

Content Categories and Weighting

• Category I: Phonological & Phonemic Awareness / Emergent Literacy

  • Number of Questions: $14$

  • Weight: $11\%$

• Category II: Phonics and Decoding

  • Number of Questions: $18$

  • Weight: $15\%$

• Category III: Vocabulary and Fluency

  • Number of Questions: $21$

  • Weight: $18\%$

• Category IV: Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text

  • Number of Questions: $21$

  • Weight: $18\%$

• Category V: Written Expression

  • Number of Questions: $16$

  • Weight: $13\%$

• Category VI: Assessment & Instructional Decision Making

  • Number of Questions: $3$ Constructed-Response items.

  • Weight: $25\%$ of the total score.

Big-Picture Frameworks for Reading Instruction

• The Simple View of Reading: Reading Comprehension ($RC$) is the product of Decoding ($D$) and Language Comprehension ($LC$).

  • Formula: $RC = D \times LC$

  • Implications: If either Decoding or Language Comprehension is zero, the total Reading Comprehension score is zero. A child cannot comprehend text they cannot decode, nor can they comprehend text that uses language beyond their oral vocabulary, even if decoding is perfect.

• Scarborough’s Reading Rope: Skilled, fluent reading is achieved through the braiding of two main strands:

  • Word Recognition Strand: Includes phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition. This strand becomes increasingly automatic.

  • Language Comprehension Strand: Includes background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge. This strand becomes increasingly strategic.

• Ehri’s Phases of Word Reading Development:

  • Pre-alphabetic: Students read by remembering visual cues, logos, or the shape of a word without using letter-sound knowledge.

  • Partial alphabetic: Students use some letter-sound knowledge, typically the first or last letters, to guess words.

  • Full alphabetic: Students use complete and systematic letter-sound knowledge to decode words.

  • Consolidated alphabetic: Students recognize chunks such as syllables, morphemes, and rimes rather than just individual letters.

• National Reading Panel’s Five Pillars: The fundamental components of reading are Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension.

• Simple View of Writing: Writing consists of Transcription (handwriting and spelling) multiplied by Text Generation (ideas and language), all constrained by working memory.

• Not-So-Simple View of Writing: Expands on the simple view by adding executive function and self-regulation as a third factor that influences both transcription and text generation.

Category I: Phonological Awareness, Phonemic Awareness, and Emergent Literacy

• Core Distinctions:

  • Phonological Awareness: An umbrella term referring to the awareness of all sound units in spoken language, including words, syllables, onset-rime, and phonemes. It is purely oral/auditory and involves no print.

  • Phonemic Awareness: A subset of phonological awareness specifically focused on individual phonemes (the smallest units of sound). It is also purely oral.

• Progression of Phonological Skills (Easiest to Hardest):

  1. Word awareness (counting words in a sentence).

  2. Rhyme and alliteration recognition.

  3. Syllable blending and segmenting.

  4. Onset-rime blending and segmenting (e.g., /c/-at).

  5. Phoneme blending and segmenting (Basic phonemic awareness).

  6. Phoneme deletion, addition, and substitution (Advanced phonemic awareness).

• Concepts About Print:

  • Directionality (left to right, top to bottom).

  • Return sweep.

  • Parts of a book (cover, title page, spine).

  • $1:1$ word-to-print correspondence.

  • Letter recognition (upper/lowercase): Fluent identification is a strong early predictor of reading success.

• Oral Language Development:

  • Receptive Language: What a student understands when listening or reading (e.g., following directions, comprehending vocabulary).

  • Expressive Language: What a student produces when speaking or writing (e.g., using vocabulary and sentence structures aloud).

  • Note: Receptive language typically develops ahead of expressive language.

• Signs of Dyslexia (IDA-aligned):

  • Difficulty with phonological and phonemic processing.

  • Trouble matching sounds to letters.

  • Poor word-attack skills with unfamiliar words.

  • Reported visual disturbances (letters appearing to move or blur).

  • Difficulty spelling, organizing ideas, or producing written language.

  • Professional Note: These are risk indicators requiring referral, not a medical diagnosis made by a teacher.

Category II: Phonics and Decoding

• Key Instructional Principles:

  • Systematic: Follows a planned, logical sequence from simple to complex concepts.

  • Explicit: Directly taught and modeled by the teacher, not left for student discovery.

  • Recursive: Skills are revisited and built upon over time.

• The Six Syllable Types:

  • Closed: Ends in a consonant; the vowel is short (e.g., cat, nap-kin).

  • Open: Ends in a vowel; the vowel is long (e.g., go, ba-by).

  • Silent-e (VCe): Follows a vowel-consonant-silent e pattern; the vowel is long (e.g., cake, bike).

  • Vowel Team: Two vowels together making one sound (e.g., boat, rain).

  • R-controlled: A vowel followed by "r" changes the vowel sound (e.g., car, bird).

  • Consonant-le: An unaccented final syllable containing a consonant and "le" (e.g., ta-ble, can-dle).

• Phonics Patterns:

  • Digraphs: Two letters representing one sound (sh, ch, th, ph).

  • Blends: Two or more letters where individual sounds are still heard (bl, str, nd).

  • Diphthongs: A vowel sound that glides (oi, oy, ou, ow).

  • Schwa: The unstressed "uh" vowel sound (e.g., the "a" in "about").

  • Word Families / Rimes: Groups like -at or -ight.

• Morphology: The use of roots, base words, prefixes, and suffixes to determine word meaning and decode multisyllabic words.

• Heart Words: These are irregular or high-frequency words (e.g., was, the, once, listen) that contain non-decodable parts. Students are taught to identify the "part to learn by heart" rather than relying on pure rote memorization.

• Assessment Tools:

  • Elkonin Boxes: A phoneme segmentation manipulative using one box per sound.

  • Phoneme-Grapheme Mapping: The practice of connecting heard sounds to the letters that spell them.

  • Word Sorts: Categorizing words by spelling patterns (Closed, Open, Picture sorts).

  • Decodable Text: Reading materials controlled to include only the phonics patterns previously taught.

Category III: Vocabulary and Fluency

• Tiers of Vocabulary:

  • Tier 1: Basic, everyday words (e.g., happy, dog, run).

  • Tier 2: High-utility academic words appearing across many contexts (e.g., analyze, contrast, evidence). This is the priority for direct instruction.

  • Tier 3: Low-frequency, domain-specific words (e.g., photosynthesis, isotope).

• Vocabulary Depth: The deepest level of knowledge is the ability to generate original sentences and apply meanings flexibly across contexts, rather than just matching synonyms or definitions.

• Vocabulary Strategies:

  • Frayer Model: A four-square organizer for definition, characteristics, examples, and non-examples.

  • Semantic Gradient: Ranking related words on a continuum (e.g., freezing $\rightarrow$ cold $\rightarrow$ cool $\rightarrow$ warm $\rightarrow$ hot).

  • Semantic Feature Analysis: A grid comparing words against shared features.

  • Word Consciousness: Fostering curiosity about language.

• The Three Components of Fluency:

  • Accuracy: Reading words correctly.

  • Rate: Reading at an appropriate pace.

  • Prosody: Using expression, stress, and intonation that reflects meaning.

• Fluency-Building Strategies: Repeated reading, Readers' Theater, Partner/Paired reading, Echo/Choral reading, and Teacher Read-alouds.

Category IV: Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text

• Foundational Concepts:

  • Listening comprehension develops before reading comprehension.

  • Background knowledge activation is a prerequisite for understanding new texts.

  • Metacognition: Thinking about one’s own thinking; monitoring comprehension and using "fix-up" strategies when meaning is lost.

• Text Structures:

  • Literary Text: Genres like poetry, prose, and drama; elements include setting, character, plot, conflict, and theme.

  • Informational Text: Procedures, biographies, etc. Structures include description, cause/effect, sequence, compare/contrast, and problem/solution.

• Engagement & Tools:

  • Nuance: Subtle shades of meaning (e.g., "skinny" vs. "slender").

  • Graphic Organizers: Story maps, Venn diagrams, cause-effect chains.

  • Text-Dependent Questions: Questions that require students to return to the text for evidence.

  • Anticipation Guides: Pre-reading statements revisited after reading.

• Digital Literacy: Evaluating online sources for authority, relevance, and accuracy.

Category V: Written Expression

• The Recursive Process: Writing is not a linear sequence; writers move back and forth between planning, drafting, revising, and editing.

• Types of Writing:

  • Narrative: Tells a story with characters and plot.

  • Informational/Expository: Explains or informs with facts and definitions.

  • Argument/Persuasive/Opinion: Supports a claim with reasons and evidence.

• Grammar and Mechanics:

  • Appositive: A noun phrase renaming another noun.

  • Parallelism: Consistent grammatical structure in related phrases.

  • Dangling Modifier: An ambiguous descriptive phrase that lacks a clear subject to modify.

• Structured Literacy: An approach (e.g., Orton-Gillingham) that is systematic, explicit, cumulative, and multisensory, covering phonology, syllables, morphology, syntax, and semantics.

Category VI: Assessment and Instructional Decision Making

• Constructed-Response Tasks:

  • Prompt A: Developing Emergent literacy learners (Phonemic awareness, decoding).

  • Prompt B: Supporting Independent literacy learners (Fluency, reading comprehension).

  • Prompt C: Responding to Diverse learners (English learners, students with disabilities, gifted learners).

• Assessment Terminology:

  • Formative Assessment: Ongoing and informal, used during instruction (e.g., running records).

  • Summative Assessment: Evaluates learning after instruction (e.g., unit tests).

  • Progress Monitoring: Frequent assessments to track growth toward a goal.

  • Diagnostic Assessment: Pinpoints specific skill gaps for targeted intervention.

• Instructional Grouping: Flexible grouping involves temporary groups based on data needs, rather than permanent ability tracking.

• Accommodations vs. Modifications:

  • Accommodations: Change how a student is assessed (e.g., extended time).

  • Modifications: Change what is assessed (e.g., simplified questions).

Mnemonics and Study Tips

• PA vs. Phonemic Awareness: "Phonological is the umbrella; phonEMIC is EM-bedded inside it."

• Fluency Components: $A-R-P$ (Accuracy, Rate, Prosody).

• Syllable Types: "Can Old Sam Very Rarely Read?" (Closed, Open, Silent-e, Vowel team, R-controlled, Consonant-le).

• Test Strategy: Prioritize answers that are explicit and systematic. On constructed responses, always provide a specific rationale tied to the scenario's student data.