Chapter 1 Literacy Matters
TRUE/FALSE
1. Content area reading is all about using language to think and learn.
2. Teachers’ education in content knowledge has little effect on student achievement.
3. Assigning and telling are common instructional strategies that inspire students to take e active role in learning.
4. In the content area classroom, showing students how to read is usually a major part of a teacher’s instructional plan in helping them become literate in a given discipline.
5. Good readers give equal attention to each section of the text that they are reading.
6. A reader’s prior knowledge is the single most important variable in learning with texts.
7. Texts are the best medium for learning academic content.
8.Hands-on learning activities support students’ acquisition of content knowledge.
9. Standards are academic expectations of content students should learn based on grade and content area.
10.The term text refers exclusively to items such as textbooks and trade books.
11.Unsuccessful readers often have difficulty with reading tasks because they lack
knowledge of and control over the strategies needed for effective text learning.
12. New literacies are ways in which students interact with and learn from information and communication technologies.
13. Several provisions of Reading Next impact what teachers do in the classroom rather than how they do it.
14. Teachers must address adolescents’ sense of self-confidence in order for students to be successful in learning content.
15. Every teacher is a teacher of reading.
16. Questions that require higher-order thinking support students in retaining content
knowledge.
17. Both the use of prior knowledge and the active engagement in text-related activities put students in a better position to understand content area material.
18. Using graphic organizers is an effective way of supporting students’ reading
comprehension.
19. Struggling readers benefit from implicit instruction in the use of strategies.
20. Motivation is a key to learning.
Multiple-Choice Questions
1. Of the following characteristics, which is most frequently identified by educators as a
characteristic of quality teaching?
a. Enthusiasm for teaching
b. Thorough understanding of the subject matter
c. Skills to develop learning experiences that interest students
d. Years of experience as a classroom teacher
2. Which of the following is not a finding of ETS’s study How Teaching Matters?
a. Less attention needs to be paid to improving teachers pedagogical knowledge.
b. Teachers’ content knowledge is an important factor in student achievement.
c. Classroom instructional practices influence student achievement.
d. When teachers receive professional development training in working with special
3.Reading is an active process and skilled activity because the student:
a. should physically interact with the book.
b. needs to be at a certain reading level in order to comprehend.
c. has a conversation with the author and raises questions while reading.
d. must decode and comprehend subskills.
4. From a strategic point of view, a reader’s main goal is to:
a. make sense out of what is read.
b. read text assignments.
c. answer assigned questions.
d. participate in class discussions.
5. Use of literacy strategies in content area classes is intended to do all of the following
except:
a. activate students’ background knowledge.
b. teach students how to read.
c. provide a way for students to clarify information.
d. help students extend their understanding of subject area material.
6. Using literacy-based learning strategies with content area texts:
a. detracts from the teacher’s role as a subject area specialist.
b. requires specialized training in literacy instruction on the part of the content area
teacher.
c. teaches students how to use reading, writing, viewing, and talking to learn content
area material.
d. teaches students how to read, write, and talk
7. All of the following statements are true about assigning-and-telling teaching practices
except that they:
a. dampen active involvement in learning.
b. deny students’ ownership for the acquisition of content.
c. deny passive involvement in learning.
d. deny students’ responsibility for the acquisition of content.
8. A successful reader utilizes all but one of the following strategies:
a. reads different types of texts differently.
b. questions and revises meanings constructed while reading.
c. rereads text when finished reading.
d. predicts and verifies predictions while reading.
9. The findings of The Report of the National Reading Panel
The findings of The Report of the National Reading Panel conclude that:
a. struggling readers benefit from implicit instruction in the use of strategies.
b. strategy instruction should be taught separately from the comprehension of text.
c. students are best served when learning one or two key strategies that can be
applied to multiple contexts.
d. vocabulary knowledge is strongly related to text comprehension
10.The findings of The Report of the National Reading Panel conclude that:
a. struggling readers benefit from implicit instruction in the use of strategies.
b. strategy instruction should be taught separately from the comprehension of text.
c. students are best served when learning one or two key strategies that can be
applied to multiple contexts.
d. vocabulary knowledge is strongly related to text comprehension
11. According to schema theory, which of the following strategies will least influence
comprehension?
a. organizing text
b. making inferences
c. decoding unknown words
d. elaborating on information
Essay Questions
1. Place yourself in the role of a staff developer in your school. Write a letter to teachers,
using your powers of persuasion, explaining the need for incorporating reading
instruction to content area classrooms. Do your best to convince your readers why
content area teachers need to go beyond assigning and telling.
2. The text’s authors stated, “To help students become literate in a content area does not
mean to teach them how to read or write or talk as might be the case in a reading or
English classroom. Instead, reading, writing, and talking are tools that learners use to
comprehend texts in content areas.” Discuss the meaning of this passage and the methods
that you will use to make sure that students do think and learn with text.
3. What is literacy? How have expectations for literacy changed in recent years? How has
the standards movement in education contributed to these changes?
4. Compare and contrast the characteristics of successful and unsuccessful readers. Discuss the teacher’s responsibility in the development of content area reading when working with each type of reader.
5. Choose an appropriate content area for adolescent and explore how new literacies are
integrated within this curriculum.