Reading and Language Arts
Focus your review
Reading and Language Arts items test the five pillars - phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension - plus writing, grammar, and assessment. Know the developmental sequence: phonological awareness (rhyming, syllables, onset-rime) precedes phonemic awareness (isolating and manipulating individual sounds), which is entirely oral; phonics then maps those sounds to print. Fluency has three parts - accuracy, rate, and prosody - so rate alone is not fluency. Vocabulary instruction should target Tier 2 words (general academic, e.g., 'contrast') rather than only Tier 1 (basic) or Tier 3 (domain-specific) terms. Comprehension depends on background knowledge, text structure (sequence, compare-contrast, cause-effect, problem-solution, description), and strategies such as summarizing, questioning, and inferencing. For writing, know the process - planning, drafting, revising, editing, publishing - and that revising addresses ideas and organization while editing addresses conventions. Assessment tools include running records (accuracy and cueing systems), phonics screeners, and comprehension retells.
Traps that cost points
Questions routinely blur phonological and phonemic awareness, or imply phonemic tasks use letters. Others treat 'learning styles' as evidence-based or equate fast reading with good reading. Watch for items that name a decoding problem as a comprehension problem.
Worked example
How many phonemes are in knight? Count sounds, not letters: /n/ /ī/ /t/ = 3, though the word has six letters. Rule of thumb: phoneme counting uses the mouth and ear, never the alphabet.