Praxis Elem CKT Reading/LA cheat sheet

The five essential components of reading instruction are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension; each is assessed and taught differently.

Phonological awareness is the umbrella term for awareness of sound units (words, syllables, onsets/rimes, phonemes); phonemic awareness is the narrowest level, involving individual phonemes.

Phonics teaches sound-symbol correspondences; decoding applies them to print, while encoding applies them to spelling.

Fluency has three measurable dimensions: accuracy, rate (words correct per minute), and prosody (expression and phrasing).

The Simple View of Reading: reading comprehension = decoding x language comprehension, so a weakness in either factor limits overall comprehension.

Text complexity is judged on three axes: quantitative (readability measures), qualitative (levels of meaning, structure, knowledge demands), and reader/task considerations.

The writing process stages are planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing; revising addresses content and organization, editing addresses conventions.

Narrative text structure includes characters, setting, plot (rising action, climax, resolution), and theme; informational text structure includes description, sequence, compare-contrast, cause-effect, and problem-solution.

Vocabulary tiers: Tier 1 is everyday basic words, Tier 2 is high-frequency academic words used across domains, Tier 3 is low-frequency domain-specific terminology.

Place value is base-ten positional: each place to the left is ten times the value of the place to its right, which underlies regrouping in addition and subtraction algorithms.

Fractions a/b and c/d are equivalent when ad = bc; comparing fractions with unlike denominators requires a common denominator or benchmark reasoning.

Multiplication of fractions: (a/b) x (c/d) = ac/bd; division by a fraction is multiplication by its reciprocal, (a/b) / (c/d) = (a/b) x (d/c).

The order of operations is parentheses, exponents, multiplication and division left to right, then addition and subtraction left to right.

Perimeter of a rectangle = 2(l + w); area = l x w; area of a triangle = (1/2)bh; volume of a rectangular prism = l x w x h.

A prime number has exactly two distinct factors, 1 and itself; 1 is neither prime nor composite, and every composite number has a unique prime factorization.

Measures of center: mean = sum divided by count, median = middle value of ordered data, mode = most frequent value; the median resists outliers better than the mean.

A ratio compares two quantities multiplicatively; a unit rate expresses the ratio per one unit, and proportional relationships graph as a line through the origin.

The scientific method cycle: question, hypothesis, controlled experiment, data collection, analysis, and conclusion; a hypothesis must be testable and falsifiable.

In a controlled experiment the independent variable is manipulated, the dependent variable is measured, and all other variables are held constant as controls.

Matter has physical properties (density, melting point, conductivity) observed without changing composition, and chemical properties observed only during a reaction.

States of matter: solids hold shape and volume, liquids hold volume but not shape, gases hold neither; heating increases particle kinetic energy.

Food chains move energy from producers to consumers to decomposers; only about 10 percent of energy transfers between trophic levels, the rest is lost as heat.

Earth's rock types: igneous forms from cooled magma or lava, sedimentary from compacted deposited sediments, metamorphic from heat and pressure on existing rock.

The water cycle steps are evaporation, transpiration, condensation, precipitation, and collection or runoff.

Force equals mass times acceleration (F = ma); an object at rest stays at rest unless a net force acts on it, and every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

The three branches of U.S. federal government are legislative (Congress, makes laws), executive (President, enforces laws), and judicial (courts, interprets laws).

Checks and balances include veto power, congressional override by two-thirds vote, judicial review, and Senate confirmation of appointments.

The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments; the First Amendment protects speech, religion, press, assembly, and petition.

Federalism divides power between national and state governments; the Tenth Amendment reserves undelegated powers to the states or the people.

Map essentials are title, legend or key, scale, compass rose, and grid; latitude lines run east-west and measure distance north or south of the equator.

Physical geography features include landforms, climate zones, and biomes; human geography examines population, culture, economics, and settlement patterns.

Primary sources are firsthand records (diaries, letters, artifacts); secondary sources interpret or summarize primary sources (textbooks, encyclopedias).

Economic systems answer three questions: what to produce, how to produce it, and for whom; scarcity forces choices with opportunity costs.