English Language Arts and Reading
What the test asks
ELA/Reading items on EC-6 exams cluster around foundational skills (phonological awareness, phonics, fluency), comprehension, vocabulary, and writing conventions. Know the developmental sequence: phonological awareness (rhyming, syllables, onset-rime) precedes phonics; phonics builds letter-sound correspondence; fluency (accuracy, rate, prosody) supports comprehension. Be able to name the five components of reading instruction and match an activity to its component.
Concepts to master
- Phonemic awareness vs. phonics: awareness is auditory and oral; phonics is print-based.
- Comprehension strategies: predicting, questioning, summarizing, inferring, monitoring.
- Text structures: compare-contrast, cause-effect, sequence, problem-solution, description.
- Vocabulary tiers: Tier 1 everyday words, Tier 2 cross-content academic words, Tier 3 domain-specific terms.
- Writing: the writing process (prewrite, draft, revise, edit, publish) and grammar/mechanics.
Traps
Questions often blur phonological and phonemic awareness, or ask which activity targets a subskill. A rhyming game is phonological, not phonics. Another trap: confusing revision (ideas, organization) with editing (conventions). Also watch for items that ask for the best strategy for a specific grade band-emergent readers need oral language and concepts of print, not literary analysis.
Rule of thumb
Ask: Is the task about sound only, sound-to-print, or meaning? That three-way sort resolves most classification items. For a struggling reader, match the intervention to the identified deficit-fluency work will not fix a decoding gap.
Worked example: A student reads accurately but slowly, word by word, with flat expression. The deficit is prosody/fluency, so repeated readings with modeling-not more phonics-is the right support.