Foundations of ReadingTest Preparation

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Study Guide

Full guide covers all 4 subareas and 11 objectives. Below is a sample from Objective 1.

I

Subarea I — 35% of Exam

Foundations of Reading Development

Objective 1: Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

What Is Phonological Awareness?

Phonological awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the sound structure of spoken language — independent of meaning. It includes awareness at multiple levels: words, syllables, onset-rime, and individual phonemes.

Phonemic awareness is a subset — it refers specifically to awareness of individual phonemes, the smallest units of sound. A student who can blend /k/ /æ/ /t/ into “cat” or segment “ship” into /ʃ/ /ɪ/ /p/ is demonstrating phonemic awareness.

The Phonological Awareness Continuum

Phonological awareness skills develop along a continuum from larger to smaller units:

Word Awareness: Identifying how many words are in a sentence
Syllable Awareness: Clapping syllables: "but·ter·fly" = 3 claps
Onset-Rime Awareness: Recognizing "cat," "bat," and "sat" share the same rime (-at)
Phoneme Awareness: Isolating the first sound in "dog" → /d/

Key Phonemic Awareness Skills to Know

SkillExample
Blending/m/ /æ/ /p/ → "map"
Segmenting"sun" → /s/ /ʌ/ /n/
Deletion"smile" without /s/ → "mile"
SubstitutionChange /p/ in "pan" to /m/ → "man"
IsolationFirst sound in "fish" → /f/

Objective 2: Concepts of Print and the Alphabetic Principle

Concepts of print refers to the foundational understanding of how written language works. Students must understand that print carries meaning, that English reads left-to-right and top-to-bottom, and that spaces separate words...

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10 more objectives across all 4 subareas

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