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Study Guide

Field 36: Early Childhood Education
Sample Selected-Response Questions

Practice Questions

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Subarea I–Child Development and Learning

Objective 0001: Understand human growth and development and how to use this understanding to promote learning and development in all domains.

1. A three year old and a four year old have been competing for opportunities to ride the swing. Both children are capable of seating themselves in the swing and pushing it. Which of the following responses from their preschool teacher will best serve to foster the children's social problem-solving skills?

  1. suggesting that the children take turns using the swing and determining who should use the swing first
  2. asking the children to explain the situation and helping them decide what to do
  3. redirecting the children to different activities and keeping them separated until their attention is refocused
  4. reminding the children that arguing is against class rules and making the swings off limits to them for the rest of the day
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Objective 0002: Understand factors that may affect children's development and learning and use this knowledge to create learning environments that support all children's progress.

2. At the beginning of the school year, a second-grade teacher finds that several students have not retained some of the skills they learned in first grade. Which of the following factors is likely to have the greatest impact on a student's ability to retain learned academic skills over the extended break?

  1. the manner in which the skills were taught
  2. the number of activities the student was given to practice the skills over the break
  3. the time of year during which the skills were taught
  4. the degree of adult to student interaction in using the skills over the break
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
Objective 0002: Understand factors that may affect children's development and learning and use this knowledge to create learning environments that support all children's progress.

3. Kelly is a four year old who has mild cognitive delays. She attends preschool for five half days each week. A special education teacher comes to the classroom to work with Kelly three times per week. Her preschool teacher is beginning a unit that involves new concepts related to nutrition. He is planning to introduce several concepts during large-group circle time, then provide follow-up activities for small-group centers. In this situation, the preschool teacher can most appropriately address Kelly's learning needs by:

  1. including her in all lessons to the fullest extent possible.
  2. sending home information about the new concepts to her parents so they can review the concepts with her.
  3. asking the special education teacher to work with her individually.
  4. preparing a separate set of lessons designed to promote Kelly's skills in meeting her basic physical needs.
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
Objective 0003: Understand integrated curriculum design that reflects the ways children construct knowledge.

4. As part of a unit on gardening, teachers in the toddler classroom are planning a series of thematic activities. These will include teaching some simple songs, selecting several big books to read during story times, digging and planting an outdoor garden, measuring and graphing plant growth, and harvesting and preparing vegetables to eat. Using such a wide variety of garden-themed activities best addresses which of the following aspects of child development?

  1. Young children have very short attention spans and need to periodically change activities in which they participate.
  2. Young children develop critical social skills through engaging in different kinds of interactions.
  3. Young children benefit from learning activities that engage and stimulate each of their senses.
  4. Young children need a highly structured program to prepare them for future academic work.
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.

Subarea II–Communication, Language, and Literacy Development

Objective 0004: Understand communication and language development in young children.

5. In a kindergarten classroom, the teacher has set out several wordless books for the children to look at. Periodically, she asks one of the children to "read" the book to her. Asking the children to participate in this activity will be most effective as a way to:

  1. develop the children's oral language skills.
  2. expand the children's interest in different literary genres.
  3. stimulate the children's interest in illustrations.
  4. further the emergence of the children's decoding skills.
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
Objective 0004: Understand communication and language development in young children.

6. A two-and-a-half year old is showing signs of a language delay. She produces only a few, single-syllable words, and her pronunciation is much more difficult to understand than that of her peers. Her language delay is likely to have been influenced most significantly by:

  1. having a brother who is nine months old.
  2. having had her grandmother move in with the family.
  3. having had frequent ear infections in the past 18 months.
  4. having changed child-care providers the previous year.
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
Objective 0005: Understand second-language acquisition and how to facilitate the English language development of young children with diverse linguistic backgrounds.

7. When English Language Learners reach the early production stage of second-language acquisition, they are typically most comfortable performing which of the following language tasks?

  1. responding verbally to open-ended questions
  2. speaking in single words or two-word phrases
  3. using social language in the classroom
  4. speaking in compound or complex sentences
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Objective 0006: Understand the development of concepts about print and how to create a learning environment to promote emergent literacy.

8. A three year old recognizes a word on a sign for a fast-food restaurant and understands that people go inside that building to eat. This is an example of a child making meaning from which of the following?

  1. an illustration
  2. language experimentation
  3. environmental print
  4. a sound-symbol relationship
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
Objective 0007: Understand foundations of reading development.

9. Which of the following strategies could a teacher use most effectively to help emergent and early readers better understand and use semantic cues?

  1. covering up various words in a big book text and having students use meaning to guess the hidden words
  2. presenting a rime such as an, and having students create various words by inserting different onsets
  3. reading a nursery rhyme aloud and prompting students to clap its rhythmic pattern
  4. introducing a memory game and showing students how to match identical words
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
Objective 0007: Understand foundations of reading development.

10. A second-grade teacher reads aloud to the class often, from a wide variety of genres and with great expression. This activity primarily helps students to:

  1. learn what fluent reading sounds like.
  2. draw conclusions and make generalizations about texts.
  3. learn to identify unknown words.
  4. distinguish between fact, fantasy, and opinion.
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.
Objective 0008: Understand writing processes and how to create effective learning opportunities for promoting young children's writing skills.

11. Which of the following materials should a first-grade teacher include in the writing center to best encourage the students to write for various audiences?

  1. a variety of pictures and story starters
  2. individual student journals and blank books
  3. picture dictionaries and an alphabet chart
  4. different sizes and types of paper, envelopes, and cards
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
Objective 0008: Understand writing processes and how to create effective learning opportunities for promoting young children's writing skills.

12. A child at the phonetic stage of spelling development usually writes:

  1. letters for every sound heard within a word.
  2. random letters with no letter-sound correspondence.
  3. words based on how they look rather than on how they sound.
  4. two or three letters to represent whole words.
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.

Subarea III–Learning in the Content Areas

Objective 0009: Understand mathematics concepts and skills.

13. Student R has four fewer pencils than student S, and student T has twice as many pencils as student R. If student S has n pencils, which of the following represents the number of pencils that student T has?

  1. 2n
  2. n – 4
  3. 2n – 4
  4. 2(n – 4)
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
Objective 0010: Understand how to facilitate learning for young children in the area of mathematics.

14. A first-grade teacher notices that several students are having difficulty with simple arithmetic operations. Which of the following would be the most effective way to help these students?

  1. Give them extra problems to practice at home.
  2. Spend some class time reviewing math facts.
  3. Have them work with students who understand the concepts.
  4. Use concrete examples to model how to solve the problems.
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
Objective 0010: Understand how to facilitate learning for young children in the area of mathematics.

15. An adult is watching a two year old play with a set of colored blocks. Which of the following questions would be most appropriate to ask a child of this age to help promote her emergent numeracy development?

  1. "How many blocks do we have if we pick two red blocks and three blue blocks?"
  2. "What is the difference between the blocks in these two piles?"
  3. "Can you pick out the blue blocks and build a tower with them?"
  4. "Can you count after me as we put away the blocks?"
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: D.
Objective 0011: Understand science content and inquiry processes and how to facilitate science learning for young children.

16. Which of the following is primarily responsible for the large-scale movement of continents over the earth's surface over long periods of time?

  1. erosion and weathering of mountain ranges
  2. shifting of tectonic plates
  3. expansion and contraction of glaciers
  4. impacts of meteors striking Earth
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Objective 0011: Understand science content and inquiry processes and how to facilitate science learning for young children.

17. Which of the following activities would provide the best opportunity for third-grade students to apply critical-thinking skills in science?

  1. constructing graphs to compare data from two separate investigations
  2. identifying problems in the way an experiment was carried out
  3. sharing the results of a scientific investigation with the class
  4. discussing ideas for possible science projects
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Objective 0012: Understand social studies content and skills and how to facilitate social studies learning.

18. One morning, a group of kindergarten students come into class talking excitedly about the fire trucks they saw on their way to school. The teacher decides to use the event as the basis for a lesson about community and the people who keep communities safe. Which of the following best explains why this would be a particularly effective opportunity for exploring this topic?

  1. Young students are very concerned about their personal safety and are likely to find any learning activity related to the topic particularly interesting.
  2. Students who saw the fire trucks are likely to have little trouble visualizing what the teacher is talking about.
  3. Young students tend to be highly motivated when engaged in learning activities based on subject matter they can relate to their personal experience.
  4. Students who saw the trucks are likely to have a great deal to say about the people who keep communities safe.
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: C.
Objective 0012: Understand social studies content and skills and how to facilitate social studies learning.

19. Which of the following situations best illustrates the principle of due process of law?

  1. The U.S. Senate approves a presidential appointment to the Supreme Court.
  2. The judge in a criminal trial appoints a lawyer to represent a defendant who cannot afford one.
  3. The U.S. House of Representatives enacts a bill to establish a new district court.
  4. A local citizens' committee mounts a referendum campaign to repeal a state law.
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: B.
Objective 0013: Understand the visual and performing arts and how to facilitate young children's learning in and appreciation of the arts.

20. Three-year-old children typically acquire which of the following music appreciation skills first?

  1. recognizing whether music is being played loudly or softly
  2. knowing whether a song is simple or difficult for a musician to play
  3. recognizing whether the notes in a melody are moving higher or lower
  4. knowing whether a song is being sung by many people or just a few
Enter to expand or collapse answer. Answer expanded
Correct Response: A.