Test I Reading and Language Arts Study Guide for the GACE

Speaking, Listening, and Presenting

English language arts include more than just reading and writing. Speaking, listening, and presenting are important skills that students should be practicing and teachers should be nurturing in the classroom space. These activities allow students active participation as they engage in conversation, listen to and consider the ideas of others, and effectively communicate their thoughts and ideas to others. Effective oral communication with others, it can be argued, is just as important as effective written communication.

Collaborative Conversations

One way to invite students to actively participate and to share their thoughts on a topic is to encourage collaborative conversations. These conversations may take place in partnerships or small groups so that there is more opportunity for students’ voices to be heard and less pressure or potential embarrassment from being in front of a larger group. They may also be conducted as full class conversations.

These collaborative conversations, where students engage both their speaking and active listening skills, generally center around grade-appropriate topics and may be used to informally assess students’ understanding of a particular concept or text. Collaborative conversations should include the expectation that students use evidence to support their opinions and that the conversation focus on the topic and not devolve into personal attacks or disrespectful language.

It can be nerve-wracking, as a teacher, to allow students to engage in collaborative conversations, as it requires the relinquishing of “control” to the students. Collaborative conversations can create a loud classroom. Collaborative conversations can get off-topic. Collaborative conversations present an opportunity for stronger voices to take over and smaller voices to be drowned out. But collaborative conversations also allow for learning to take place from peer to peer, for quiet voices to join the conversation, and for ideas and connections to be explored. To help ensure that collaborative conversations do not devolve into chaos but instead foster growth and understanding, it is critical that classroom norms and expectations for collaborative conversations be set and enforced, both within the student groups and by the teacher, if necessary.

Necessary Skills

Speaking, listening, and presenting are necessary lifelong skills that students will use and apply well beyond their school years. From presenting a sales pitch to a group of potential buyers to negotiating a salary raise with a boss to being able to work effectively and collaboratively with coworkers, speaking, listening, and presenting skills are critical life skills.

For Speaking

For extroverts, speaking with others may seem an easy, natural task. For introverts, it may induce feelings of insecurity and panic. Learning to speak in an academic setting, applying appropriate rules for speaking, like knowing when to speak and when to listen, requires guidance and support within the classroom. Establishing clear rules for discussions, including how to indicate you have something to say, how to listen when others are speaking, and how to incorporate and consider the ideas of others in your response, are all elements of speaking that must be taught and practiced by students before it becomes their default approach to conversations.

Appropriate for Task—In collaborative conversations within the classroom, students should focus their conversation on the task at hand. This means not allowing the conversation to be diverted to off-topic ideas. Gentle reminders to refocus the group on the question or idea they are to be discussing usually helps get students back on track if the conversation begins to drift. When students get into collaborative groups, you may consider assigning students tasks, including a leader who will step in and redirect the conversation if it starts to drift off-topic.

Appropriate for Purpose—Speaking is a great form of communication, but students should have a clear purpose for speaking when they are engaging in collaborative conversations within the classroom. What is their task in this conversation? Are they exploring a specific idea? Are they supposed to be making connections or drawing comparisons? Setting a clear purpose for the speaking activity will help keep students engaged and on-task.

Appropriate for Audience—Speakers must always consider their audience. Remembering who they are speaking to, with what purpose, and about what topic(s) should guide their diction, volume, and overall engagement. Voice modulation, word choice (formal or informal), and articulation are all areas for speakers to consider based on their knowledge of their audience.

For Listening

Some people find it very easy to speak, but to really listen takes practice and attention. Students must learn to differentiate and know when to employ active listening vs. passive listening. Passive listening is not unengaged listening, but rather listening to hear without considering how they will respond. Passive listening is one-sided. When students are listening to the teacher explain a task or attending an assembly or listening to the librarian during story time, they are engaged in passive listening. Active listening requires interaction and multi-directional communication between participants. In active listening, students make eye contact with the speaker, give visual clues that they understand and are listening to what the speaker is saying, and prepare to respond by asking questions or rewording what they understood the speaker to say.

Appropriate for Task—Just as with speaking, listening must be appropriate for the task. That is to say, students must determine if they are to be active or passive listeners and apply those skills and behaviors accordingly.

Appropriate for Purpose—Listening must also be done with a purpose. In active listening, what is the purpose of listening to this speaker? What are students going to be asked to do with the information being presented? There may be a variety of purposes to listening: to gain information or understanding, to make connections or comparisons, or to consider opposing arguments or ideas, to name a few.

Appropriate for Audience—Both active and passive listening activities must be appropriate for the audience. Considering your students’ grade level and age-appropriate behavior expectations, listening expectations must be set accordingly. If you are asking students to engage in passive listening, as when you are giving directions, for example, make sure distractions are kept to a minimum and that you check in with your audience to check for understanding. In active listening tasks, such as engaging in collaborative conversations, remind students about listening etiquette: making eye contact with the speaker, nodding in agreement or to indicate understanding, etc.

For Presenting

Presentations in front of an audience can be a frightening experience for students. To build confidence and a level of comfort, provide students a variety of opportunities to present to an audience and a variety of formats in which they might complete these presentations. This may include “live” or pre-recorded presentations. Regardless of the format, certain qualities or characteristics should be present.

Appropriate for Task—The presentation should be appropriate to the task. For example, if the speaker is trying to persuade or convince the audience of something, the words and demeanor the speaker uses will be different than if they are presenting information to expand the audience’s understanding.

Appropriate for Purpose—What is the purpose of the presentation? Depending on why a student is presenting, they may ask rhetorical questions of their audience or they may use visual aids to help the audience understand a particular concept. The purpose of the presentation drives many of the choices the speaker makes in delivering the presentation.

Appropriate for Audience—Considering the audience is always a critical component to a successful presentation. Making connections with the audience, understanding the arguments that are likely to inspire them, and what their purpose is in listening to the presentation are factors to consider.

Grammar and Vocabulary Development

Readers and writers need to understand and be able to apply standard grammar and vocabulary conventions to their writing to effectively communicate. While grammar and vocabulary instruction will lay the foundation and supply the “rules,” students can also gain an understanding of grammar and vocabulary by reading. Seeing how authors use language and modeling those structures themselves aids students in honing their grammar skills and being able to identify when something doesn’t look or sound “right.”

Conventions of Standard English

All languages have a standard set of rules or guiding principles to ensure consistency and clarity among users. English is no exception. The conventions of standard English are the standard, accepted practices of language usage. Covering things like capitalization, spelling, and punctuation, students learn the conventions of standard English so they can identify, apply, and use them in their reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Instruction of English conventions must be grade level appropriate, as one skill generally builds upon another.

You are likely to have students with a variety of levels of language knowledge within the same class, and understanding how these skills build on one another is critical in determining which foundational steps students need to move them to the next level of language understanding. While students in first grade are practicing with when to use capital or lowercase letters and using singular and plural nouns with the correct singular or plural verb, students in grade five are working to identify and use correlative conjunctions. Clearly, students cannot grasp the higher-level grammar concepts without first mastering the more foundational understanding.

Grammar

Grammar is the umbrella term used to describe or refer to the system, structure, and rules of language. Understanding and knowing how to apply these rules to writing and speaking allows students to more clearly and effectively communicate with others. If standard grammar rules are not followed, an audience may be confused or misunderstand what the speaker or writer is trying to communicate.

Punctuation

Want to ask a question? Maybe you need to make a statement. It’s shocking! But punctuation is what allows students to do each of those things. Periods, commas, question marks, exclamation points, quotation marks, parentheses, and apostrophes are just some of the many punctuation marks that can be used in English to separate sentences and ideas and to clarify meaning. As with all conventions, students start with the “easier” end punctuation (periods, exclamation points, question marks) and build from there to understand how to effectively use commas, build contractions or show possession using apostrophes, join sentences with semicolons, and so on.

Spelling

Spelling rules help regulate which letters are used in which combination to form words. Without spelling rules, there would be confusion as to what a word might mean. Many factors influence how a word is spelled and, although there are some general rules like “i before e except after c,” there are always exceptions to these rules and students may have a difficult time remembering when and how to apply the rules and their exceptions in the early stages of literacy development.

Explicit Spelling Instruction

Teachers may elect to engage students with explicit spelling instruction, showing and having them practice with letter patterns and sequential order of letters to form words, but the most effective spelling instruction is likely to come by using a variety of strategies. Teaching phonics vs. the whole word approach vs. morphemic instruction are all strategies for teaching spelling. The key is consistent practice with and exposure to standard spelling conventions.

Dealing with Inventive Spelling

Emerging writers tend to rely on inventive spelling. Being encouraged to “sound it out,” students may select the wrong letters to string together to make words. Often, it can be discerned what word was intended, and reminders of how to apply phonics, for example, will help students get in the habit of applying their knowledge to hone their spelling skills. Frequent writing practice and frequent reading of texts containing challenging and often misspelled words will help students apply correct spelling in their own writing.

Vocabulary Development

Similar to reading development, vocabulary development is the process of learning and assimilating new words into one’s lexicon. Vocabulary development when children are young is pointed to as an indicator of their likely reading comprehension abilities later on, which is why it’s important to focus on vocabulary development and exposing students to a wide variety of words early on so they become stronger readers.

Components of Vocabulary

Vocabulary includes not only the words a student knows, but their overall consciousness of words and language. Effective vocabulary instruction will include regular and meaningful exposure to and interaction with words. Reading a variety of texts exposes students to language and vocabulary and builds their consciousness and awareness of words. Listening and speaking affords opportunities for students to use a variety of words to communicate with their audience. Studying synonyms and antonyms gives students the opportunity to learn new ways of expressing similar thoughts and ideas.

Generalized Vocabulary

Generalized vocabulary refers to the words and terms that are a part of everyday life. These are the words that allow us to effectively communicate with those around us and are often learned from listening to them being used and then learning to recognize them when they are seen in print. Generalized or academic vocabulary is learned by exposure to and interaction with these terms both in and out of the classroom. These are words that students are likely to encounter on a regular basis.

Specialized Vocabulary

Specialized vocabulary tends to be specific to a particular field of study. It may be more technical in nature or used by only a very specific sector of society. These words may be encountered far less frequently than generalized vocabulary words. Depending on how students are exposed to these words, they may need direct instruction on them in order to make meaning in a reading selection.

Addressing Unknown Words

Students of all ages and reading proficiencies are likely to encounter unknown or unfamiliar words. They will need to have skills in their toolbox to allow them to face these obstacles and address unknown words. There are a variety of strategies that can be used to help them make meaning and decode new words.

Pictures

One way students might address unknown or unfamiliar words is to use pictures on the page to help them make meaning. Sometimes an image can give a reader insight into the topic and help him to better understand the content being read.

Phonics

As addressed earlier in this study guide, phonics can be used to “sound out” an unfamiliar word. By breaking it down and sounding out the letters, students may be able to recognize its sound even if they didn’t recognize what the word looks like.

Word Parts

Breaking unknown words down into identifiable word parts can also help students make meaning. Prefixes like un- or non- indicate the negative. If students can identify the root of a word, they may use that as a basis for meaning and then consider any prefixes or suffixes that might be attached.

Context Clues

Authors often include context clues in their writing to help readers navigate potentially unfamiliar or unknown words. These hints are embedded in the text around the word and provide clues as to meaning. Context clues may include synonyms, antonyms, definitions, or explanations, as examples. Identifying and understanding how they relate to the unfamiliar word can help readers make meaning of that word.