I'm taking the RICA in about 2-3 weeks and I'm STILL not particularly anxious about it. My intentions for winter break were to study for the thing everyday, but so far I've probably only accumulated about an hour and a half of actual study.
So I'm worried about not worrying about it. Great. I should be worried because a significant number of people I know failed it on the first try. I'm not worried because I was lucky enough to have taught first grade in phase I and pretty much have a solid base on teaching literacy in elementary school.
Still I'm studying the sample questions available online this last week of winter break. I don't trust the study guides for RICA - I looked at them in a bookstore once and found a lot of mistakes. The commercial CSET study guides were like that too, lots of mistakes. But I figure if I can identify the mistakes for myself, then I'm good to go on the actual test.
Sample question 1
Compared with standardized reading assessments, one important advantage of informal reading assessments is that they allow the teacher to:
A: characterize a student's reading proficiency in terms of grade-level performance.
B: personalize reading assessments to identify the needs of individual students.
C: avoid bias in the administration and interpretation of reading assessments.
D: compare the reading performance of individual students to other students in the class.
Correct answer: B
Informal reading assessments by nature are biased and differs according to each individual student. Thus they can't be used as a comparison. Nor can you judge a student's grade-level performance because informal assessments target specific reading weaknesses, not an overall picture of the student's abilities.
Sample question 2
An elementary school teacher is considering various instructional methods and materials to use in relation to specific reading objectives. When making these decisions, the teacher's first priority should be to select methods and materials that:
A: address the reading strengths and needs of all students.
B: reflect the latest trends and ideas related to reading instruction.
C: represent the most cost-effective approach to reading instruction.
D: are recommended by other experienced teachers in the school.
Correct answer: A
This one is pretty obvious. The latest trends are not always the ones that work the best; same applies to recommendations from other teachers. It may have worked for some students, but for sure it won't work for all. I believe they just threw option C in there to fill up space.
There are basically two choices for reading curriculum mandated for California public schools: Open Court and Houghton-Mifflin. Both cost and arm and a leg, and maybe a soul. It's such a waste too, because most effective teachers will supplement these materials with their own stuff anyway - stuff that's usually better suited for the class because it's the teachers that know the students, not the curriculum creators.
Sample question 3
A 6th grade teacher is reviewing the results of a standardized reading test that include a grade-equivalent interpretation of student performance on the test. When reviewing these data, the teacher should understand that a grade-equivalent score of 6.4 is intended to indicate that a student's reading performance on this test:
A: was as good or better than 64% of students in the same grade in the same school.
B: places her/him in the top 6.4% of students at the same grade level in the same school.
C: was as good or better than 64% of students in the same grade nationwide.
D: corresponds to the expected skill level of a student in the fourth month of 6th grade.
Correct answer: D
A typical school year is about 10 months long. The common decimal system is base 10. Toss in some quick math skills and I'm golden. D is also the only option that has nothing to do with % - which good test takers should be able to deduct that "the one different from the others is the correct choice."
If that weren't enough to convince anyone: grade-equivalent scores mean that if a student gets a score that matches their grade, then they are at the level of a student beginning that grade. A 5th grader with a score of 6 means they are at the skill level expected of a 6th grader at the beginning of the school year. But if the 5th grader scores a 4.5, then he/she is at the same skill expectation as a student halfway through the 4th grade (which, by the way, is quite tragic, even though the score difference is only a point and half). More simple logic, and the "0.4" part of "6.4" is solved. ::sigh:: If only all of the RICA questions were so handily based upon mathematics.
Keep in mind that even grade-equivalent scores can be misleading. Although a 5th grader scoring 5 sounds like he/she is meeting standards, it really depends on when the test was taken. If it was at the beginning of the year, it's fine and dandy. If it was at the end of year, the student really should be scoring something closer to a 5.8 or 5.9, if not higher.
I would put more, but that's enough for now since it would make this entry super long and I haven't figured out how to make my blog template recognize the html codes for expandable post summaries.
Questions from www.rica.nesinc.com
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