That d*** RICA, part II

My dream is to own a room full of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves

Finished the multiple choice section of the practice exam on the RICA website. I got an 87%, which is not terribly great, but also not terribly failing either. But then, a 60% is a passing score. Which I really don't understand, it's almost like a waste of time to even have people take the test when one can pass with an equivalent grade of D.

Anyway, here are some of the questions I got wrong.

#9

A second-grade teacher informally assesses students' reading development by listening to them read aloud. Anna, a student who generally reads aloud fluently, reads aloud a short story selected by the teacher. In this instance, Anna correctly decodes about two-thirds of the words and pauses frequently as she reads. This informal assessment suggests that Anna:

a) needs instruction designed to improve her phonemic awareness.
b) is likely reading a story at her frustration level.
c) needs instruction designed to improve her oral language skills.
d) is likely reading a story at her instructional reading level.

Correct answer: b

I chose d) at first. I always forget that instructional and frustration levels actually have numbers attached and aren't just a subjective assessment. The instructional reading level is if the student is reading fluently at least 75% of the time. Frustration level is at least 50%. Of course, independent reading level is about higher than 75% of the time, and complete incompetency (this is not the technical term, but I'm too lazy right now to look through my notes for it) is 50% and below.

#15

Which of the following instructional strategies is likely to be most effective in improving the reading fluency of Tolana, a third-grade student?

a) Tolana practices reading a favorite story aloud several times and then reads it into a cassestte recorder to tape the reading.
b) The teacher helps Tolana increase her reading rate by prompting her when she hesitates over unfamiliar words while reading aloud.
c) Tolana reads aloud an unfamiliar passage from a content-area text and then completes a semantic web to clarify the ideas in the passage.
d) The teacher models for Tolana how to take advantage of context clues to identify unfamiliar words while reading aloud.

Correct answer: a.

I chose d), again, at first. I guess I just didn't understand the question very well at first. Practice is usually the most effective way to improve fluency. However, fluency does not equal comprehension, nor does it mean the student will have the same fluency level for a completely different text selection after practicing one story over and over again. Also, some students can read really fast, but at the same time make many careless mistakes. I would rank comprehension and fewer reading mistakes much more important than reading fast.