Your FREE TExES STR (293) Flashcards 2026 – 100+ Cards

The body of converging research (cognitive science, linguistics, education) on how reading develops and how to teach it effectively; the basis of the TExES STR exam.

Reading Comprehension = Word Recognition x Language Comprehension; if either factor is near zero, comprehension is near zero (Gough & Tunmer).

A model showing skilled reading as woven strands of word recognition (becoming automatic) and language comprehension (becoming strategic).

The lower strands — phonological awareness, decoding, and sight recognition — that become increasingly automatic with practice.

The upper strands — background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, literacy knowledge — that become increasingly strategic.

The National Reading Panel's essential components: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

Clearly modeling and directly teaching a skill with guided practice and feedback, rather than expecting students to discover it.

Teaching skills in a planned, logical sequence from simple to complex, with each skill building on the last.

Temporary, targeted support that lets a student perform a task just beyond their independent level; gradually withdrawn as competence grows.

Vygotsky's range between what a learner can do alone and what they can do with support; the sweet spot for instruction.

The 'I do, we do, you do' model: teacher models, then guides shared practice, then releases the student to independent work.

Adjusting content, process, or grouping to meet students' specific reading levels and needs rather than teaching everyone identically.

Small-group instruction with texts matched to students' instructional reading level so the teacher can support specific skills.

A real-time coding of a student's oral reading (errors, self-corrections) that measures accuracy and fluency and reveals strategy use.

Examining a reader's errors to see whether they over-rely on meaning, structure, or visual cues, guiding instruction.

A brief, universal first pass that flags students who may be at risk in reading; it is not a diagnosis.

An in-depth assessment that pinpoints the specific skill gap (e.g., phonics, fluency) to target instruction.

Frequent, brief checks (e.g., fluency probes) of whether instruction is working, used to adjust teaching.

Ongoing assessment during learning used to adjust instruction; contrasts with summative assessment of final learning.

Brief, standardized probes (e.g., words read correct per minute) used to monitor reading growth over time.

Text a student reads with about 95-100% accuracy and good comprehension, suitable for reading alone.

Text a student reads with about 90-94% accuracy; challenging but manageable with teacher support — ideal for guided reading.

Text a student reads with below ~90% accuracy and weak comprehension; too hard for productive instruction.

A tiered framework providing increasingly intensive, data-driven support to students who do not respond to core instruction.

A specific learning disability rooted in a phonological deficit, causing difficulty with accurate, fluent word recognition and spelling.

Explicit, systematic, cumulative teaching of language structure (phonology, sound-symbol, syllables, morphology, syntax); effective for dyslexia.

Engaging visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile pathways together (e.g., tracing letters while saying sounds) to reinforce learning.

The early reading and writing knowledge children develop before conventional reading — print awareness, alphabet knowledge, oral language.

Knowing how print works: that we read left-to-right and top-to-bottom, that print carries meaning, and what a letter, word, and sentence are.

Building on a student's first-language knowledge and providing comprehensible input and scaffolds to develop English literacy.

A reader's awareness and control of their own comprehension — noticing confusion and applying fix-up strategies.

The broad oral ability to hear and manipulate sound units in speech — words, syllables, onsets/rimes, and phonemes.

The most advanced subset of phonological awareness: hearing and manipulating individual phonemes; the strongest early predictor of reading.

The smallest unit of sound in a spoken word; English has about 44 phonemes (e.g., 'cat' has three: /k/ /a/ /t/).

A letter or letter combination that represents a single phoneme in print (e.g., 's', 'sh', 'igh').

The systematic relationship between written letters and spoken sounds; the heart of phonics.

The understanding that letters and letter patterns represent the sounds of spoken words in a systematic way.

Combining individual sounds into a word (/c/ /a/ /t/ = 'cat'); the phonemic-awareness skill behind decoding/reading.

Breaking a word into its individual sounds ('cat' = /c/ /a/ /t/); the phonemic-awareness skill behind spelling/encoding.

Identifying a specific sound in a word, such as the first sound in 'sun' (/s/).

Adding, deleting, or substituting sounds in a word (say 'cat' without /c/ = 'at'); an advanced phonemic-awareness skill.

The consonant sound(s) before the vowel in a syllable; in 'cat,' the onset is /c/.

The vowel and everything after it in a syllable; in 'cat,' the rime is /at/. Basis of word families.

A group of words sharing the same rime pattern (cat, hat, bat, sat); helps students decode by analogy.

Hearing and segmenting the syllables in a spoken word (e.g., clapping pen-cil); an early phonological skill.

Instruction in the relationships between letters/graphemes and sounds/phonemes used to decode and spell words.

Teaching individual letter-sounds and blending (synthesizing) them into words; the most explicit, evidence-based approach.

Analyzing whole known words to find shared sound patterns, without sounding letters in isolation.

Decoding new words by using familiar word parts/rimes (knowing '-ick' helps read sick, kick, trick).

Phonics taught in a planned, cumulative sequence; the National Reading Panel found it improves reading, spelling, and comprehension.

Translating printed letters into sounds to read a word; applying phonics knowledge to unfamiliar words.

Translating spoken sounds into letters to spell a word; the reverse of decoding.

Text made mostly of words using phonics patterns already taught, giving controlled practice applying decoding.

Common words readers recognize instantly; some are irregular ('said,' 'was') and must be partly memorized.

The process of bonding a word's sounds, letters, and meaning so it becomes an instantly recognized sight word.

The smallest unit of meaning in a word (e.g., 're-', 'cat', '-s'); roots and affixes are morphemes.

The study of word structure — roots, prefixes, and suffixes — used to decode and infer meaning of complex words.

A morpheme added to the front of a base word that changes its meaning (e.g., 'un-' in 'unhappy').

A morpheme added to the end of a base word, changing meaning or part of speech (e.g., '-ness' in 'kindness').

Dividing words into syllables to decode them; common types include closed, open, and silent-e syllables.

A syllable ending in a consonant with a short vowel sound (e.g., 'cat,' 'nap-kin').

A syllable ending in a vowel that usually has a long vowel sound (e.g., 'go,' 'he,' the 'ti' in 'tiger').

Two letters that represent one sound (e.g., 'sh,' 'ch,' 'th,' 'ea').

Two or three consonants whose sounds are each heard (e.g., 'bl' in 'black,' 'str' in 'street').

Reading with accuracy, appropriate rate, and prosody; the bridge between decoding and comprehension.

Reading words correctly; one of the three components of reading fluency.

Reading at an appropriate speed, often measured as words correct per minute; a component of fluency.

Reading with expression, phrasing, and intonation; the component of fluency that signals comprehension.

Recognizing words effortlessly and instantly, freeing attention for comprehension.

Rereading a passage aloud with teacher feedback; the most evidence-based way to build fluency.

Having students read aloud one at a time in turn; an inefficient, discouraged practice for building fluency.

Listening and speaking ability — vocabulary, syntax, and discourse — that forms the foundation for literacy.

A visual tool where students push a marker into a box for each phoneme to practice segmenting sounds.

An activity in which students categorize words by sound or spelling pattern to discover phonics generalizations.

Knowledge of word meanings; a major contributor to reading comprehension, taught directly and through wide reading.

Words a person understands when reading or listening, generally larger than their expressive vocabulary.

Words a person uses when speaking or writing.

Tier 1 = everyday words; Tier 2 = high-utility academic words (best for direct teaching); Tier 3 = specialized content words.

Hints in surrounding text (definition, example, contrast) that help a reader infer an unfamiliar word's meaning.

A graphic organizer linking a word to related words and concepts to deepen and connect word knowledge.

A word with a shared origin and similar form/meaning across languages (English 'family' / Spanish 'familia'); useful for English learners.

Constructing meaning from text — the ultimate goal of reading.

Understanding what a text states explicitly — facts, sequence, and stated details.

Reading between the lines — combining text clues with prior knowledge to grasp meaning that is not stated.

Judging and analyzing a text — its author's purpose, point of view, evidence, and effectiveness.

What a reader already knows about a topic; it frames new information and powerfully supports comprehension.

A mental framework of organized knowledge a reader uses to interpret and store new information from text.

Drawing conclusions not explicitly stated by combining text evidence with background knowledge.

A teacher verbalizing their thinking while reading to model invisible comprehension strategies for students.

Students take turns leading a discussion using four strategies: predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing.

Using text clues and prior knowledge to anticipate what comes next, engaging the reader actively.

Condensing a text to its main ideas in one's own words; a key comprehension and study strategy.

Generating questions before, during, and after reading to monitor and deepen comprehension.

Noticing a breakdown in understanding and using a fix-up strategy (reread, look up a word) to repair it.

Forming mental images of a text to support comprehension and memory.

Headings, captions, bold terms, diagrams, indexes, and tables of contents that organize and signal information in nonfiction.

How a text is organized — cause-effect, compare-contrast, sequence, problem-solution, description; recognizing it aids comprehension.

A visual tool (Venn diagram, story map, KWL chart) that helps students organize ideas and relationships in a text.

The central point a text makes about its topic; supporting details explain or prove it.

The parts of a story — setting, characters, plot, conflict, resolution, theme — used to comprehend narrative text.

Nonfiction text that informs or explains; comprehended using text features, structure, and background knowledge.

Careful, repeated reading of a short, complex text to analyze its meaning, language, and structure in depth.

A pre-reading organizer recording what students Know, Want to know, and Learned, activating prior knowledge.

A set of statements students react to before reading, activating prior knowledge and setting a purpose.

Extensive reading across many texts that builds vocabulary, background knowledge, and fluency over time.

An open-ended STR task where a candidate analyzes a scenario/student work and explains a research-based instructional response.

Applying reading science to a real student — identifying a specific strength or need and recommending targeted instruction.

Using assessment evidence to pinpoint the exact reading skill a student needs, before choosing a strategy.

Using assessment results — not labels or guesses — to plan, adjust, and intensify reading instruction.

An instructional practice supported by reading research; the kind a strong constructed response recommends.

Questions that require inference, analysis, or evaluation rather than simple recall, deepening comprehension.

Language that means something beyond the literal — metaphor, simile, personification, symbolism — analyzed for effect.

A direct comparison stating one thing is another ('time is a thief'); analyzed for how it shapes meaning.

A comparison using 'like' or 'as' ('brave as a lion').

Using an object, person, or image to represent a larger idea; a focus of evaluative literary analysis.

The central message or insight about life a text conveys; inferred from the whole work.

Why an author wrote a text — to inform, persuade, entertain, or explain; central to critical comprehension.

The perspective or attitude an author takes toward a subject, which readers evaluate critically.

Distinguishing verifiable statements from subjective judgments; taught by identifying subjective language and checking sources.

Weighing an author's evidence, logic, and bias to judge a text's quality or trustworthiness.

Analyzing how two texts treat a topic, theme, or viewpoint to deepen critical understanding.

Structured argument over a text or issue that drives deep engagement and critical analysis of viewpoints.

Examining a text's genre conventions (poetry, historical fiction, persuasive essay) to interpret its meaning and craft.

A recurring element, image, or idea in a text that develops its theme.

How time and place shape a story's events and characters; an analytical comprehension target.