Reading Instruction Competence Assessment (RICA) Test – Sample

After reading a story aloud to his first-grade class, Mr. Jackson asks Jimmy, one of the students, to describe what happened in the story. Jimmy gives a good summary, but leaves out one of the main characters, so Mr. Jackson asks him some leading questions to stir his memory. This teaching strategy is called:

Students who need help with prosody…

How many words per day on average do children learn once they begin using single words?

What percentage of the words in an independent reading assignment must a student understand?

Midway through the year, a second-grade
teacher convenes a student success team to
plan additional support for a student who
is performing somewhat below grade-level
standards in reading. Other members of
the team include the student and her
parents, another teacher who works
closely with the student, and a school
administrator. In the context of
developing an improvement plan for the
student, which of the following pieces
of information would be most important
for the teacher to communicate to the
success team?

A second-grade teacher would like to plan
an activity to improve the reading rate of
two students who read at about the same
rate and level and are both automatic
readers. Which of the following activities
would best address the students’ needs?

Which is an example of an ongoing assessment?

Use the context to decide what the meaning of the word facetious is:

Keesha was almost never serious. She annoyed people with her facetious comments despite her attempt at being funny. When Carlos said he failed algebra, she jokingly responded saying, ‘I guess you’re not smart enough.’

Function words such as to, the, and of are
most appropriately taught in the context of
which of the following areas of reading
instruction?

Lately, when choosing a book to read, a
third grader who reads at grade level
always selects books from a series that is
written in a very formulaic style that does
little to extend his conceptual or language
development. The teacher’s best response
to this behavior would be to: