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Grade 4 - Claim 1 - Target 3

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English Language Arts

Target 3

Word Meanings

Determine intended meanings of words, including words with multiple meanings (academic/tier 2 words), based on context, word relationships (e.g., antonyms, synonyms), word structure (e.g., common Greek or Latin roots, affixes), or use of reference materials (e.g., dictionary), with primary focus on determining meaning based on context and the academic (tier 2) vocabulary common to complex texts in all disciplines.

Sample Item

Grade 4

Test

Claim 1

Reading

Students can read closely and analytically to comprehend a range of increasingly complex literary and informational texts.

Grade

Grade 4

Standards

L-4aL-4bL-4cL-5cRL-1RL-4

Standards

  • L-4a

    Use context (e.g., definitions, examples, or restatements in text) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

  • L-4b

    Use common, grade-appropriate Greek and Latin affixes and roots as clues to the meaning of a word (e.g., telegraph, photograph, autograph).

  • L-4c

    Consult reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation and determine or clarify the precise meaning of key words and phrases.

  • L-5c

    Demonstrate understanding of words by relating them to their opposites (antonyms) and to words with similar but not identical meanings (synonyms).

  • RL-1

    Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.

  • RL-4

    Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including those that allude to significant characters found in mythology (e.g., Herculean).

Clarifications

Targeted vocabulary words and phrases should be important to the text and worth assessing. The targeted vocabulary words and phrases should be one to two grade levels above testing grade. If the targeted word/phrase...

Range Achievement Level Descriptors

Evidence Required

  • 1

    The student will determine the meaning of a word or phrase based on its context in a literary text.

  • 2

    The student will determine the intended meaning of academic/tier 2 words and domain-specific/tier 3 words in a literary text.

  • 3

    The student will use resources to determine the correct meaning of an unknown word or phrase in a literary text.

  • 4

    The student will use Greek or Latin word parts to determine the correct meaning of an unknown word or phrase in a literary text.

Item Guidelines

Depth of Knowledge

  • R-DOK1

    Level 1 requires students to receive or recite facts or to use simple skills or abilities. Oral reading that does not include analysis of the text as well as basic comprehension of a text is included. Items require only a...

  • R-DOK2

    Level 2 includes the engagement of some mental processing beyond recalling or reproducing a response; it requires both comprehension and subsequent processing of text or portions of text. Intersentence analysis of inference is required. Some important concepts are covered but...

Allowable Item Types

  • Multiple Choice, single correct response
  • Multi-Select, multiple correct response
  • Hot Text, select text

Stimuli

  • Passages

    Each text must include one or more words that are at grades 4-6 reading level, OR words that have nuanced meanings, OR words that have multiple meanings and used differently in the text. Emphasis is placed on academic/tier 2 words....

  • Dual-Text Stimuli

    When a dual-text set contains one literary and one informational text, the literary text (text #1) is the primary focus, and the set of items must include items from the literary stimulus as well as items written across both texts....

Accessibility

Refer to the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium: Usability, Accessibility, and Accommodations Guidelines for information on accessibility.

Task Models

Task Model 1

  • Item Types

    Multiple Choice, single correct response

  • Depth of Knowledge

    R-DOK1, R-DOK2

Target Evidence Statement

  • The student will determine the meaning of a word or phrase based on its context in a literary text.

  • The student will determine the intended meaning of academic/tier 2 words and domain-specific/tier 3 words in a literary text.

  • The student will use resources to determine the correct meaning of an unknown word or phrase in a literary text.

  • The student will use Greek or Latin word parts to determine the correct meaning of an unknown word or phrase in a literary text.

Task Description

The item stem will pose a question about the meaning of a targeted word or phrase in the passage. The sentence or sentences in which the targeted word is found are excerpted and need...

Appropriate Stems

(Note: In this automated version of the item specification, underlined text appears in italics.) Read the [sentence(s)/line(s)]. [Directly quoted sentence(s) or line(s) from passage, with targeted word/phrase underlined] What is the meaning of the [word/phrase] [targeted word/“targeted...

Appropriate Stems for Dual-Stimuli

(Note: In this automated version of the item specification, underlined text appears in italics.) Read the [sentence(s)/line(s)] from [title text #2]. [Directly quoted sentence(s) or line(s) from passage, with targeted word/phrase underlined] Which sentence from [title text...

Scoring Rules

Correct response: 1 point; Incorrect response: 0 points