• 48 questions

Teaching Reading Praxis 5204 Practice Test

Unofficial practice questions on teaching reading, spread like the ETS outline for Teaching Reading: K-12 (5206).

By the IES elementary writing guide, in which grade should students be introduced to typing?

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Unofficial practice questions, not affiliated with ETS (Educational Testing Service). Bank checked October 13, 2026.

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All 48 questions

Phonemic awareness and emergent literacy 7

  • A kindergarten teacher is choosing between two phonemic awareness programs. One has children move letter tiles as they segment words, and the other is oral only. What did the National Reading Panel find about teaching phoneme manipulation with letters? National Reading Panel, Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups, Chapter 2, Part I: Phonemic Awareness Instruction. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, I. Phonological and Phonemic Awareness and Emergent Literacy, C. instructional methods for teaching phonemic awareness.
  • A school screens every kindergartner for reading risk in the fall. Which pair of measures does the IES response-to-intervention guide list for kindergarten and grade 1? IES practice guide, Assisting Students Struggling with Reading: Response to Intervention, Recommendation 1, Table 3. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, I. Phonological and Phonemic Awareness and Emergent Literacy, G. assessment methods.
  • A teacher is deciding which letter sounds to introduce first to beginning readers. What does the IES foundational skills guide recommend presenting first? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Recommendation 2, step 2. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, I. Phonological and Phonemic Awareness and Emergent Literacy, F. letter names and sounds.
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Phonemic awareness and emergent literacy, continued

  • A teacher plans to cover rhyming, blending, segmenting, deletion and substitution together in one three-week phonemic awareness unit. What does the National Reading Panel's analysis suggest? National Reading Panel, Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups, Chapter 2, Part I: Phonemic Awareness Instruction. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, I. Phonological and Phonemic Awareness and Emergent Literacy, C. instructional methods for teaching phonemic awareness.
  • A teacher reads a big book aloud, sliding a pointer under each word and sweeping back to the left edge at the end of every line. Which concept of print is she modeling? Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, Reading Standards: Foundational Skills, kindergarten, Print Concepts 1a. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, I. Phonological and Phonemic Awareness and Emergent Literacy, E. concepts about print.
  • After reading a story aloud, a first-grade teacher wants to build inferential language. Which question fits that goal? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Glossary, "inferential language". Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, I. Phonological and Phonemic Awareness and Emergent Literacy, A. oral language development.
  • Which grouping did the National Reading Panel find produced the largest effects on children's acquisition of phonemic awareness? National Reading Panel, Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups, Chapter 2, Part I: Phonemic Awareness Instruction. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, I. Phonological and Phonemic Awareness and Emergent Literacy, C. instructional methods for teaching phonemic awareness.

Phonics and decoding 9

  • A class has just learned the sh digraph. Which practice does Recommendation 3 of the IES foundational skills guide call for next? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Recommendation 3, step 4. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, II. Phonics and Decoding, B. methods for teaching phonics and decoding.
  • A first-grade story is about a giraffe, a word the class cannot yet decode but needs in order to follow the text. What does the IES foundational skills guide advise? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Recommendation 3, step 6. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, II. Phonics and Decoding, F. recognition of nondecodable and irregularly spelled words.
  • A phonics sequence has covered single consonants, short vowels, blends and digraphs. By the order in the IES foundational skills guide, what comes next? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Recommendation 2, step 2. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, II. Phonics and Decoding, B. teaching phonics systematically, explicitly and recursively.
  • A student reads the word flag by saying /f/, then /fl/, then /fla/, then flag, adding one sound each time. Which blending strategy is this? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Glossary, "chunking" and "sounding out". Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, II. Phonics and Decoding, B. teaching phonics and decoding.
  • A teacher gives first graders a timed list of made-up words such as vop and tig. By the IES response-to-intervention guide, what does a nonsense word fluency measure assess? IES practice guide, Assisting Students Struggling with Reading: Response to Intervention, Recommendation 1, Table 3. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, II. Phonics and Decoding, G. formal and informal assessment of phonics and decoding.
  • A third grader stops at the long word disagreement and looks up for help. Which step opens the word-analysis strategy in the IES foundational skills guide? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Recommendation 3, Example 3.6. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, II. Phonics and Decoding, E. teaching syllable types in decoding multisyllabic words.
  • In a morphology lesson, students break the word replanted into its meaningful parts. How many morphemes should they find? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Glossary, "morphology", "prefix" and "suffix". Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, II. Phonics and Decoding, D. morphological analysis (affixes, roots and base words).
  • In the IES foundational skills guide, how should a teacher present a consonant blend such as st, as opposed to a digraph such as sh? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Recommendation 2, step 2. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, II. Phonics and Decoding, C. common phonics patterns (consonant digraphs, blends).
  • With letter tiles a teacher says, "Make sat. Now change one letter to make sit." By the IES foundational skills guide, when can word-building of this kind begin? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Recommendation 2, step 3. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, II. Phonics and Decoding, A. impact of decoding skills on literacy development.

Vocabulary and fluency 11

  • A fourth grader misreads so many words in a chapter book that she cannot follow the story, even with help. For her, which level of text is this? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Glossary, "frustration-level text". Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, III. Vocabulary and Fluency, I. assessment data used to guide fluency instruction.
  • A reading team argues over whether to teach word meanings directly or to rely on wide reading. What did the National Reading Panel conclude about vocabulary instruction? National Reading Panel, Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups, Chapter 4, Part I: Vocabulary Instruction. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, III. Vocabulary and Fluency, H. how fluency, vocabulary and comprehension are interrelated.
  • A school must choose between adding guided repeated oral reading and adding more time for independent silent reading. What did the National Reading Panel conclude? National Reading Panel, Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups, Chapter 3: Fluency. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, III. Vocabulary and Fluency, B. methods of supporting fluent reading behaviors.
  • A seventh-grade science teacher introduces the word erosion once, with a definition on the board, and moves on. What does the IES adolescent literacy guide recommend instead? IES practice guide, Improving Adolescent Literacy, Recommendation 1. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, III. Vocabulary and Fluency, C. building vocabulary systematically, explicitly and through repeated exposures.
  • A Spanish-speaking sixth grader notices that the English word information looks like the Spanish word información. How does the IES English learner guide treat word pairs of this kind? IES practice guide, Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners, Recommendation 1, criteria for choosing words. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, III. Vocabulary and Fluency, F. vocabulary instruction (e.g., cognates) for second-language learners.
  • A student reads "The frog jumped into the pond" as "The frog jumped into the pound" and keeps going. Which teacher prompt builds the self-monitoring that the IES foundational skills guide describes? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Recommendation 4, step 2. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, III. Vocabulary and Fluency, A. fluency: accuracy and self-efficacy.
  • A teacher is choosing a few words from a short article to teach in depth to a class with many English learners. Which kind of word does the IES English learner guide tell her to pick? IES practice guide, Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners, Recommendation 1, criteria for choosing words. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, III. Vocabulary and Fluency, E. guiding students to understand common and content-specific words through direct instruction.
  • A teacher reads one sentence aloud with expression, and the student then reads the same sentence aloud. Which fluency practice is this? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Glossary, "echo reading". Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, III. Vocabulary and Fluency, A. instructional methods to foster fluency.
  • Before a choral reading, students mark the commas and periods in a poem and practice pausing at each. Which element of fluent reading is the lesson aimed at? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Glossary, "expression". Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, III. Vocabulary and Fluency, G. how grammatical functions and punctuation affect fluency and meaning.
  • The IES adolescent literacy guide wants students to become independent vocabulary learners. Which pair of strategies does it name? IES practice guide, Improving Adolescent Literacy, Recommendation 1, step 4. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, III. Vocabulary and Fluency, D. approaches to teach word-solving and structural analysis.
  • Six second graders scored below benchmark in the fall and now meet in a small group for extra instruction. By the IES response-to-intervention guide, how often should their progress be monitored? IES practice guide, Assisting Students Struggling with Reading: Response to Intervention, Recommendation 4. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, III. Vocabulary and Fluency, I. assessment data used to guide instruction and monitor student progress.

Comprehension of literary and informational text 14

  • A ninth-grade teacher is about to teach summarizing for the first time. By the IES adolescent literacy guide, what should she do about the text she uses? IES practice guide, Improving Adolescent Literacy, Recommendation 2. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text, B. applying knowledge of child and adolescent development to the teaching of texts.
  • A passage mentions a lifeguard, sandcastles and gulls but never names the setting. A teacher shows how those words point to a beach. Which strategy is she teaching? IES practice guide, Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Recommendation 1, Table 3, "drawing inferences". Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text, I. directing students to draw inferences from text.
  • A second grader understands a story well when it is read to her but not when she reads it herself. Given what reading comprehension depends on, where is the breakdown most likely? IES practice guide, Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Glossary, "reading comprehension". Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text, A. listening comprehension and reading comprehension.
  • A sixth grader writes, "The narrator is lonely." What should the teacher ask for, in line with the grade 6 Common Core reading standard? Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, Reading Standards for Literature, grade 6, standard 1. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text, I. citing relevant textual evidence to support comprehension and text analysis.
  • A teacher checks a novel's readability score, reads it for its themes and structure, and then asks whether it suits her students and the assignment. Which model is she applying? Common Core State Standards, Measuring Text Complexity: Three Factors, the three factors. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text, D. measures of text complexity (qualitative, quantitative, reader and task).
  • A teacher makes an anchor chart of clue words that signal a compare-and-contrast text. By the table in the IES comprehension guide, which words belong on it? IES practice guide, Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Recommendation 2, Table 6. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text, N. genre text structure (description, cause and effect) and text features.
  • A third-grade teacher uses only short stories for comprehension lessons. Which change follows Recommendation 4 of the IES comprehension guide? IES practice guide, Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Recommendation 4. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text, C. differentiating instruction, tasks and materials.
  • An eighth-grade teacher wants to raise motivation to read. Which condition does the IES adolescent literacy guide name? IES practice guide, Improving Adolescent Literacy, Recommendation 4. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text, D. increasing motivation and engagement in literacy development.
  • During a discussion a student answers "No" and stops. Which teacher move does the IES comprehension guide for the primary grades recommend? IES practice guide, Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Recommendation 3. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text, F. integrating speaking and active-listening skills into the reading process.
  • The National Reading Panel named individual comprehension strategies that appear effective for classroom instruction. Which of these is on its list? National Reading Panel, Teaching Children to Read: Reports of the Subgroups, Chapter 4, Part II: Text Comprehension Instruction. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text, H. approaches to develop comprehension skills.
  • Reluctant readers in a class finish assigned books but never pick one up by choice. Which pair of practices does the IES comprehension guide give for an engaging context? IES practice guide, Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Recommendation 5. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text, D. guiding students in self-selecting texts to increase motivation and engagement.
  • Seventh graders research a topic on the open web. By the Common Core writing standards for grades 6 to 12, what must they do with each source they gather? Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Writing, standard 8. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text, E. critically examining online resources and fostering digital literacy.
  • Tenth graders will discuss a novel in small groups. Which support does the IES adolescent literacy guide recommend for those groups? IES practice guide, Improving Adolescent Literacy, Recommendation 3. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text, F. speaking and active-listening skills (discussions, questioning and responding).
  • While reading, a student stops and says, "Wait, I do not get why the king left." He rereads the last paragraph. Which comprehension strategy is he using? IES practice guide, Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade, Recommendation 1, Table 3. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text, H. approaches to develop comprehension skills from simple to complex.

Writing 7

  • A kindergarten teacher has children draw a picture and label it with the sounds they hear, spelling as best they can. How does the IES elementary writing guide regard such activities? IES practice guide, Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers, Recommendation 1. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, V. Writing, early writing development.
  • A teacher models a planning strategy, then plans with the class, then has pairs plan, and last has each student plan alone. Which step of the IES elementary writing guide is this? IES practice guide, Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers, Recommendation 2a. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, V. Writing, writing process instruction.
  • By the IES elementary writing guide, in which grade should students be introduced to typing? IES practice guide, Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers, Recommendation 3, step 4. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, V. Writing, fluency with handwriting, typing and word processing.
  • English learners in a fifth-grade class stall at the first line of a compare-and-contrast paragraph. Which language-based supports does the IES English learner guide name? IES practice guide, Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners, Recommendation 3 and Glossary, "language-based supports". Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, V. Writing, differentiating writing instruction for diverse learners.
  • The IES elementary writing guide sorts genres under four purposes for writing. Which list gives the four? IES practice guide, Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers, Recommendation 2b, Table 4. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, V. Writing, writing for a variety of purposes.
  • Students take "The owl hooted" and "The owl was in the barn" and write "The owl hooted in the barn." Which activity from the IES elementary writing guide is this? IES practice guide, Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers, Recommendation 3, Table 7. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, V. Writing, sentence construction and the relationship between reading skills and writing.
  • To build a community of writers, what does the IES elementary writing guide say the teacher should do during writing time? IES practice guide, Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers, Recommendation 4. Outline: ETS Study Companion for Praxis 5206, V. Writing, creating an engaged community of writers.

How this list was compiled: Our own questions, written to the content topics of the ETS Study Companion for Praxis Teaching Reading: K-12 (5206) (https://www.ets.org/pdfs/praxis/5206.pdf, read 2026-10-13; test page https://praxis.ets.org/test/5206.html). The test has 90 selected-response questions and 3 constructed-response questions in 150 minutes: I. Phonological and Phonemic Awareness and Emergent Literacy 13, II. Phonics and Decoding 16, III. Vocabulary and Fluency 20, IV. Comprehension of Literary and Informational Text 27, V. Writing 14, and VI. Assessment and Instructional Decision Making, the 3 constructed-response questions, which this bank does not hold. The bank holds 7, 9, 11, 14 and 7 questions. Every fact was read on 2026-10-13 on the public page the question names: six practice guides of the Institute of Education Sciences, the report of the National Reading Panel (NICHD) and the Common Core State Standards. Licence: Questions, choices and explanations are original work of this site.

How it works

This Teaching Reading Praxis 5204 practice test follows the outline of Teaching Reading: K-12 (5206), a test ETS lists today: 48 questions of our own, each with its source. It is unofficial and not affiliated with or endorsed by ETS.

Read the full guide

What the test covers

ETS lists five selected-response categories, by the Study Companion read October 13, 2026: phonological and phonemic awareness and emergent literacy (13 questions), phonics and decoding (16), vocabulary and fluency (20), comprehension of literary and informational text (27) and writing (14). This bank holds 7, 9, 11, 14 and 7.

What is not here

Three constructed-response questions on assessment and instructional decision making carry about 25 percent of the score. They are written answers, and this page has none.

Where the answers come from

Each explanation names the public page its fact was read on: six practice guides of the Institute of Education Sciences, the report of the National Reading Panel and the Common Core State Standards.

  • ETS says the test is built around the five components named by the National Reading Panel: phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension.
  • The real test allows 150 minutes for both parts together, so exam mode here has no clock.

Questions and answers

Is Praxis 5204 still given, or is it now 5205 and 5206?

On October 13, 2026 the ETS site had no page for test 5204, once named Teaching Reading. It lists Teaching Reading: Elementary (5205) and Teaching Reading: K-12 (5206). These questions follow the 5206 outline. Ask your state agency which code it accepts.

Is this Praxis Teaching Reading K-12 practice test the real exam?

No. All 48 questions were written for this site from the content topics ETS publishes for test 5206. None repeats or rewords a real test question or an ETS sample question, and a result here does not forecast a real score.

What is the difference between Praxis 5205 and 5206?

Teaching Reading: Elementary (5205) covers kindergarten through grade 6, and Teaching Reading: K-12 (5206) covers kindergarten through grade 12. Each has 90 selected-response and 3 constructed-response questions in 150 minutes, in six categories weighted a little differently.

Does this page work as a Praxis 5206 study guide?

In part. ETS publishes a free Study Companion for test 5206 that lists every topic. The questions here are grouped by its five selected-response categories, so you can study one at a time and read why each answer is right.

What is a passing score on Praxis 5206?

There is no single one. ETS sets no passing scores; they vary by state, so check the requirement where you will be licensed. This page reports the number right only.

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