TExES EC-6 Exam I - English
The TExES Core Subjects EC–6 (391) exam is designed to assess whether an examinee has the requisite knowledge and skills that an entry-level educator in this field in Texas public schools must possess. The exam is structured with five Subject Exams: English Language Arts and Reading; Mathematics; Social Studies; Science; and Fine Arts, Health and Physical Education.
This collection of Open Educational Resources is aligned to Subject Exam I – English. The materials were not specifically written for EC-6 exam preparation, but provide foundational knowledge and relevant examples, primary sources, applications, and historical thinking skills that are covered on the exam. This work is supported by Texas A&M International University, in collaboration with OpenStax.
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Each of the linked materials below is an Open Educational Resource, and may be accessed and used freely and with no restriction. The materials have been developed and provided to fulfill OpenStax’s mission of bringing an amazing education to everyone. Students and instructors can read, retain, and present the materials in formal and informal settings. Any reuse or republication must follow the attribution guidelines of the respective resource – in most cases Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY). Instructors can utilize additional offerings and tools provided by OpenStax, including our Assignable LMS tool, instructor resources, and additional support.
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The teacher understands the importance of oral language, knows the developmental processes of oral language, and provides students with varied opportunities to develop listening and speaking skills.
Knows and teaches basic linguistic concepts and the developmental stages in the acquisition of oral language—including phonology, semantics, syntax (subject-verb agreement and subject-verb inversion), and pragmatics—as appropriate for students in grades 4–6 and recognizes that individual variations occur within and across languages.
- Writing Guide Chapter 2.1: Seeds of Self
- Writing Guide Chapter 3.6: Sentence Structure
- Writing Guide Chapter 6.6: Editing Focus: Subject-verb Agreement
Selects and uses instructional materials and strategies for students in grades 4–6 that respond to students' individual needs, strengths, and interests; reflect cultural diversity; and build on students' cultural, linguistic, and home backgrounds to enhance their oral language development.
- Writing Guide Chapter 2: Language, Identity, and Culture
Provides instruction that interrelates oral and written language to promote students' reading and writing proficiencies.
- Writing Guide Chapter 2: Introduction (discusses a small amount about oral tradition)
Selects and uses instructional strategies, materials, activities, and models to teach students in grades 4–6 skills for speaking to various audiences for various purposes and for adapting spoken language for various audiences, purposes, and occasions.
- Writing Guide Chapter 18.3: Glance at Genre: Genre, Audience, Purpose, and Organization
Selects and uses instructional strategies, materials, activities, and models to teach students listening skills for various purposes (e.g., critical listening to evaluate a speaker's message, listening to enjoy and appreciate spoken language) and provides students with opportunities to engage in active, purposeful listening in a variety of contexts.
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.1: Reading to Understand and Respond
- Writing Guide Chapter 15.4: Annotated Sample Reading: Case Study on Louis Victor "Tan" Leborgne
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.4: Writing Process: Thinking Critically about a "Text"
Selects and uses instructional strategies, materials, activities, and models to teach students in grades 4–6 to evaluate the content and effectiveness of their own spoken messages and the messages of others.
- Writing Guide Chapter 4: Memoir or Personal Narrative: Learning Lessons from the Personal
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.4: Writing Process: Thinking Critically about a "Text"
The teacher understands the importance of word analysis and identification skills for reading comprehension and provides many opportunities for students to practice and improve these skills.
Understands the importance of word recognition skills (e.g., structural analysis, identifying and reading high-frequency words from a research-based list, contextual analysis) for reading comprehension and knows a variety of strategies for helping students in grades 4–6 develop and apply word analysis skills, including identifying, categorizing, and using common synonyms, antonyms, homographs, homophones, and analogies.
- Writing Guide Chapter 11.1: Developing Your Sense of Logic
- Writing Guide Chapter 13.1: The Research Process: Where to Look for Existing Sources (shows the importance of word choice and synonyms for research)
Knows and teaches strategies for decoding increasingly complex words, including advanced vowel-sound combinations, structural or morphological elements (e.g., prefixes, suffixes, roots, base words), and syllable types and syllable division patterns, and for using syntax and semantics to support word identification and confirm word meaning for students in grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Chapter 2.1: Seeds of Self (defines syntax)
The teacher understands the importance of fluency for reading comprehension and provides many opportunities for students to improve their reading fluency.
Knows the relationship between reading fluency and comprehension for students in grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.5: Writing Process: Thinking Critically About a Text
Selects and uses instructional strategies, materials, and activities to develop and improve fluency for students in grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Chapter 19.6: Evaluation: Bridging Writing and Speaking
Knows how to teach students in grades 4–6 strategies for reading books independently, including the use of technology to support grade-level content.
- Writing Guide Chapter 3.4: Annotated Sample Reading: From Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Provides students with opportunities to engage in silent reading and extended reading of a wide range of materials, including informational texts and texts from various literary genres, as outlined in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Chapter 3.2: Literacy Narrative Trailblazer: Tara Westover
- Writing Guide Chapter 5: Profile: Telling a Rich and Compelling Story
- Writing Guide Chapter 7: Evaluation or Review: Would You Recommend it?
Uses strategies to encourage reading for pleasure and lifelong learning.
- Writing Guide Chapter 20.5: Writing Process: Looking Back, Looking Forward
The teacher understands the importance of reading for understanding, knows the components and processes of reading comprehension, and teaches students strategies for improving their comprehension, including using a variety of texts and contexts.
Understands factors affecting reading comprehension (e.g., word analysis skills, prior knowledge, language background/experience, previous reading experiences, fluency, vocabulary development, ability to monitor understanding, characteristics of specific texts) for students in grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.1: "Reading” to Understand and Respond
Understands levels of reading comprehension and knows how to model and teach skills for literal comprehension (e.g., identifying stated main idea, recalling details, identifying point of view), inferential comprehension (e.g., inferring themes, making predictions), and evaluative comprehension (e.g., analyzing character development, detecting faulty reasoning) for students in grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.5: Writing Process: Thinking Critically About a Text
- Writing Guide Chapter 7.5: Writing Process: Thinking Critically About Entertainment
Provides instruction in comprehension skills that support the transition of students in grades 4–6 from "learning to read" to "reading to learn" (e.g., setting a purpose for reading; applying knowledge of text structures; using text features such as pronunciation guides, introductions, and sidebars) to become self-directed, critical readers.
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.5: Writing Process: Thinking Critically About a Text
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.1: "Reading" to Understand and Respond
Knows and teaches strategies that facilitate comprehension of different types of texts (e.g., literary, informational, argumentative) before, during, and after reading (e.g., previewing, making predictions, questioning, self-monitoring, rereading, mapping, using reading journals, discussing texts) for students in grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Chapter 3.3: Glance a Genre: The Literacy Narrative
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.5: Writing Process: Thinking Critically About a Text
Knows and teaches strategies that facilitate making connections between and across multiple texts (e.g., summarizing and paraphrasing, locating and distinguishing between facts and opinions, determining whether a text supports or opposes an issue) for students in grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.3: Glance at Critical Response: Rhetoric and Critical Thinking
- Writing Guide Chapter 12.9: Portfolio: Why Facts Matter in Research Argumentation
Understands metacognitive skills, including self-evaluation and self- monitoring skills, and teaches students to use those skills to enhance their reading comprehension in grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Chapter 3.7: Evaluation: Self-Evaluating
Knows how to provide students in grades 4–6 with systematic, explicit instruction and reinforcing activities to promote the use of strategies to improve their reading comprehension (e.g., previewing, self-monitoring, visualizing, summarizing).
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.5: Writing Process: Thinking Critically About a Text
Selects and uses instructional strategies, materials, and activities to guide students' understanding of their own culture and the cultures of others through reading in grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Chapter 2: Language, Identity, and Culture: Exploring, Employing, Embracing
- Writing Guide Chapter 7.8: Spotlight on Language and Culture
Understands and teaches the features of various literary genres, including folktales, fables, legends, myths, realistic fiction, historical fiction, tall tales, drama, and poetry, and promotes the development of literary response and analysis skills by providing multiple opportunities for students in grades 4–6 to listen to and respond to literature and to interact with others about literature.
- Writing Guide Chapter 3.3: Glance at Genre: The Literacy Narrative
- Writing Guide Chapter 16.1: An Author's Choices: What Text Says and How it Says it
The teacher knows the importance of vocabulary development and applies that knowledge to teach reading, listening, speaking, and writing.
Knows how to provide explicit, systematic instruction and reinforcing activities to help students in grades 4–6 increase their vocabulary.
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.3: Glance at Critical Response: Rhetoric and Critical Thinking
- Writing Guide Chapter 2.7: Spotlight on Variations of English
Selects and uses a wide range of instructional materials (e.g., literary, informational, argumentative, multimodal, and digital texts), strategies, and opportunities with rich contextual support for vocabulary development for students in grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Chapter 10.1: Defining a Position Argument
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.3: Glance at Critical Response: Rhetoric and Critical Thinking
- Writing Guide Chapter 18: Mixing Genres and Modes
Provides multiple opportunities to listen to, read, and respond to various types of literary and informational texts to promote the vocabulary development of students in grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Chapter 7: Evaluation or Review: Would you Recommend it?
- Writing Guide Chapter 6: Proposal: Writing About Problems and Solutions
The teacher understands the importance of inquiry and research skills to students' academic success and provides instruction that promotes students' acquisition and effective use of these skills in the content areas.
Teaches students how to develop open-ended research questions and a plan (e.g., timeline) to locate, retrieve, and record information from a range of primary and secondary sources.
- Writing Guide Chapter 12.1: Introduction Research and Research Evidence
- Writing Guide Chapter 13: Research Process: Accessing and Recording Information
Selects and uses instructional strategies to help students comprehend abstract content and ideas in written materials (e.g., examples, graphic organizers).
- Writing Guide Chapter 11.4: Annotated Sample Reading: From Book VII from the Republic of Plato
Selects and uses instructional strategies to teach students to interpret information presented in various formats (e.g., maps, tables, graphs) and how to locate, retrieve, and record information from technologies, print resources, and experts.
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.5: Writing Process: Thinking Critically About a Text
- Writing Guide Chapter 13: Research Process: Accessing and Recording Information
Selects and uses instructional strategies to help students use inquiry and research skills across the curriculum (e.g., brainstorming to generate questions and topics; locating, organizing, evaluating, summarizing, paraphrasing, and communicating information; differentiating between primary and secondary sources; selecting and using relevant, credible sources).
- Writing Guide Chapter 13: Research Process: Accessing and Recording Information
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.3: Glance at Critical Response: Rhetoric and Critical Thinking
Knows grade-level expectations for inquiry and research skills outlined in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) (e.g., in fourth and fifth grades, develop and follow a research plan with adult assistance; in sixth grade, refine the major research question through use of secondary questions).
- Writing Guide Chapter 13: Research Process: Accessing and Recording Information
The teacher understands the conventions of writing in English and provides instruction that helps students develop proficiency in applying writing conventions.
Understands that many students go through predictable stages in acquiring writing conventions (e.g., physical and cognitive processes involved in word writing, sentence construction, spelling, punctuation, grammatical expression) and that individual students vary in their rates of development of those conventions.
- Writing Guide Chapter 3.6: Editing Focus: Sentence Structure
Selects and uses instructional strategies, materials, and activities to help students use English writing conventions (e.g., grammar, capitalization, punctuation) in connected discourse.
- Writing Guide Handbook H3: Clear and Effective Sentences
- Writing Guide Handbook H9: Punctuation
- Writing Guide Handbook H10: Mechanics
Recognizes the similarities and differences between spoken and written English (e.g., syntax, vocabulary choice, audience) and uses instructional strategies to help students apply English writing conventions and enhance their own writing.
- Writing Guide Chapter 2.1: Seeds of Self
- Writing Guide Chapter 18.3: Glance at Genre: Genre, Audience, Purpose, Organization
- Writing Guide Chapter 17.6: Editing Focus: Descriptive Diction
Knows writing conventions and appropriate grammar and usage and provides students with direct instruction and structured practice in those areas.
- Writing Guide Handbook H3: Clear and Effective Sentences
- Writing Guide Handbook H9: Punctuation
- Writing Guide Handbook H10: Mechanics
The teacher understands that writing to communicate is a developmental process and provides instruction that promotes students' competence in written communication.
Teaches purposeful, meaningful writing in connection with listening, reading, and speaking.
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.1: Reading to Understand and Respond
- Writing Guide Chapter 19.1: Writing, Speaking, and Activism
Knows how to promote students' development of an extensive reading and writing vocabulary by providing students with many opportunities to read and write.
- Writing Guide Chapter 3.3: Glance a Genre: The Literacy Narrative
Understands differences between first-draft writing and writing for publication and provides instruction in various stages of writing, including prewriting, drafting, revising (including both self-revision and peer revision), and editing.
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.5: Writing Process: Thinking Critically About a Text
- Writing Guide Chapter 3.5: Writing Process: Tracing the Beginnings of Literacy
Understands the benefits of technology for teaching basic writing skills and writing for publication and provides instruction in the use of technology to facilitate written communication.
- Writing Guide Chapter 18.7: Spotlight on Technology
Understands writing for a variety of audiences, purposes, and settings and provides students with opportunities to write for various audiences, purposes, and settings and in various voices and styles.
- Writing Guide Chapter 16.2: Textual Analysis Trailblazer: bell hooks
- Writing Guide Chapter 5.3: Glance at Genre: Subject, Angle, Background, and Description
Teaches students to use appropriate conventions to support ideas in writing and to use an appropriate form of documentation to acknowledge sources (e.g., quotations, bibliographical information, differentiation between paraphrasing and plagiarism).
- Writing Guide Chapter 7.6: Editing Focus: Quotations
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.5: Writing Process: Thinking Critically About a Text
The teacher understands skills for interpreting, analyzing, evaluating, and producing visual images and messages in various types of media, including electronic media, and provides students with opportunities to develop skills in this area.
Knows grade-level expectations for viewing and representing visual images and messages as described in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Chapter 17: Image Analysis: What You See
Understands and teaches the characteristics and functions of different types of media (e.g., film, print) and knows how different types of media influence and inform.
- Writing Guide Chapter 17.8: Spotlight on Video and Film
Teaches students to compare and contrast print, visual, and electronic media, including the level of formality of each (e.g., email, Web-based news article, blogs).
- Writing Guide Chapter 18: Multimodal and Online Writing: Creative Interaction Between Text and Image
Teaches students to evaluate how visual image makers (e.g., illustrators, documentary filmmakers, political cartoonists, news photographers) represent messages and meanings and provides students with opportunities to interpret and evaluate visual images in various media.
- Writing Guide Chapter 18: Multimodal and Online Writing: Creative Interaction Between Text and Image
Knows how to teach students to analyze visual image makers' choices (e.g., style, elements, media) and evaluate how those choices help represent or extend meaning.
- Writing Guide Chapter 18: Multimodal and Online Writing: Creative Interaction Between Text and Image
Provides students with opportunities to interpret events and ideas based on information from maps, charts, graphics, video segments, and technology presentations and to use media to compare ideas and points of view.
- Writing Guide Chapter 18: Multimodal and Online Writing: Creative Interaction Between Text and Image
Knows steps and procedures for teaching students to produce visual images and messages with various meanings to communicate with others.
- Writing Guide Chapter 17: Image Analysis: What You See
Teaches students how to select, organize, and produce visuals to complement and extend meanings.
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.3: Glance at Critical Response: Rhetoric and Critical Thinking
Provides students with opportunities to use technology for producing various types of communications (e.g., class newspapers, multimedia reports, video reports) and helps students analyze how language, medium, and presentation contribute to the message.
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.4: Annotated Student Sample: Social Media Post and Responses on Voter Suppression
The teacher understands the basic principles of literacy assessment and uses a variety of assessments to guide literacy instruction.
Knows how to select and administer formative and summative assessments to students in grades 4–6 and use results to measure literacy skills (e.g., word analysis and word identification skills, fluency, comprehension, writing conventions, written communications, visual images, inquiry skills) and address individual students' needs identified in informal and formal assessments.
- Writing Guide Chapter 17: Image Analysis: What You See
Knows the state content and performance standards for reading, writing, listening, and speaking that constitute the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) and recognizes when a student needs additional help or intervention to bring the student's performance up to grade level for students in grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Chapter 19.6: Evaluation: Bridging Writing and Speaking
Understands the use of writing in assessment of students and provides opportunities for students to self-assess and peer-assess writing (e.g., for clarity, interest to audience, comprehensiveness) and their ongoing literacy development.
- Writing Guide Chapter 2.5: Writing Process: Thinking Critically about How Identity Is Constructed Through Writing
- Writing Guide Chapter 3.7: Evaluation: Self-Evaluation
Knows informal and formal procedures for assessing students' use of writing conventions and uses multiple, ongoing assessments to monitor and evaluate students' development in that area.
- Writing Guide Chapter 1.4: Annotated Student Sample: Social Media Post and Responses on Voter Suppression
Uses ongoing assessments of writing conventions to determine when students need additional help or intervention to bring students' performance to grade level based on state content and performance standards for writing in the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Handbook H5: Words and Language
Analyzes students' errors in applying writing conventions and uses the results of the analysis as a basis for future instruction for students in grades 4–6.
- Writing Guide Handbook H5: Words and Language