The Elementary Education Fundamentals tests are designed to assess whether the entry-level elementary teacher has the content knowledge that is important, necessary, and needed at time of entry to the profession to teach reading, mathematics, social studies, and science at the elementary level.

Each state may require one or more of the subject tests to support a generalist elementary school license.

The Elementary Education Fundamentals: Teaching Reading test measures the knowledge and skills in teaching reading necessary for a beginning teacher of children in primary through upper elementary school grades in alignment of the Science of Reading principles. The 80 selected-response questions reflect material typically covered in a bachelor’s degree program in elementary education. They focus on the broad knowledge of evidence-based literacy practices, covering the five components of reading instruction as identified by the National Reading Panel: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension, along with essential writing components.

The test content is grounded in the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) standards and Standards for the Preparation of Literacy Professionals from the International Literacy Association.

Test takers will also find that approximately ten to fifteen percent of questions call for application of reading content and processes within a teaching scenario or an instructional task. Such questions—designed to measure applications of reading knowledge to the kinds of decisions and evaluations a teacher must make during work with students, curriculum, and instruction—situate reading content questions in tasks critical for teaching.

This test may contain some questions that will not count toward your score.