Teaching Reading Practice Test

Unlock your teaching potential with our Praxis 5205, STR 293, and FORT 180/890 free practice tests. Built by experts to mirror the real exams, our resources help you master the science of reading, sharpen your skills, and walk into test day with confidence. Your journey to reading certification excellence starts here.

How to Pass Your Teaching Reading Certification Exam (Praxis 5205, STR 293, FORT 180/890)

If you are preparing for a teaching reading certification exam, you are probably staring at a mountain of content and wondering where to begin. Whether your state requires the Praxis Teaching Reading 5205, the Science of Teaching Reading STR 293, or the Foundations of Reading FORT 180/890, the good news is this: all three exams assess the same foundational knowledge. Understanding that shared framework is the key to unlocking your score.

What Are These Three Reading Certification Exams?

These three assessments evaluate whether aspiring and practicing teachers understand the research behind how students learn to read. Each is tied to a different state or certification pathway, but they are all rooted in the science of teaching reading—the body of evidence-based research that explains how reading skills develop from infancy through adulthood.

Praxis Teaching Reading 5205

Used in many states as part of the general teacher certification process. Designed for candidates who teach reading at multiple grade levels, with a heavy focus on structured literacy, phonological awareness, and comprehension development.

Science of Teaching Reading STR 293

The Texas-specific reading exam required for teacher certification in the Lone Star State, administered through TExES. It covers the full spectrum of reading skills from phonemic awareness through comprehension and writing.

Foundations of Reading FORT 180/890

Required in states like Massachusetts, Illinois, and Wisconsin. This exam tests similar content but also includes a constructed response (written) section where candidates must demonstrate their ability to apply reading science to real classroom scenarios.

Why Do These Exams Overlap So Much?

It comes down to the science. Decades of reading research—including findings from the National Reading Panel, cognitive science studies, and literacy intervention data—have produced a clear, consistent picture of how students learn to read. These exams are all aligned to that same body of research. If you deeply understand the science of teaching reading, you are not just preparing for one exam—you are preparing for all three.

The Core Framework: What Every Exam Tests

Explicit Instruction

Every one of these assessments rewards candidates who understand explicit instruction—direct, clear teaching where the teacher models a skill, provides guided practice, and gives immediate corrective feedback. Students do not discover reading skills on their own. When you encounter a multiple-choice question asking what a teacher should do next, look for the answer that involves direct modeling and structured practice.

Systematic Instruction

Reading skills must be taught in a deliberate, research-based sequence. You do not teach complex decoding before students understand basic phonics. Systematic instruction means there is a logical progression—and that progression matters. Test questions frequently assess whether you understand where a student is on that continuum and what the appropriate next step is.

Recursive Instruction

Reading development is not a straight line. Even a student who reads at grade level may struggle with decoding when encountering new academic vocabulary in science or history. Effective instruction circles back and reinforces earlier skills in more complex contexts. Understanding that reading growth is recursive helps you answer scenario-based questions about students who seem to have mastered a skill but are suddenly struggling again.

The Five Pillars of Reading Instruction

All three exams assess your knowledge of the five essential components of reading—sometimes called the Big Five or the reading continuum.

1. Phonological and Phonemic Awareness

Phonological awareness is the broad ability to recognize and work with sound units in spoken language—syllables, onset and rime, and individual phonemes. Phonemic awareness is the most advanced form and involves isolating, blending, segmenting, deleting, and substituting individual phonemes in spoken words. Critically, phonemic awareness is an oral and auditory skill. No print is involved. If a test question mentions a student looking at letters or words, you have moved into phonics territory.

2. Phonics and Word Recognition

Phonics instruction teaches students the relationship between letters and sounds—the alphabetic principle. This includes understanding consonants, vowels, blends, digraphs, diphthongs, silent letter patterns, and morphemic structures like prefixes and suffixes. Strong phonics instruction is explicit and systematic.

3. Fluency

Fluency is the bridge between decoding and comprehension. A fluent reader can decode accurately, automatically, and with appropriate expression. When students decode word by word and focus all their cognitive energy on sounding out letters, little mental capacity remains for actually understanding what they are reading. Fluency instruction includes repeated oral reading, modeled reading, and feedback.

4. Vocabulary

Vocabulary development grows through direct instruction and wide reading. There are three tiers: Tier 1 (everyday words), Tier 2 (academic words across subject areas), and Tier 3 (domain-specific words tied to particular content fields). Strong instruction teaches words in context and helps students use morphological clues—roots, prefixes, and suffixes—to determine meanings.

5. Reading Comprehension

Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading. It involves understanding what is on the page, making inferences, identifying an author's purpose, analyzing text structure, building background knowledge, and applying metacognitive strategies. Comprehension instruction is active and strategy-based, and it must be explicitly taught.

Code-Based vs. Meaning-Based Skills

Code-Based Skills

These foundational skills include phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, word recognition, and morphology. Students must master these skills before they can effectively access meaning from text.

Meaning-Based Skills

These advanced skills include vocabulary, reading comprehension, inferential thinking, metacognition, and background knowledge development. Both code-based and meaning-based skills are necessary—neither is sufficient on its own. Effective reading instruction addresses both tracks simultaneously and strategically.

Assessment and Intervention: What to Know for Exam Day

Diagnostic vs. Screening vs. Progress Monitoring

Screening tools identify students who may be at risk. Diagnostic assessments pinpoint specific skill gaps. Progress monitoring tracks growth over time in response to intervention. Know the difference—these terms appear frequently in test scenarios.

Informal and Formal Assessments

Running records, miscue analysis, phoneme segmentation fluency assessments, and oral reading fluency measures all appear in test scenarios. Know what each one measures and when to use it.

Matching Interventions to Deficits

A student below grade level in fluency needs fluency intervention—not comprehension drills. A student who struggles with comprehension but reads fluently may need vocabulary and background knowledge support. Matching the intervention to the actual root cause of the difficulty is an essential skill tested on all three exams.

FORT 180/890 Constructed Response: What You Need to Know

Unlike the Praxis 5205 and STR 293, the Foundations of Reading FORT 180/890 includes a written constructed response section. This portion asks you to analyze a student scenario, identify the student's specific reading needs, and describe evidence-based instructional strategies to address those needs.

Step 1: Identify the Data

Start by identifying what the data tells you about the student. Look for patterns—is the student struggling with decoding, fluency, vocabulary, or comprehension?

Step 2: Name the Skill Deficit

Name the reading skill deficit clearly and link it to the appropriate stage of reading development.

Step 3: Recommend Strategies

Recommend explicit, systematic instructional strategies aligned to the identified deficit. Use specific vocabulary from the science of teaching reading: explicit modeling, scaffolded practice, systematic phonics instruction, repeated oral reading. Vague answers lose points. Specific, research-aligned recommendations earn them.

How to Study Smarter for These Exams

Know the Vocabulary Cold

Terms like phoneme, grapheme, morpheme, onset, rime, orthography, decoding, encoding, metacognition, and text structure show up constantly. Know not just the definitions but how these concepts connect to each other and to instructional practice.

Practice with Scenario-Based Questions

These exams show you a student, describe their reading behaviors, and ask what the teacher should do next. Practice reading student scenarios and identifying the root cause of the reading difficulty before looking at answer choices.

Eliminate Clearly Wrong Answers First

Look for red flags: skipping foundational skills, using cueing systems as primary decoding strategies, or moving a student forward before they have automaticity with a prerequisite skill. These are almost always wrong.

Build a Study Schedule and Stick to It

Consistent daily study of 20–30 minutes outperforms last-minute cramming. Use a study guide aligned to the official test blueprint, take practice questions regularly, and track your accuracy by content category to identify where to focus your remaining study time.

Final Thoughts

The Praxis 5205, STR 293, and FORT 180/890 are challenging exams—but they are absolutely passable with the right preparation. The key is understanding the science of teaching reading deeply enough to apply it to classroom scenarios, not just recite definitions. Our comprehensive study guides and online courses are built around exactly the content you need to know. They include detailed explanations, practice questions, and video breakdowns that make even the most complex concepts click.

Ready to get started? Explore our Teaching Reading exam resources here.