MTTC Elementary Practice Questions (2026) — Free Sample Questions with Answers

Answer: D

Send the regular English newsletter home and ask the child to translate it: Relying on a young child to translate is unreliable and puts an adult role on the child.

Wait until the parents learn more English before contacting them: Delaying contact excludes the family from their child's education.

Contact the family only if the child has a behavior problem: Contact limited to problems damages trust; partnerships need regular two-way communication.

Use an interpreter or translated materials and invite two-way contact: Correct. Communicating in the family's language and inviting their input builds a respectful partnership.

Strong family partnerships are two-way, ongoing, and in a language the family understands, using qualified interpreters.

Answer: B

The child is memorizing whole words without linking letters to sounds: The letters match sounds in each word, so the child is using letter-sound knowledge, not memory.

The child is spelling phonetically, representing most of the sounds heard: Correct. Writing salient consonants and some vowels is typical early phonetic (invented) spelling.

The child has a reading disability that requires a formal evaluation: This is a normal developmental stage for a kindergartner, not a sign of disability.

The child is copying the sentence from a model on the classroom wall: Copying would produce standard spellings; these spellings are the child's own.

Invented spelling reveals phonics knowledge; analyze it to see which sounds a child can already represent.

Answer: B

Reading the book straight through so children can enjoy the story: Uninterrupted reading is enjoyable but gives children few chances to talk and build language.

Asking open-ended questions and expanding on what children say: Correct. Dialogic reading prompts children to talk and builds on their responses, which grows vocabulary and syntax.

Having children repeat each sentence after the teacher reads it: Choral repetition is passive and does not ask children to produce their own language.

Choosing books with very few words so children focus on the pictures: Rich language in books is a key source of new vocabulary, so avoiding it limits growth.

Dialogic reading (prompt, evaluate, expand, repeat) turns read-alouds into conversations that build oral language.

Answer: B

12 + 5 = ?; 17 stickers: This adds because of the words "more" and "gave," but the result (12) is already known.

? + 5 = 12; 7 stickers: Correct. This is an add-to, start-unknown problem: the start plus 5 equals 12, so the start is 7.

5 + 12 = ?; 17 stickers: Reordering the addends still treats 12 as a part instead of the total.

12 − 7 = ?; 5 stickers: This finds the change (5), which the problem already gives.

Classify word problems by structure (result, change, or start unknown) rather than by key words; start-unknown problems are the hardest for young children.

Answer: C

one-to-one correspondence: The child touched each block once while counting, so one-to-one correspondence is in place.

stable order: The child said the number words in the correct order, so stable order is in place.

cardinality: Correct. Knowing that the last number said tells "how many" is cardinality; recounting shows it is not yet understood.

abstraction: Abstraction means any kinds of objects can be counted, which is not what this task shows.

Gelman and Gallistel's counting principles: one-to-one, stable order, cardinality, abstraction, and order irrelevance.

Answer: C

Tell the child the idea is wrong and give the correct answer: Correcting without investigation skips the child's sense-making and rarely changes the idea.

Ignore the idea because kindergartners are too young for physics: Young children can investigate falling objects; their ideas are a starting point.

Have children predict, then drop both objects together and discuss: Correct. Testing predictions lets children gather evidence and revise their own ideas.

Assign a reading passage that explains gravity in precise scientific terms: A text alone, without experience, is unlikely to change a strongly held intuitive idea.

Elicit children's ideas, then design experiences that let them test and revise those ideas with evidence.