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Elementary, Explained

The elementary content the K-6 certification exams actually test, one short lesson at a time. Each one comes with a written deep dive you can print. Free to watch, no account and no card.

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With Claire · 33 lessons ready · more every week

Claire, who presents Elementary, Explained, in a primary classroom
Claire presents every lesson in the series.

Season 1 · 19% of ILTS 702 of the test

Foundations of Literacy

  • ILTS 702 Elementary Education (K-6)
  • Praxis 7002
  • Praxis 5205
  • Praxis 5018
  • NES Elementary Education
  • MTTC Elementary Education
  • CSET Multiple Subjects
  • MTTC Language Arts (Elementary) (090)
  • Praxis Elementary Education: Content Knowledge (5018)
  • Praxis Elementary Education: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment

Tested on these. Not necessarily required of you.

  1. Episode 15:00How Reading Develops Before a Child Can ReadPrint awareness, oral language, and the stages every framework assumes you know.
  2. Episode 25:03Screening, Diagnostic, and Progress MonitoringThree assessments that get confused on every elementary exam, and the one question that separates them.
  3. Episode 34:26Phonological Awareness Is Not PhonicsOne is sound, one is print, and the exams test the difference on purpose.
  4. Episode 45:25Decoding and Fluency: Why the Order MattersA scope and sequence is not a preference. Here is the logic the test expects you to know.
  5. Episode 55:09Vocabulary and the Three TiersWhich words you teach directly, which you leave alone, and why academic language is its own problem.
  6. Episode 65:23Literary and Informational TextStory elements, text structures, and the features that make informational text its own skill.
  7. Episode 77:22A Picture Book Is Not a GenreGenre is a claim about the story. Format is a claim about the object, and three questions sort almost any book.

Season 2 · 19% of ILTS 702 of the test

English Language Arts and Biliteracy

  • ILTS 702 Elementary Education (K-6)
  • Praxis 7002
  • Praxis 8002
  • Praxis 5205
  • MTTC Language Arts (Elementary)
  • NES Elementary Education
  • WEST-E Elementary Education
  • MTLE Elementary Education
  • NES Essential Components of Elementary Reading Instruction
  • NES Early Childhood Education Subtest I (108)
  • NES Early Childhood Education Subtest II (109)
  • Praxis Teaching Reading: Elementary (5205)
  • Praxis Early Childhood Education: Foundational Knowledge and Content (5534)
  • Praxis Early Childhood Education: Foundational Knowledge (5533)
  • Praxis Interdisciplinary Early Childhood Education

Tested on these. Not necessarily required of you.

  1. Episode 17:04The Writing Process Is Not a LineRevising is meaning. Editing is correctness. The exams test the difference.
  2. Episode 27:28Oral Language Is Not One SkillReceptive is what comes in, expressive is what goes out, and fluent with her friends tells you almost nothing about ready for the text.
  3. Episode 36:57Grammar Drills Are Not Writing InstructionGrammar taught on its own produces almost no improvement in the writing children actually do, and what carries over is practice that happens while composing.
  4. Episode 46:31More Detail Is Not FeedbackAdd more detail is not an instruction, because what counts as detail is decided entirely by what the piece is for.
  5. Episode 57:34A Language Difference Is Not a DisabilityA disability shows up in every language a child has. A language difference shows up only in the one she is still learning.
  6. Episode 67:08Matching the Topic Is Not AlignmentAlignment is about the verb, not the topic. Read the verb in the standard, the objective and the assessment, and if the three disagree you have found it.

Season 3 · 19% of ILTS 702 of the test

Mathematics

  • ILTS 702 Elementary Education (K-6)
  • Praxis 7813
  • Praxis 8003
  • Praxis 5903
  • Praxis 5037
  • MTEL General Curriculum
  • MTTC Elementary Education
  • CSET Multiple Subjects
  • MTTC Mathematics (Elementary)
  • MTLE Elementary Education
  • TExES Core Subjects EC-6
  • NES Elementary Education

Tested on these. Not necessarily required of you.

  1. Episode 17:49What the Remainder Actually MeansOne division, four right answers. What decides which one is correct is never the arithmetic, and it is always sitting in the words.
  2. Episode 26:54The Average That LiesA mean can be perfectly correct and describe nobody in the room. Which summary a question wants is decided by the question, not by the arithmetic.
  3. Episode 37:02A Square Is a RectangleA shape is a list of properties, not a picture. Once that lands, a whole family of questions stops being about geometry and starts being about definitions.
  4. Episode 46:50The Equal Sign Is Not an ArrowIt means the same as, and it always has. Almost everything that goes wrong in early algebra starts with reading it as an instruction instead.
  5. Episode 56:50Rescuing Is Not TeachingA whole family of questions where every option is something a caring teacher does, and only one leaves the thinking with the child.

Season 4 · 14% of ILTS 702 of the test

Science

  • ILTS 702 Elementary Education (K-6)
  • Praxis 7814
  • Praxis 8005
  • Praxis 5905
  • Praxis 5164
  • Praxis 5442
  • Praxis 5018
  • MTTC Integrated Science (Elementary) (093)
  • NES Elementary Education Subtest II (111)
  • MTTC Social Studies (Elementary)
  • WEST-E Elementary Education (Subtests 102 & 103)
  • NES Elementary Education
  • MTLE Elementary Education (191)
  • ILTS Elementary Education (Grades 1–6) (305)
  • TX PACT: Core Subjects: Grades 4-8
  • CEOE OSAT Early Childhood Education (205)
  • TExES Core Subjects 4\u20138
  • TExES Core Subjects EC-6 (391)

Tested on these. Not necessarily required of you.

  1. Episode 17:20Seasons Are Not About DistanceThe Earth is closest to the sun in January. One observation every child already has takes the distance explanation apart.
  2. Episode 27:22A Tree Is Mostly AirThere is no crater under an old tree. Whatever it is built from did not come out of the dirt underneath it.
  3. Episode 37:17A Sweater Does Not Make HeatWrap a thermometer in the warmest thing you own and watch it refuse to rise. Insulation is a barrier, never a source.
  4. Episode 47:05A Hypothesis Is Not a GuessA guess carries no idea inside it, so nothing can be learned when it misses. The fix is one word, and the word is because.
  5. Episode 57:12A Pencil Is TechnologyTechnology is anything people design to solve a problem. Nothing in that sentence is about electricity, or screens, or being new.
  6. Episode 67:25Any Questions Is Not a CheckThe children who followed the lesson have no questions. The ones who did not cannot ask one, so the silence was never evidence.

Season 5 · 14% of ILTS 702 of the test

Social Studies

  • ILTS 702 Elementary Education (K-6)
  • Praxis 7815
  • Praxis 8004
  • Praxis 5904
  • MTTC Social Studies (Elementary)
  • CSET: Multiple Subjects (Subtests 101/214/225)
  • MTEL General Curriculum (Multi-Subject 178 / Mathematics 278)
  • NES Elementary Education Subtest I (110)
  • NES Elementary Education Subtest I with Literacy (113)
  • NES Elementary Education
  • OAE Elementary Education (Subtests I & II)
  • TExES Core Subjects 4–8
  • TExES Core Subjects EC-6 (391)
  • GACE Elementary Education (P-5)

Tested on these. Not necessarily required of you.

  1. Episode 16:57A Textbook Can Be a Primary SourceThe category is not a property of the object. It is a relationship between the source and the question you are asking.
  2. Episode 27:19A Vote Cannot Take Away a RightMajority rule is half of the design. The other half is the part that says some things are out of reach of an ordinary vote.
  3. Episode 37:04Greenland Is Not That BigAfrica is about fourteen times bigger, and your students have been looking at that map every day since kindergarten.
  4. Episode 47:16The Cost Is Not the PriceThe assembly was free. It cost them the hour, and that is a real cost with no money anywhere in it.
  5. Episode 57:18Reading About It Is Not Social StudiesSwap the topic. If the lesson runs unchanged, it was a reading lesson, and the topic was interchangeable.

Season 6 · 14% of ILTS 702 of the test

Arts, Health, and Physical Development

  • ILTS 702 Elementary Education (K-6)
  • Praxis Early Childhood Education: Foundational Knowledge (5533)
  • Praxis Early Childhood Education: Foundational Knowledge and Content (5534)
  • CEOE OSAT Early Childhood Education (205)
  • NES Elementary Education Subtest II with Numeracy (114)
  • Praxis Elementary Education: Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment
  • NES Elementary Education Subtest II (111)
  • NES Elementary Education

Tested on these. Not necessarily required of you.

  1. Episode 17:24There Are No Visual LearnersPreferences are real. Matching instruction to them does not raise achievement, and the content is what decides the method.
  2. Episode 27:31I Like It Is Not a ResponseA verdict is the end of looking, not the beginning. Describe, analyze, interpret, and only then judge.
  3. Episode 37:27Sorting Foods Is Not NutritionNutrition is about amount and pattern, not a property of the item, which is why the two columns break on a potato.
  4. Episode 47:35Getting Out Is Not PracticeIn an elimination game the child who needs practice most gets the least. That is the rule working, not a side effect.

When you are ready for the test itself

This is content review. The course is how you work the questions.

Knowing the content and beating the exam are two different jobs. These lessons do the first one, free, for as long as you want to use them. Built To Pass is the whole system for the second:

  • A free diagnostic that shows you which objectives are actually weak
  • Full-length mock exams on the real clock
  • An AI test coach that answers at eleven at night
  • The video lessons, in order, with no guessing what is next
Find your exam

Confidence is built, not born.

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