Thursday 19 November 2020

What Is the Fourth Grade Reading Slump?

 

It is no coincidence that at the age of 10 or so, many students seem to experience new challenges with reading.  Even kids who previously held high marks in reading may see a decline in grades and begin to feel more challenged by their lessons. This phenomenon, known as the “fourth grade reading slump” is a common occurrence with students at this grade level.


 

The fourth grade reading slump can be addressed using online reading programs for schools, but before tackling the issues, it is important to understand the cause of the problem. In the typical elementary school curriculum, students at the fourth grade are transitioning from “learning to read”, to “reading to learn”.  In other words, up until now the majority of literacy instruction was focused on helping students to develop their decoding and word recognition abilities (ie: letters represent sounds, different letter combinations make different sounds, different sound combinations create words).  But after the third grade, the focus moves to comprehension of texts and critical thinking about those texts. In other subjects, a greater weight is placed on using print text as learning materials. Therefore, it is understood that the benefits of using elementary reading programs online can extend to other subjects as well.

To read more, visit source: https://essentialskills.com/blog/what-is-the-fourth-grade-reading-slump