Fourth Grade

What does reading support look like in fourth grade?

We work with students 30 minutes a day, usually during the WIN block.  Some groups focus on phonics and spelling.  Other groups focus more on comprehension.  All of our activities are based on assessment information and students are progress monitored regularly to make sure they are grasping the concepts.  Students in fourth grade intervention are often able to read higher leveled text because they can use the context to figure out unfamiliar words; however, as more multisyllabic words are encountered, they lack the word attack skills necessary to figure out and spell unfamiliar words.  Strong decoding leads to strong fluency and comprehension.  Students may also read better than they spell, indicating some missing phonics or phonemic awareness skills.

For comprehension, we often use an approach called reciprocal teaching to help us discuss books and passages.  This focuses on the following four reading strategies:

1. Prediction

Students predict what they think the reading may be about. We skim, look at the title, table of contents, pictures, etc. to make our predictions.  I also tap into their background knowledge on the topics.

2. Question as you go

Students generate questions as they listen and read. We talk about three  three levels of questions: 

Right-There questions (answer in the text)

Between-the-lines questions (inference needed)

Critical Thought questions (require their opinion)

3. Clarify

Students ask themselves what words and phrases are unclear to them. These clarifications may take the form of the following questions:

How do you pronounce that?

What does the word mean?

I think the author is saying…

I’m guessing ‘pie-in-the-sky’ means…

4. Summarize

Students summarize verbally and in writing.

6 Types of Syllables

Use the Syllable Types and "Reading Big Words" Strategy below to help your child when an unfamiliar word is encountered.  Remind your child of the useful phonics generalizations below.