Reading Comprehension Article

This supposed “fourth grade slump” is interesting as there are definite indicators as to when children either get it or they don’t and similar studies with different subjects such as math in young girls who lose interest in 5th grade. With research like these we know that early intervention plays a critical role and elementary school teachers have a great responsibility when it comes to assessment and providing the appropriate instructional strategies.

The article indicates a valuable piece of information that the reading tests make comprehension gap seem much greater in fourth grade because the tests used in earlier grade are heavily focused on early reading skills and not vocabulary. Comprehension is an area we need to pay close attention to as we develop fluent readers.

When you become a fluent reader you mind has more room to learn and concentrate on comprehension. In turn, the more you free your brain space up, the more vocabulary you learn and so on. We need to build consistency with that development at a young age. Unfortunately research consistently shows how hard this is for low income children who do not have the access or environment to develop or continue their learning at home and therefore school is very important.

An interesting fact I liked was that “children who can sound out nonsense words quickly and accurately ha mastered the decoding process and is on the road to freeing up her working memory to concentrate on comprehension of meaning”. This goes to show you that books should always be fun for children. Exposure to different books is important as is domain knowledge, also known to us as prior knowledge.

Each article emphasizes the same key concepts, which clearly indicates to me that we need to use this knowledge to offer the best research based strategies for our students.