Fourth grade. Ten years old, otherwise known as an adolescent, these children are readying for that transition from childhood into the teen and early adult life. And students are also transitioning from "learning to read to reading to learn." Or more appropriately, “learning to read to learn”. (Chall, 1995)
The “fourth grade slump” refers to how most children’s growth in reading skills and achievement seems to stall at the early adolescent stage of academic development. By the fourth grade students are expected to read a wide variety of topics and texts. They need literacy skills that can reflect the complexity of the materials and provide the ability to generalize concepts and principles. The ability to read and comprehend on this level requires word recognition and meaning as well as critical analysis of a wide variety of texts. The reader has an increasing demand for proficiency related to decoding, speed, vocabulary, background knowledge, memory, comprehension and critical thinking.
For certain youth that change is a difficult one to accomplish. Some of these children learned the basic skills but without the proficiency to now tackle the challenge of more complex texts. Some of these children have always struggled with reading and the slowness of their reading interferes with their ability to comprehend the topic. Others have learning disabilities which have not been addressed adequately during their early childhood. Still others are behind because they have the misfortune to be from economically disadvantaged schools where they did not have the same opportunities to learn literacy skills as their peers from more affluent schools. Or, finally, there are those children who do not have English as their first language and have the double burden of learning a new language in addition to the process of reading.
Success at learning to read as a pre-schooler or in K through 3rd grade is highly emphasized and researched. Less is known of the problems facing the adolescent reader and what methods will alleviate the difficulties they may be experiencing related to the challenges of learning to read to learn, reading in content areas, and reading critically.
Some of what researchers have found are what factors seem to distinguish the proficient reader from the struggling reader. These factors include: Word recognition; general vocabulary; oral language ability; linguistic knowledge; discourse knowledge; background knowledge; strategies; cognitive abilities such as attention and memory; motivation; attitude toward reading and identity as a "reader"; domain-specific vocabulary and knowledge; text-specific motivation, attitude, purposes or activity; topic or medium; lack of cultural or community context; lack of understanding of ideology, language or social practices; the student's ethnicity, race or socioeconomic status; the quality of the school and whether it was public or private. Some of these issues have been or are beginning to be addressed through improved instruction. However, too little attention has been paid to developing instructional interventions designed specifically to address the socio-cultural differences. Adolescent literacy interventions
must also take into account social and emotional factors in addition to cognitive ones.
What the research literature also tells us is that if a child does not "get it" during K through 3rd grade, they will slide further and further behind in their reading literacy rates. The most at-risk for academic achievement also tend to be the most under-served populations of adolescents: African-American, Latino, English Language Learners, and children from low-income homes.
Reading proficiency and literacy skills are required for academic achievement in middle and secondary school and beyond. "No child left behind" has intensified the achievement gap by identifying the high school students at risk of not graduating because they cannot pass a state's reading achievement test for a diploma. Students without the requisite reading ability either fail to get their diploma or drop out before they can be denied graduation. On the one hand a high school diploma is important in the job market and on the other hand many employers complain that without the standards of the "No child left behind" a high school diploma had become meaningless and a poor indicator whether an applicant could even fill out the application. (Carnegie Corporation, 2003)
Reading literacy is an imperative for success in the 21st century. Educators, parents, policy makers and even the adolescents themselves are often confused by the conflicting information on what works in terms of learning to read with proficiency and sustaining the skills and motivation to read. This web site will explore some of the issues surrounding reading literacy as it impacts children moving into adolescence.
For a more comprehensive discussion of the nature of reading literacy difficulties for adolescents and teens, see the National Middle School Association and the International Reading Association.
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