Elementary Concepts: Fourth Grade Reading

Fourth grade students should be well on their way to reading proficiency. But many students have a hard time learning vocabulary words or comprehending the meaning of a text. This is why states have developed educational standards for subjects like reading.

Before entering the fifth grade a student should be able to use contextual features to predict the content and comprehend the subject they are reading about. They should understand glossaries, headings, sidebars, subheading, paragraphs, italics, and bolded and underlined words and phrases. A fifth grade student is also expected to combine their prior knowledge with these clues to make educated inferences about the text. By year's end students will will be expected to use charts and graphs to as a tool for organizing the information in a text, for increasing their reading comprehension, deciding what information to use in reports and studying for tests.

Fourth grade reading classes teach students to properly use a dictionary and thesaurus to help build their vocabulary. Fourth graders need to be able grasp word relationships like antonyms, homonyms, homophones, prefixes, suffixes, synonyms and word-origins, and utilize them in strategies for determining meaning.

Fourth graders must also understand the explicit and implicit ideas of text. This means they should know the essential message of the works they are reading and how the details are connected. They must be able to make inferences about the information that is presented and be able to distinguish between important and minor details of text and the chronological order of events that are in discussion. Fifth grade reading lessons will build on these essential skills, so it's crucial that a student masters them by the end of their fourth grade year.

Other major reading skills a fourth grader must acquire include knowing the characteristics of persuasive texts and distinguishing them from informational pieces. This requires a clear definition and understanding of fact, fiction and opinion. A student must be able to distinguish between these three characteristics in order to become a successful reader. It is also important to understand the concept of comparison and contrast and understand how it affects the meaning and impression of a piece of writing.

If you think your child is struggling with any of these skills or other concepts that are involved in their reading and writing homework, alert their teacher. Together you can brainstorm ways to help your student comprehend and master the necessary skills in time to build a firm foundation for the lessons of the coming years.