From Reading Words to Reading Thoughtfully: How Reading Changes in Grades 3–4

Grades 3 to 4 are generally described as the time when children move from “Learning to Read” to “Reading to Learn.” In other words, the focus of reading shifts around this age. Jeanne Chall, who mapped out the stages of reading development, placed roughly grades 2–3 in a stage where children become fluent with familiar text (Confirmation and Fluency), and grades 4–8 in a stage of reading to learn new things (Reading for Learning the New).[1] In the early grades, reading means turning letters into sounds and getting through sentences smoothly. In the upper grades, it means reading texts full of new words and unfamiliar ideas, and learning something new from them.

Some children, though, find this stage hard. These are children who aren’t quite ready for the shift. For a child who had no trouble with Reading through grade 3, growth may start to slow down around grade 4. Once or twice, you might put it down to an off day. But when the next report looks much the same, it starts to weigh on you, especially if your child reads English books easily and knows plenty of words. “My child reads well, so why do the report results stay the same?”

A research team led by Catts in the United States assessed children’s word reading and reading comprehension in grades 2, 4, 8, and 10. They used the term “late-emerging poor readers” for children who had no reading problems in the early grades but fell behind their peers as they moved up. The team estimated that about 13.4% of all children fall into this group.[2]

What stands out is where these children got stuck. More than half, 52%, could read the words but struggled to understand the text. 36% had trouble with word reading only, and 12% with both.[2] One thing is clear from this: reading well in the early grades does not guarantee comprehension in the upper grades. In this study, the children who struggled later were more often stuck on understanding than on words.

Why? The clue lies in the fact that reading words and understanding text grow from different roots. In the UK, Oakhill and Cain followed children aged 7–8 for four years, until they were 10–11. Accurate word reading was predicted by early word reading skill and the ability to tell speech sounds apart. Reading comprehension four years later, however, was independently predicted by vocabulary and three other skills: making inferences (reading between the lines), checking whether you really understand what you are reading, and knowing and using story structure.[3]

The same lens helps when you look at a MAP Growth Reading report. NWEA’s MAP Growth Reading for grades 2–12 covers areas such as Literary Text, Informational Text, and Vocabulary.[4] (Area names can differ by school, so check your child’s own report.) From grade 4 on, rather than looking only at the overall score, it tells you much more to see which of these areas are solid and which are still growing. If your child’s school uses DIBELS, ORF (Oral Reading Fluency), which looks at reading text aloud accurately and fluently, and Maze, which looks at comprehension, are reported separately, so you can see the two skills side by side.[5]

So what can you do at home? What this stage calls for is not doing lots of workbooks, but checking whether your child really understands what they read. If your child prefers literature, try choosing some nonfiction together on a topic they love, such as animals, science, or history. Before reading, look at the title, pictures, and table of contents together and guess what the book might be about. While reading, when an unfamiliar word comes up, let your child work out its meaning from the surrounding sentences before you explain it, and help them get into the habit of stopping and rereading when something doesn’t make sense. After reading, ask questions like “What was it about?” or “Why did that happen?” so your child puts the story and the reasons into their own words. And at school conferences, ask, “Which seems easier for my child, reading the words or understanding the content?” Talking with the teacher about how your child reads and how they explain what they’ve read will make it clearer what to focus on at home.

How MapMastery reads the results

MapMastery is a service that analyzes MAP Growth and DIBELS reports. When Reading results seem to stand still, MapMastery doesn’t stop at the overall score; it breaks it down. In MAP Reading reports, it connects the results for each area shown on your child’s report with your child’s past records. In DIBELS reports, it looks at the flow from reading accuracy to fluency to comprehension in context (Maze), and shows side by side where your child’s word reading and comprehension each stand right now. This makes it clear which direction to support your child in, rather than what more to add.

MapMastery’s yardstick is always your child, never other children. If you’d like to know where your child’s reading is growing right now, try analyzing your child’s report with MapMastery.

Master your learning journey.
You grow. We map.

MapMastery’s analysis is not an official result of any assessment organization and is provided for educational purposes.

Sources
[1] Chall, J. S., “Stages of Reading Development” (1983), summary by Landmark Outreach — https://landmarkoutreach.org/?p=32820
[2] Catts, H. W., Compton, D., Tomblin, J. B., & Bridges, M. S., “Prevalence and Nature of Late-Emerging Poor Readers”, Journal of Educational Psychology (2012) — https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24273341/
[3] Oakhill, J. V., & Cain, K., “The Precursors of Reading Ability in Young Readers: Evidence From a Four-Year Longitudinal Study”, Scientific Studies of Reading (2012) — https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10888438.2010.529219
[4] NWEA, “MAP Growth Reading” fact sheet — https://www.nwea.org/resource-center/fact-sheet/48359/MAP-Growth-Reading-Fact-Sheet-1.pdf/
[5] University of Oregon, “DIBELS 8th Edition Administration and Scoring Guide” (2021) — https://dibels.uoregon.edu/sites/default/files/2021-10/UO_Dibels8_Scoring_Guide_100121.pdf