Gaining fluency in reading entails developing rapid and perhaps automatic word identification processes (La Berge and Samuels, 1974). The main mechanism for gains in automaticity is, in some form or another, practice at consistent input-output mappings (Schneider and Shiffrin, 1977). In reading, this involves practice at word identification. On a word-based account of reading acquisition, it is a characteristic of words, not readers.
Progress in Understanding
For children learning to read, comprehension can take advantage of skills they have been using in their oral language: the shared basic language components, working memory and vocabulary and topic knowledge. Reading comprehension skills are at first limited by unskilled decoding; later, comprehension when reading and when listening to a text are highly correlated; still later, the advantage of listening over reading disappears and, in some cases, for some kinds of texts and purposes, reverses (Curtis, 1980). But in the beginning, many tricks of the trade that children have as native speakers will help a great deal. Moreover, early books can be well designed to support the child's engagement and curiosity and keep the process going.
Research on what young good comprehenders do is not as far along as research on children's word processing. Studies that contrast skilled and less skilled comprehenders have shown that skilled comprehenders are better at decoding (e.g., Perfetti, 1985), have superior global language comprehension (Smiley et al., 1977), and have superior metacognitive skills (Paris and Myers, 1981). Some studies have matched subjects on decoding measured in oral reading by counting errors. In a series of studies of 7- and 8-year-olds in English schools, Yuill and Oakhill (1991) compared children matched for chronological age and for reading accuracy but who differed significantly in reading comprehension on a standardized norm-referenced test that measures the two aspects of reading separately. The skilled comprehenders (at or slightly above the level expected for their chronological age in comprehension) were notable for the work they did with the words and sentences they encountered in texts. For example, they understood pronoun references, made proper inferences about the text from particular words, drew more global inferences from elements of the text that were not adjacent, detected inconsistencies in texts, applied background knowledge, and monitored their comprehension.
Tracing the development of reading comprehension to show the necessary and sufficient conditions to prevent reading difficulty is not as well researched as other aspects of reading growth. In fact, as Cain (1996) notes, "because early reading instruction emphasizes word recognition rather than comprehension, the less skilled comprehenders' difficulties generally go unnoticed by their class-room teachers. "It may well be that relieving the bottleneck from poor word recognition skills will reveal, for some children, stop-pages in other areas that create comprehension problems; more research is called for on factors related to comprehension growth from birth to age 8 that may produce problems as children read to learn in elementary school.
The year 4 slump is a term used to describe a widely encountered disappointment when examining scores of year 4’s in comparison with younger children. Whether looking at test scores or other performance indicators, there is sometimes a decline in the rate of progress or a decrease in the number of children achieving at good levels reported for year 4. It is not clear what the explanation is or even if there is a unitary explanation. The most obvious but probably least likely explanation would be that some children simply stop growing in reading at year 4.
Two other explanations are more likely. One possibility is that the slump is an artefact; that is, the tasks in school and the tasks in assessment instruments may change so much between year 3 and year 4 that it is not sensible to compare progress and success on such different tasks and measures. It may be that the true next stage of what is measured in year 3 is not represented in the year 4 data and that the true precedents for the year 4 data are not represented in the year 3 data.
A second possibility is that it is not so much a year 4 slump as a primary streak, that is, that some children have problems in the earlier years that are hidden while so much else is being learned. Previously "unimportant" reading difficulties may appear for the first time in year 4 when the children are dealing more frequently, deeply, and widely with nonfiction materials in a variety of school subjects and when these are represented in assessment instruments. It may be that there had been less call for certain knowledge and abilities until year 4 and a failure to thrive in those areas might not be noticed until then. It is, of course, this latter possibility that is important for preventing reading difficulties, and more attention needs to be paid to research on the year 4 slump.
Progress in Understanding
For children learning to read, comprehension can take advantage of skills they have been using in their oral language: the shared basic language components, working memory and vocabulary and topic knowledge. Reading comprehension skills are at first limited by unskilled decoding; later, comprehension when reading and when listening to a text are highly correlated; still later, the advantage of listening over reading disappears and, in some cases, for some kinds of texts and purposes, reverses (Curtis, 1980). But in the beginning, many tricks of the trade that children have as native speakers will help a great deal. Moreover, early books can be well designed to support the child's engagement and curiosity and keep the process going.
Research on what young good comprehenders do is not as far along as research on children's word processing. Studies that contrast skilled and less skilled comprehenders have shown that skilled comprehenders are better at decoding (e.g., Perfetti, 1985), have superior global language comprehension (Smiley et al., 1977), and have superior metacognitive skills (Paris and Myers, 1981). Some studies have matched subjects on decoding measured in oral reading by counting errors. In a series of studies of 7- and 8-year-olds in English schools, Yuill and Oakhill (1991) compared children matched for chronological age and for reading accuracy but who differed significantly in reading comprehension on a standardized norm-referenced test that measures the two aspects of reading separately. The skilled comprehenders (at or slightly above the level expected for their chronological age in comprehension) were notable for the work they did with the words and sentences they encountered in texts. For example, they understood pronoun references, made proper inferences about the text from particular words, drew more global inferences from elements of the text that were not adjacent, detected inconsistencies in texts, applied background knowledge, and monitored their comprehension.
Tracing the development of reading comprehension to show the necessary and sufficient conditions to prevent reading difficulty is not as well researched as other aspects of reading growth. In fact, as Cain (1996) notes, "because early reading instruction emphasizes word recognition rather than comprehension, the less skilled comprehenders' difficulties generally go unnoticed by their class-room teachers. "It may well be that relieving the bottleneck from poor word recognition skills will reveal, for some children, stop-pages in other areas that create comprehension problems; more research is called for on factors related to comprehension growth from birth to age 8 that may produce problems as children read to learn in elementary school.
The year 4 slump is a term used to describe a widely encountered disappointment when examining scores of year 4’s in comparison with younger children. Whether looking at test scores or other performance indicators, there is sometimes a decline in the rate of progress or a decrease in the number of children achieving at good levels reported for year 4. It is not clear what the explanation is or even if there is a unitary explanation. The most obvious but probably least likely explanation would be that some children simply stop growing in reading at year 4.
Two other explanations are more likely. One possibility is that the slump is an artefact; that is, the tasks in school and the tasks in assessment instruments may change so much between year 3 and year 4 that it is not sensible to compare progress and success on such different tasks and measures. It may be that the true next stage of what is measured in year 3 is not represented in the year 4 data and that the true precedents for the year 4 data are not represented in the year 3 data.
A second possibility is that it is not so much a year 4 slump as a primary streak, that is, that some children have problems in the earlier years that are hidden while so much else is being learned. Previously "unimportant" reading difficulties may appear for the first time in year 4 when the children are dealing more frequently, deeply, and widely with nonfiction materials in a variety of school subjects and when these are represented in assessment instruments. It may be that there had been less call for certain knowledge and abilities until year 4 and a failure to thrive in those areas might not be noticed until then. It is, of course, this latter possibility that is important for preventing reading difficulties, and more attention needs to be paid to research on the year 4 slump.
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