Developing Reading Skills in a Typical Curriculum Sequence

First Grade

Identifies consonants in all positions in a word; reads long and short vowels, some vowel teams (e.g., ee, ae) and consonant diagraphs (e.g., ch, sh, th); growing ability to break dictated words into individual sounds; reads word families (e.g., cat, hat, rat); growing sight vocabulary; aware of root words, endings, compound words, contractions; recognizes main idea and cause/effect in story; draws conclusions; follows simple written directions; aware of author, title, table of contents, alphabetical order; recognizes a play; interprets maps and globes

Second Grade

Mastery of harder phonetic skills (e.g., kn, wr, gh, ck, lk, ir, ur, oi, au, oa); sounds out unfamiliar words based on individual letter sounds, familiar spelling patterns, root words, endings; identifies words from contextual clues; less confusion with reversible letters; varies in pitch, stress, volume when reading aloud; aware of syllabication rules, prefixes/suffixes, changing y to i or fife to v before adding ending; compares/evaluates information; recognizes character, setting, motive, resolution of a story; uses library for simple research purposes; interprets graphs; uses dictionary

Third Grade

Reading focus shifts from decoding to comprehension; rapid expansion of sight vocabulary and word-analysis skills (e.g., igh, eight); interprets homophones (e.g., way, weigh) and homographs (e.g., grizzly bear, to bear arms); reversals of letters and words generally disappear; reads selectively to locate information; reading speed increases with development of silent reading skills; distinguishes fiction/nonfiction, fact/opinion, synonym/antonym; recalls prior knowledge and relates to new text; recognizes author's purpose; uses index, captions, subheadings, margin notes; uses encyclopedia, telephone directory; interprets diagrams; reads for both knowledge and recreation

Fourth Grade

Begins to develop different reading styles/rates for different purposes (e.g., skimming); locates and uses references; increases silent reading rate; expands vocabulary; recognizes plot and implied main idea; understands idioms/multiple meanings; paraphrases or summarizes a story or article; selects/evaluates/organizes study materials; discriminates different forms of writing (e.g., folk tale, science fiction, biography); appreciates author's point of view; considerable independent reading expected; can read newspaper, restaurant menu

Fifth Grade

Makes generalizations; recognizes theme; uses copyright page, preface, cross-references; familiar with more literary forms (e.g., autobiography, fable, legend); reasons using syllogisms (e.g., if a=b and b=c, then a=c); can read many popular magazines

Middle School

Understands paradoxes; appreciates elements of style (e.g., imagery/foreshadowing/flashback/symbolism/irony/mood); recognizes biased writings and propaganda; uses appendices, Readers Guide to Periodicals, atlas, almanac, appropriate reference sources; recognizes figures of speech such as personification (e.g., the computer yawned and spit out the disk), hyperbole (intentional exageraation, e.g., waiting for an eternity), onomatopoeia (word that imitates sounds, e.g., cuckoo); can read many adult level books