Is your child in 4th grade? S/he is likely to learn and discover much more advanced concepts during this stage. They are starting to learn all by themselves in numerous ways and learning to think on one’s own. In general, much of their learning will take place in the classroom.

One of the key aspects of the 4th-grade reading strategy is the overall development of writing skills alongside reading skills. Typically, students implement language arts worksheets uniquely built to aid them in writing clear and meaningful sentences and paragraphs that build a central idea. All language arts classes encourage kids to consider the actual audience they write for and to know the purpose of their writing. The primary role of the reading teacher is to guide students through research, picking a focus, drafting, pre-writing, editing, and revising multiple versions.

Over the past few years, your kid has been strengthening foundational skills such as fluency and decoding. Your child is currently poised to try more challenging fiction and nonfiction. The good news is that assistance from grown-ups is expected. Be prepared and available to help your child with all the following strategies.

4th-grade reading level: Definition & Explanation

As previously stated, your child will be learning many different concepts, topics, and ideas when s/he gets to 4th grade. Everything they’re learning implements one vital tool: critical thinking. But before your child can get to know how to think critically, they must learn to understand what they’re reading. This is referred to as reading comprehension.

Simply put, this is being able to understand the concept or ideas presented in a text that you’ve read. When it comes to 4th grade, your child is not “learning to read” anymore, but actually “reading to learn”.

At this point, your child’s reading level means they’re able to:

  • Read different materials and organize the ideas and information effectively.
  • Answer questions concerning the materials.
  • Besides understanding new materials, they can write about what they’ve read.
  • Read a wide scope of different genres such as nonfiction, fiction, poetry, etc.

Reading Comprehension Strategies

In general, reading comprehension depends on a few strategies that may help your child comprehend their reading materials.

Read on.

  1. Activate background knowledge. Kids often understand reading materials much better when they have a framework of prior knowledge to use. Simply asking your kid “what do you know about…” may assist them to think about that topic before they start reading.
  2. Questioning. Ensure that before reading, you get your child to ask relevant questions about the reading. It would be prudent that your child has three questions at the back of his/ her mind as they read. These include right now questions, research questions, and analytical questions. Well, a “right now” question is determining what information and facts are being presented in the text while an “analytical” question involves your child trying to find out “what exactly is the author trying to tell them?”. A “research” question primarily encourages your kid to do their research outside of that text.
  3. Analyze text structure. To analyze text structure, your kid needs to be able to figure out the different ways text is presented e.g., cause and effect, listing, or chronologically. They also need to be able to find the various parts of a text and understand what they’re used e.g., headings, subheadings, etc.
  4. Visualization. Most teachers and researchers insist that reading comprehension also entails being able to visualize the text in one way or another. It might be by implementing graphic organizers like mind maps or even simply requesting your kid to draw what they think the actual story is about.
  5. Summarizing. Generally, summarizing is an excellent tool to use to ensure that your child can figure out the main ideas of a text. And if they can identify the main ideas presented in a text, then they’re most likely also already implementing the first four reading comprehension strategies.

Ways to Improve Reading Comprehension for Your Grade 4 Student

As of now, you already know the strategies that constitute effective reading comprehension. But, you might still be wondering how you can help your 4th grader to practice and generally improve their reading comprehension? Below are some tools and activities you can try at home to assist with improving 4th-grade reading comprehension and even make it fun.

  1. Read together. Quite frankly, reading together has a few advantages for improving your child’s reading comprehension. Apart from assisting to create a bond with your child, it also provides them with a model for great reading habits. When you’re reading together, you’ll have a better sense of the materials they’re reading. You’ll also have a better sense of how their actual reading progress is continuing.
  2. Find a great reading app. Modern technology is making reading practice more exciting and interactive. That said, with the many reading apps available it can be challenging to find the right one. You can use an app that focuses on several reading skills at once. With such an app, your child will be able to receive error corrections and instant feedback from the app. Furthermore, the app offers progress reports such that you can monitor your child’s reading improvements.
  3. Use cookbooks. It’s safe to say that having fun is the best method of improving reading comprehension! Since children like to help in the kitchen, why not add some reading practice to the activity? Get your child to pick a recipe they’d love to cook and while the two of you are cooking, ask them to read the directions for you.
  4. Talking about their books. Simply talking about what your kid is reading may have a significant impact on their reading comprehension. A good conversation about their reading aids them in activating background knowledge about that topic and even thinking more critically about everything they’re reading.
  5. Have a movie night. One of the best ways to improve your child’s visualization is to have them first read a book that has also been turned into a film. After they’re done reading the book, ensure that you watch the actual movie version together and later discuss whether the movie matches the visuals they formulated in their mind from reading that book.
  6. Try a cool color-coding technique. Highlighting/ underlining reading passages with color and taking notes can assist students to distinguish, retain, and transfer knowledge. They can even pay attention to valuable information for meaningful learning. Learn to teach your students how to use colors to highlight passages when they read to aid them in identifying features like the main concept, details, as well as vocabulary words. Alternatively, you could use multiple colors to mark varied sections of a graphic organizer.
  7. Adopt close reading strategies. You might be wondering what close reading is? This refers to an intensive analysis of a text to come to terms with whatever it says, the way it says it, and exactly what it means. Research also shows that educating students on how to close read assists them to become better readers. Well, the trick here is to spice it up so that students utilize close reading skills without being bored.
  8. Play a round of reading comprehension Jenga. Have you ever tried playing a rousing game of Jenga? The keen approach in choosing just the right block. The hurry to pull out a block plus the loud crash of the entire tower tumbling down! Besides being a blast, this classroom version helps improve reading comprehension skills. Try scoring a used Jenga set at a thrift store or garage sale, then download a huge collection of nonfiction and fiction reading comprehension questions.
  9. Assign (fun!) book reports. Fortunately, these are no longer the dreaded days when you’re told to stand in front of the class to read your boring book report. But how about making a book report cake? Or a Mint Tin book report? Or a mobile made from a paper bag or a clothes hanger book report?
  10. Create anchor charts together. Whether it’s marking a text, visualizing, or even understanding a character’s journey, you can access the 4th-grade reading comprehension anchor charts! You can have a wide range of colorful samples that you can build along with your students.
  11. Practice using context clues. All students must be able to apply context clues to identify the definitions of unknown words.
  12. Beef up vocabulary skills. It’s safe to say that the more words your child knows, the greater their access to more complex reading passages. Try practicing vocabulary skills excitingly with a wide selection of meaningful vocabulary activities. You could play Vocabulary Jeopardy, draw vocabulary sketchnotes, join the Million Dollar Word Club, and much more.

Summary

Reading comprehension is a valuable reading skill that most 4th graders start to master. That said, some young readers may still be having difficulties with effective reading comprehension. Adopting these strategies and tools generally makes reading improvement exciting and interactive.

Hopefully, these tips for improving 4th-grade reading comprehension will assist your child to stay on track with their reading skills.

Good luck!