By Pam Withers
Your kid loved books until he hit fourth grade. Now it’s a royal pain getting him to pick up a book at all. He says books are boring. He says school is too hard. If that rings true, join the club.
Forty percent of kids between the ages of five and eight read every day, but by fourth grade, that nose-dives to 29%, according to a 2006 Scholastic Inc. survey.
It’s called the fourth grade slump, a term coined by Jeanne S. Chall (1921-1999), a Harvard Graduate School of Education psychologist, writer and literacy researcher for over 50 years.
There are many reasons why a child might start resisting reading around the age of nine (actually, anywhere from the end of second to the middle of fifth grade), but here’s the simplest explanation: That’s when schools expect children to go from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.”
Suddenly, it’s not good enough to simply sound out words. The child has to make sense of the context in ever more difficult textbooks. Whether or not he (or she) has the motivation, maturity or physical (including brain development) capacity to do that, teachers will now throw more and more sophisticated reading materials at him, along with expectations that he’ll do plenty of reading outside of school hours.
In other words, children struggling with reading prior to fourth grade will now be left in the dust unless they receive help, understanding and encouragement – especially at home. They’ll have increasing trouble keeping up. They’ll get ever more frustrated. They’ll read less and less. And eventually they’ll decide reading isn’t important and develop attitude about everything connected with reading.
How to counteract that? It may be as simple as parents reading up on the topic of reluctant readers (this site offers a steady stream of articles, recommended links and book reviews) or arranging a reading buddy for him. Or it may involve testing for anything from eye problems to reading disabilities. If your reluctant reader is a boy, definitely browse the Keen Readers list of “books about the challenge of getting boys to read,” compiled in January 2011.
The point is that failure to intervene at an early stage means a less-than-keen reader will suffer academically, which impacts his self-confidence (even if he hides it well) and potentially puts him at a disadvantage for life.
Somewhere around fourth grade, smart reluctant readers learn to “fake read,” which means neither parents nor teachers may catch on that there’s a problem.
Cris Tovani, author of I Read It, But I Don’t Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers (Stenhouse Publishers) has two terms for fakers: “resistive readers” (they can but choose not to read) and “word callers” (they can read aloud by sounding out words; they just haven’t learned to “get” what they’re reading yet). Fake readers survive by listening to the teacher, copying the work of others and laying low when someone wants them to read. They cope temporarily, sometimes even right through high school, but it drags down their academic self-confidence and eventually catches up with them.
A dedicated parent can identify and turn around a fake reader of any age by reading Tovani’s book. It includes helpful worksheets even if it is directed at teachers rather than parents, and occasionally lobs big words like “graphophonic cues” at readers. (Happily, it’s relatively easy reading if you’re willing to ignore those words and pretend she’s speaking to parents.)
Other options are reading tutors and more effort on the part of parents to model reading and designate family reading time.
Nip it in the bud and gift him with a tool he needs for life. And keep returning to the Keen Readers website for more encouragement and information.
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