Welcome to Module 4 Grade 4/5

• Review the resources below.

• Choose 1 activity to complete with your child in fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension.

• Fill out the parent survey to share what you did and its impact.

Reading Aloud

1. Storyline Online: This resource streams videos featuring celebrated actors reading children’s books alongside creatively produced illustrations.
2. Epic: This is a digital resource for children 12 and under that includes many "Read to Me" books, as well as books that a child can read on their own or with a parent.
3. Vooks: This is a streaming service that brings children's storybooks to life with animated illustrations and narrated story. Imagine storybooks where the illustrations move, the sounds sound, and the story comes to life! Children can read along, watch, or giggle at will. Vooks is offering a one month free trial.
4. Bookflix: This is a digital library produced by Scholastic. They have also put together some free at-home learning resources for parents.
5. Tumblebooks: This is a free virtual library that has storybooks, read alongs, Ebooks, graphic novels, non-fiction, videos, language learning, videos, puzzles and games.

Fluency

What is reading fluency?

Reading speed is the number of words a person can read correctly per minute. Reading speed is also called reading rate. It’s part of a broader skill called reading fluency. This is the term for being able to read accurately at a good pace and with the right expression or intonation. This article will help you to know why reading fluency is important and shares things you might ask your child's teacher about reading fluency. Below are some videos that show what reading fluency looks like at the different grade levels.

Prefixes and Suffixes

Prefixes and suffixes are very important for reading fluency. Recognizing prefixes and suffixes will help readers ‘chunk’ longer words and help with comprehension. You can cut out the sheet of prefixes and suffixes, and when your child is reading, they can find these prefixes or suffixes in words. You could even make headings on a piece of paper and write down the words you find in your reading that have these prefixes or suffixes. Use a different one every day!

Repeated Reading

Here is a quick and easy activity you can do with your child to help practice fluency using a repeated reading method. Repeated reading is a system where your child will read a passage to you more than once. Set a timer for 1 minute. Your child reads the same passage 3 different times to you. You record errors each time. Your child will see with repeated reading and practice that their errors decrease over time. You may also notice some common errors or mistakes your young reader makes that you can discuss and talk about.

Fluency Articles

Here is a short article with many ideas for parents to help their children improve their fluency. You will find you may already be doing many of these fun, easy activities at home already.

Additionally, this is a great article packed with information and links of things you can do at home with your child. It explains the importance of fluency and give you access to fun reader’s theater links, online stories and more.

Vocabulary

In fifth grade, most kids learn almost 2,000 new words. Many of them will come from reading. Watch this video from Understood founding partner GreatSchools to understand how fifth graders figure out the meaning of a word they don’t know.

Vocabulary Articles and Applications

You can visit this link published by the National Center for Improving Literacy to find additional resources related to building a child's vocabulary.

This great article titled: 7 Great Ways to Boost Your Child's Vocabulary is a great read for parents with children of all ages.

Here is another short article, titled Building Your Child's Vocabulary that has 4 helpful hints to help you build your child’s vocabulary!

Spelling City is a web resource that has online vocabulary games. They are fun, interactive, and include multiple grade levels!

Board games can also help to build vocabulary! These web resource shares games that you may have at home that you can enjoy together and build vocabulary at the same time.

1. Four Fun Board Games for Improving Kids' Vocabularies
2. Word Games for Children

Comprehension

What is reading comprehension? This video does a great job of explaining the complex process of understanding what is read. Students in 4th and 5th grade will work hard to read and understand increasingly more challenging books.

Choosing books at the right reading level can help your child get better at reading—and learn to enjoy reading. Books that are too challenging can discourage kids. Books that are too easy don’t give enough opportunity for practice and growth. Here is an article than can help you pick good fit books for your child.

As children move into their upper elementary years, their purpose for reading shifts from learning to read, to reading to learn. The video below sums up how you will know if your child is understanding text at the upper elementary level.

As children get older, they are expected to read more complex text, sometimes that means reading text that is online, which can be a challenge when children struggle. This resource from Understood.org shares several Chrome tools that can support struggling readers.

In the upper elementary grades, children are asked to read more informational texts. The resource below provides 10 practical ideas parents can use to build their children's reading comprehension of informational texts.

Finally, this is a great article on comprehension. It gives a personal perspective from a parent, teacher, and young reader. This article will also help you understand what your child may be feeling as he/she struggles with comprehension.

Reading Anxiety

When reading is a challenge for children, it may make them anxious. This blog shares 5 reasons why children may get anxious when reading and what you can do to help.

Make Reading Fun

When a child struggles with reading, it can cause anxiety. Parents can help to make reading an enjoyable experience for their child. This blog provides 13 tips for parents to help make reading fun. The video below discusses the power of building a "reading den" with your child. Our hope is this toolkit provides tools to help you support their child as they grown and develop as readers.