Literacy Levels Explained For Children

Reading levels for children are an important tool, but should never become stressful or restricting. Based on assessments, reading levels provide a way for your child to select books which provide adequate challenge but won’t overwhelm their reading level.

Fountas and Pinnell Text Level Gradient, more commonly known by its acronym GRL (or F&P) assessment system is one of the most widely-used systems for measuring text level gradient.

Phonics

Phonics is the study of connecting letters and sounds. It forms an integral component of literacy instruction, enabling children to decode words (break them apart into their individual phonemes and blend them back together again) in order to read, while simultaneously using these same phonemes for spellcheck. Children who possess strong phonics skills are better at reading quickly and accurately than those without them.

Research demonstrates the efficacy of systematic phonics instruction as the optimal way to teach children to read. Nonetheless, many schools in New Zealand and Australia are shifting away from this approach and instead favoring whole language approaches that teach children new words at face value while associating them with prior knowledge (for instance if a word like “dog” appears next to an image of one), such that their brains automatically associate it with its meaning (ie if they see “dog” written across a page featuring images of dogs they will probably associate its entirety with its meaning).

Lack of phonics instruction can leave children struggling to read complex multisyllabic words and to break long words down into their constituent parts. Furthermore, children who don’t receive instruction tend to lack confidence in sounding out unfamiliar words and therefore rely more heavily on other strategies (eg meaning or context) when reading more difficult texts.

Early phonics instruction should focus on teaching children the 44 phonemes that make up English language. This should be accomplished by explicitly teaching each letter and its sound as well as providing exposure to some common word groups (such as no, she, was). Children should initially learn most commonly used letters such as Ch O O Sh or vowel digraphs/trigraphs that make one sound such as Ight and Sigh) before moving onto more obscure combinations like Ch, O O, Sh or vowel digraphs/trigraphs which make one sound; also, teaching vowel digraphs/trigraphs (two or more letters which make one sound – such as Igh and Sigh).

Some children exposed to phonics either at home or kindergarten do not require explicit instruction and are capable of decoding words on their own; however, these children often lack comprehension skills and may need extra support with this aspect of literacy development.

Comprehension

Comprehension is a multidimensional process that includes comprehending language, connecting new information to previous knowledge, and making inferences about gaps. Comprehension typically develops through reading and speaking aloud; teachers can support its development by offering clear instruction, scaffolding, and opportunities for practice.

As children advance from Kindergarten and Grade 1, their decoding skills improve to the point that they can read without needing picture cues or sentence context cues; however, oral language comprehension far outpaces reading comprehension as they use their expanding vocabulary and background knowledge to assist in comprehending text.

Grades 3 and 4 text comprehension demands increase dramatically as children explore content areas like history and science. Children must possess stamina to persist through longer texts to gain a deeper understanding of these subjects. Vocabulary and morphemic knowledge become particularly vital at this point as students read more complex texts with potentially ambiguous word relationships; knowing geo stands for earth while astro means star will help children infer meanings such as geology, geologist and astronomy more easily.

Children’s comprehension grows through interaction with text, both reading and rethinking and revisiting ideas in writing or talking about it. Research indicates that reading and talking about texts draw on similar cognitive processes; additionally, revisiting ideas through writing or talking promotes metacognition which allows children to think about themselves when engaging with a text.

Once children achieve high word recognition levels, further growth as readers tends to center around reading for meaning rather than reading to learn. This transition typically happens around fourth grade; some children continue struggling with decoding well beyond this age. To maximize comprehension, reading instruction must focus on predicting, questioning, clarifying and summarizing texts before teaching them; this allows teachers to tailor instruction specifically to each child’s individual needs while saving both time and effort as teachers focus on the most essential learning tasks for every pupil.

Vocabulary

Vocabulary refers to knowledge about the structure (morphology), use, and meaning of words. Children need a robust vocabulary in order to read and speak fluently while also grasping new concepts and ideas. Vocabulary development and reading comprehension go hand-in-hand – oral language vocabulary being directly tied with reading abilities.

Researchers studying vocabulary and reading first employed the Picture-Phrase Vocabulary Test, or PPVT, as an evaluation measure to gauge children’s vocabulary and word knowledge. Even after controlling for other measures of literacy skills such as letter identification, sound recognition and word attack; those children with higher initial PPVT scores were more likely to read at higher levels than their peers.

PPVT tests assess both receptive and expressive vocabulary in infants through preschoolers. This exam can include both common words like “cooperation” and “reptile”, as well as academic vocabulary tailored specifically to young children’s cognitive capabilities.

Studies have also demonstrated that increasing one’s vocabulary helps make reading and understanding new words much simpler for a student, since more words help the brain recognize and decode sounds and letters in new words more quickly.

Children with limited vocabularies struggle to understand new words, making reading comprehension challenging. Reading requires an in-depth knowledge of context when using certain words – for instance if a reader only understands “light” as being related to illumination he or she may miss the author’s intended meaning when used in a passage to describe an individual or place.

Teachers should strive to expand students’ vocabulary by offering ample opportunities for word discovery and incorporating language-rich activities into everyday school life. Vocabulary instruction should focus on sparking curiosity about unfamiliar words encountered, developing word consciousness to foster more active reading habits – this form of word recognition aiding structured literacy instruction.

Written Expression

At Stage 1, children aged 6-7 begin to understand the connection between letters and sounds as well as print and spoken language. They become adept at decoding unfamiliar words using knowledge of sound-symbol correspondences and phonetic patterns; when writing they may begin with controlled scribbling before progressing onto non-phonetic letter strings; during this stage children should also be encouraged to write about familiar words while using their skills and insight to “sound out” new ones.

Children in grades one and two typically exhibit superior comprehension skills compared to word recognition skills, making it challenging for them to read complex texts with high numbers of multi-meaning words. Yet they still manage to comprehend more sophisticated texts when read aloud; additionally they develop reading strategies such as using maps as references or applying their prior knowledge about the subject matter in reading comprehension activities.

By Grade 3, typical readers are typically capable of decoding unfamiliar long words containing consonant-le combinations (e.g., stable, marble and needle), along with two-syllable oral vocabulary words like butterfly and potato from their oral vocabularies such as butterfly and potato. Furthermore, they can read words with phonetically irregular spellings such as acorn and piglet as well as consolidate common patterns for prefixes, suffixes and other word parts to improve reading fluency.

As children progress through elementary school, their reading instruction changes to focus less on decoding and word recognition and more on developing comprehension skills and reading to learn in content-area subjects such as history and science – an approach known as switching from learning to read to reading to learn. This transition has often been described as the shift from learning to read to reading for learning.

Sometimes a student’s difficulty with written expression and/or spelling may go undetected or be misdiagnosed as other issues preventing literacy development. But persistent problems in this area could indicate an underlying learning disorder; when this is the case, an educational psychologist should conduct an assessment in order to ascertain if written expression/spelling disorder exists.