Reading Levels 4-6

A Look at Levels 4-6Students reading at levels 4-6 begin to move away from finger pointing and start to track words with their eyes. Students who are ready to move from a Reading level 3 to a 4 are recognizing high frequency sight words when in text without a repeated pattern or in isolation. Students use picture clues, initial sounds and ending sounds when reading unfamiliar words. They may also start to look for and/or notice words that look like other words they already know (example: he/we) or look for parts of words that they know (pond). You can expect students to begin sounding out and blending CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words like “cat”.

What to expect to see in text at Reading Levels 4-6
-familiar/easy topics (pets, school etc)
-pictures support the text
-repeated language patterns but with more complex patterns
-simple dialogue
-longer sentences (some may be questions)
-sentences may have prepositional phrases
-some words with common endings (-s, -ing, -ed)
-high frequency words are repeated in varying sentence structures

Some ways that you can help your student at homeStudents who practice reading every night at home make steady progress and here are some ways that you can help your student when they make an error or are “stuck” on a word.

“What letter does it start/end with?”
“If that word was _______, what would you expect the first/middle/last letter to be?”
“Do you know another word that looks like it?”
“Do you know a part in that word?”
“Read it again and see if it sounds right”
“Does it make sense?”
If you are looking for your child to read more fluently, you can model it for them the way it should sound and then have them try. And then they can try a little faster.

Remember to continue to have your student read their level 4, 5, or 6 book at least 2 times each night. Also, ask your student’s teacher what cues they are using in class that are similar to the suggestions above so that you can use them with your child at home.

Enjoy watching your child notice all the parts of words and begin to make connections.