Do teachers in grades 4-8 still teach reading mechanics, or is there focus more on comprehension?
There are many people who believe that students learn to read in the lower grades and that they read to learn at the upper grades, promoting the notion that students have learned all that they need to know about how to read. I don’t believe that’s true. I think that upper grade students still need to know much about reading and the reading process. Reading at the upper grades gets more technical and sophisticated. For example, teaching students how to read and write expository text becomes more and more important. Yes, at upper grades we still need to teach the mechanics of reading. Even the word-level of reading is still important. Is there ever a point at which a block is dropped from reading instruction? Or are certain blocks emphasized more (or less) at this 4-8 level than those before? At the lower grades, the blocks are all considered equally important for the development of a proficient reader. At the upper grades, however, the purposes of some of the blocks will differ. Modifyi
