Reading Development for 4-8 Year Olds

Skill Focus - Listening to Stories and Answering Questions4-5: Pay attention to a short story and answer simple questions about them5-6: Listen to and understand age-appropriate stories read aloud6-7: Remember information; Understand what is read7-8: Correctly answer questions about a grade-level story

Skill Focus - Retell a Story4-5:Tell stories that stick to topic5-6:Retell a story or talk about an event6-7:Tell and retell stories and events in a logical order7-8:Explain key elements of a story (e.g., main idea, main characters, plot); Read,

paraphrase/retell a story in a sequence

Skill Focus - Letter-Sound Correspondence4-5:Name some letters and numbers5-6:Understand that letters represent speech sounds and match sounds to letters; Identify

upper- and lowercase letters6-7:Identify letters, words, and sentences, Sound out words when reading7-8:Have fully mastered phonics/sound awareness; Associate speech sounds, syllables, words, and

phrases with their written forms

Skill Focus - Sight Words4-5:Recognize common environmental signs5-6:Recognize some words by sight6-7:Have a sight vocabulary of 100 common words7-8:Recognize many words by sight

Created by Lauren Barnett, MA, CCC-SLP iHeartSpeech.com

Reading Development for 4-8 Year Olds

Skill Focus - Reading (pre-reading)4-5: sit and listen to books5-6:Know how a book works (e.g., read from left to right and top to bottom in English)6-7:Blend separate sounds to form words, Match spoken words with print, Read grade-level

material fluently7-8: Read grade-level stories, poetry, or dramatic text silently and aloud with fluency; Read

spontaneously

Skill Focus - Writing4-5:Write some letters, grasp a pencil correctly, pre-writing lines5-6: Print own first and last name; Draw a picture that tells a story and label and write about

the picture; Write upper- and lowercase letters6-7:Express ideas through writing; Spell frequently used words correctly; Begin each sentence

with capital letters and use ending punctuation; Write a variety of stories, journal entries, or letters/notes

7-8:Write legibly; Use a variety of sentence types in writing essays, poetry, or short stories (fiction and nonfiction); Use basic punctuation and capitalization appropriately

Skill Focus - Following Directions4-5:Follow basic 2 part directions (this and that)5-6:Follow 1-2 simple directions in a sequence6-7:Follow 2-3 step directions in a sequence7-8:Follow 3-4 oral directions in a sequence

Skill Focus - Language Development4-5:Work on forming and explaining categories (fruits, furniture, shapes).Sort items into

categories. 5-6:Identify words that rhyme (e.g., cat and hat)6-7:Give directions7-8:Understand direction words (location, space & time words)

Created by Lauren Barnett, MA, CCC-SLP iHeartSpeech.com