Educators have long recognized what the late Jean Chall of Harvard University has called the fourth-grade slump. For reasons not entirely known, fourth-graders, sometime between becoming decoders and comprehenders of text, run into reading difficulty. It has been surmised that if we can zero in on the causes of this slump, preventive and/or corrective action can be taken.
That's why the federal government has set aside $30 million to fund a five-year research project to help shed light on the fourth-grade slump. The government's funding of this project is being fueled by interest in Response to Intervention (RTI), a framework in which teachers provide increased intervention for students who have been identified as strugglers. The framework is designed to identify children with learning disabilities so further, more intensive, intervention measures can be administered.
It is not surprising that Chall found the slump was worse with poor children. She suggested the slump was due to the lack of a vocabulary-rich environment. I suspect a lot has to do with the possibility that once we think we have taught kids to decode, we stop teaching reading. Even though kids can decode, we need to teach them the skills and strategies necessary to comprehend text. This is why, at Learning A–Z, every leveled book lesson focuses on key comprehension skills and strategies along with vocabulary development.
If the research can help us better develop instruction for kids who have mastered the code but still struggle to understand what they read, the $30 million will be well spent. Goodness knows we spend far more on social programs for those who drop out because they just don't get it.
I think your assessment about the lack of a vocabulary-rich environment is so true. When we closely examine traditional 4th grade reading materials, it is easy to see the jump in complexity from 3rd to 4th grade texts. The jump mainly consists of the addition of content-rich vocabulary, evident in science and social studies books.
I think we need to develop "transitional third" grade materials for teachers to use in the second half of the 3rd grade year for guided reading lessons to prepare their students for the reading demands of 4th grade.