By upper elementary and middle school, students are expected to comprehend challenging content area reading. Yet according to the Rand report on adolescent literacy (2004), many children are not moving beyond basic decoding skills as they advance to fourth grade and classes in history, mathematics and science. Continuous literacy instruction beyond third grade is needed to prepare students for a demanding job market, the report concluded.

Reading Together Intermediate, written at the fourth-grade level, gives students the skills they need to compete. It features high-interest passages and trade books for students in fourth, fifth and sixth grades, and focuses on reading with purpose and activating prior knowledge to help students prepare for the type of texts they will encounter. Lessons are grouped by theme, so tutees learn to synthesize information from several tutorials. They also learn to form their own questions, and find answers by rereading and using classroom resources. See a sample lesson to preview strategies used to promote fluency and comprehension.

Fluency strategies

Modeled reading
Guided oral reading
Silent independent reading
Repeated reading
Monitoring and correcting

Comprehension strategies

Predicting
Setting a purpose
Text connections (text-to-self; text-to-world; text-to-text)
Retelling
Explicit questioning
Inferring
Visualizing
Synthesizing information

Vocabulary is built as students are exposed to authentic literature and actively participate in learning.

Writing is practiced in each lesson during post-reading activities (Venn diagrams and other graphic organizers, etc.). Students are asked to compare and contrast information from several lessons, developing a more sophisticated understanding of the text.

Reading Together Intermediate is part of a continuum that includes Grade Two and Grade Three.