Many students in grades 4-10 struggle to stay at grade level. During these years, “learning to read” becomes “reading to learn.” By grade 4 student encounter increasingly complex informational text. Research tells us that the 4th grader who struggles to comprehend will become the 8th grader who reads 1 or 2 years below grade level. The fourth grade slump becomes the eighth grade cliff. An 8th grader who struggles to comprehend will become a drop-out candidate by grade 10.
Literacy Navigator is designed to help these students before their reading problems defeat them.
Literacy Navigator is unique. It is based on the premise that reading is not a content-free activity. It teaches the research-based comprehension skills students need to 1) build a coherent understanding of the text as a whole and 2) store content in long-term memory so it becomes knowledge.
Each Literacy Navigator lesson builds content knowledge as students grapple with increasingly complex text and ideas. Students practice applying relevant background knowledge, recasting the information of the text in their own words, building appropriate graphic organizers, and discussing to deepen understanding of what they have read. They learn to assimilate the knowledge they have gained from reading the previous paragraph, the previous page, the previous chapter.
