According to the National Reading Panel, the 5 components of reading education are phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension. The Arizona State Standards lists skills that students are expected to master in their grade level. The skills focus less on decoding and more upon reading for content as students progress through grade levels.
Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is primarily addressed in kindergarten and in first grade. First grade students are expected to generate rhyming words, segment a multisyllabic word into syllables, manipulate phonemes to create new words, distinguish beginning, middle and ending sounds in single-syllable words, distinguish between long and short vowel sounds, recognize letter sounds, and blend and segment one syllable words.
Students in first grade spend a great deal of classroom reading time developing these necessary skills, but phonemic awareness activities do not extend beyond the first grade classroom. According to Farstrup and Samuels in What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction, since phonemic awareness is most effective between pre-K and first grade, it would be counterproductive to continue phonemic awareness training beyond first grade.
Phonics
Like phonemic awareness, phonics is only addressed in the lower grades. During first grade the student learns to decode and spell two syllable words using letter sound correspondences. The first grade student learns inflectional endings, base words, common spelling patterns, high frequency words, common contractions, and English syntax. By the end of third grade the student must be able to decode four and five syllable words and read and spell words with added endings or doubled consonants, as well as prefixes, suffixes and root words. Third grade students should also be able to read abbreviations, high frequency words and sight words. There are no phonics standards for fifth grade.
Vocabulary
First grade students have limited vocabulary requirements. They should be able to recognize base words and inflections, classify words by category, identify the two words in a contraction, and have a basic understanding of compound words. Third grade expounds on these ideas, as well as delving into synonyms, antonyms and homonyms, the use of suffixes and prefixes, and how to find information in a dictionary.
Fifth grade students continue to study these ideas in greater depth, but they also need to be able to use a variety of reference materials such as encyclopedias, the internet, and periodicals to obtain information. Fifth graders also need to be able to use context to determine the meaning of a word that has multiple meanings, and they should be able to tell the difference between literal and figurative language. Unlike phonemic awareness and phonics, which were skills that were taught and completed by second grade, vocabulary is different because the skills taught in each progressive grade are scaffolded upon information taught in the previous grade levels.
Fluency
The requirements for fluency are very similar throughout the first through fifth grades. The student needs to be able to read with 90% accuracy and should use normal intonation, rhythm and vocal patterns when reading classroom material aloud. Although fluency is important in first grade and is addressed explicitly, it is also taught implicitly by listening to the teacher read stories and poems. By third grade the student should be able to read alone with natural intonation, and should be completely articulate by fifth grade.
Comprehension
Comprehension is another area which is somewhat limited in the earlier grades but becomes more important as the student progresses. The first grade standards for comprehension are limited to prediction and building background knowledge, but by third grade students should be able to compare predictions to what actually happened in a text. The student should also ask relevant questions and answer clarifying questions to understand text, plus use graphic organizers to organize text. In fifth grade the same concepts are reinforced and sequencing, cause and effect and inferences are added. Like fluency and vocabulary, comprehension skills are scaffolded.
The state standards are leveled so that each skill leads into either mastery of a skill or a foundation for further growth. As the child progresses through school and develops reading skills, the focus changes from such early level skills as building phonemic awareness and phonics skills and learning that print has meaning, to extracting the meaning from text in an organized and systematic manner, using well-developed fluency skills, a robust vocabulary, and a battery of comprehension strategies.
References
Arizona State Standards: Standards and Assessment Division: Reading Strand 1.
Farstrup, Alan E. & Samuels, S. Jay (Eds.). What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction. Delaware: International Reading Association, 2002.
National Service Resources: The National Reading Panel - 5 Components of Reading Instruction Frequently Asked Questions.
Reading First Sample Lesson Frameworks: Grades 1, 3 and 5.
Stephany Seipel - Stephany Elsworth has a bachelor's degree in fine arts/curriculum and instruction from Texas State University and a master's degree in ...
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