Language/Reading Curriculum in the Fourth Grade

Reading Policy

For all nine grades of basic education, the national curriculum has guidelines for teaching reading under the heading Mother Tongue and Literature. The curriculum establishes the learning objectives in each subject and describes the content on a general level. Additionally, the national curriculum for Mother Tongue and Literature includes a description of good performance at the end of Grades 2 and 5, as well as assessment criteria to be used at the end of comprehensive school. Municipalities work together with schools to write more detailed curricula based on the national one. Thus, the common core curriculum is open to local adaptation.

In addition to the learning objectives and subject matter content, the national curriculum stipulates the minimum amount of instruction time for each subject as a number of weekly lessons per year. For Mother Tongue and Literature, the minimum amount of instruction is 14 weekly lessons for Grades 1 to 2, Grades 3 to 5, and Grades 6 to 9. Municipalities decide how to distribute weekly lessons for each grade; for instance, they could distribute the 14 weekly lessons for Grades 3 to 5 as five weekly lessons for Grades 3 and 4, and five weekly lessons for Grade 5. Mother Tongue and Literature must be taught in every grade of the basic education cycle. Municipalities may decide to exceed the minimum amount of instruction.⁹

Separate mother tongue curricula are used for Finnish and the minority languages: Swedish, Sami, Finnish Romany, and Finnish sign language. The guidelines for teaching reading are essentially the same (especially for Finnish, Swedish, and Sami); however, some differences and language-specific areas of emphasis exist.¹⁰ The following description is based on the curriculum for Finnish as the mother tongue because it is the curriculum taught to the vast majority of students.

The general objective of the national curriculum for Mother Tongue and Literature is for students to become active and responsible communicators and readers. Instruction must be founded on students’ linguistic and cultural skills and experience, and offer opportunities for diversified communication (including reading) through which students can build identity and self-esteem. Each subject must have a foundation in a range of texts and be broadly conceived; texts can be spoken or written, fictional or factual, verbal, figurative, vocal, graphic, or a combination of these.¹¹

Summary of National Curriculum

In Grades 1 to 2, the national curriculum emphasizes oral and written communication connected with students’ everyday lives, encompassing all areas of language and supporting the individual in language learning. The objectives for reading and writing include the following:

Learn the basic techniques of reading and writing
Further develop reading and writing skills, including media and digital literacy
Learn to observe oneself as a reader and writer
Gradually learn the conventions of written language

One objective related to students’ relationship with literature emphasizes reading engagement by encouraging students to choose reading material that is of interest to them and the appropriate level of difficulty. Basic reading technique objectives are to be met through ample practice of sound–letter correspondence; breaking down speech into words, syllables, and sounds; word recognition; and spelling at the sound and sentence level.¹² The curriculum also includes diversified daily reading and writing, as well as instruction in text comprehension strategies.

In Grades 3 to 5, the general objectives related to reading in the national curriculum focus on learning fluent reading and writing techniques, deepening reading comprehension, and developing skills in acquiring information. The more specific reading objectives for interpreting and utilizing texts require that students learn to do the following:

Read texts fluently and evaluate themselves as readers
Practice different ways of reading by applying various comprehension strategies
Choose reading material that is appropriate for different purposes
Search for information from a variety of sources

Furthermore, the curriculum for Grades 3 to 5 stresses student relationships with language and literature through reading engagement by focusing on reading ample amounts of varied literature and learning to select interesting and appropriate reading material in order to preserve positive attitudes toward reading. The curriculum also stresses text comprehension, specifically focusing on different ways of reading (e.g., skimming, literal reading, inferential reading), reading comprehension strategies (e.g., anticipating the content and structure of texts based on illustrations and headings, distinguishing main issues from secondary ones, summarizing, posing questions), and evaluating texts. Emphasis is placed on ample reading of several types of literary content, including common and optional materials, and on sharing personal reading experiences.¹³

For Grades 6 to 9, the national curriculum defines the core task of instruction as broadening student literacy from the skills needed in their immediate environment to standard language requirements and types of text that are new to the students. Students are to improve as text analysts and critical interpreters of texts during these grades, and mother tongue instruction calls for encouraging students to read and evaluate literature and various texts. Specific reading objectives include the ability to:

Gain practice with critical reading
Develop knowledge of text types and genres
Anticipate the type of reading appropriate for various genres and reading purposes
Enhance information acquisition skills
Learn to use multiple sources

In the case of the reading of literature, objectives include diversifying students’ reading activities and deepening their knowledge of literature. These objectives are to be met by ensuring mastery of reading processes through specific emphasis on reading comprehension; choosing appropriate methods of reading; sharing reading experiences; interpreting literary texts; familiarizing students with different types of text in factual and fictional settings, as well as in genres central to Finnish culture; analyzing texts as structural and meaningful entities; evaluating verbal, visual, and auditory elements in texts as well as authors’ intentions and choices; summarizing texts; and evaluating values and attitudes concealed in writing and illustration.¹⁴ Literature instruction also should include reading complete works—both required and optional—as well as shorter texts of various genres.

The national core curriculum for preprimary and basic education was renewed in 2014 and for general and vocational upper secondary in 2015. Even though they were not officially implemented until the autumn of 2016, in many elementary schools the new guidelines may have influenced teaching before that.

In the new basic education curriculum, seven competency areas are shared among all subjects: Thinking and Learning to Learn; Cultural Competence, Interaction, and Self-Expression; Taking Care of Oneself and Managing Daily Life; Multiliteracy; ICT Competence; Working Life Competence and Entrepreneurship; and Participation, Involvement, and Building a Sustainable Future.¹⁵ In Finland, this is a new way of combining competency-based and subject-based teaching and learning. Nevertheless, the traditional school subjects will live on, though with less distinct borders and more collaboration in practice among them.