Language/Reading Curriculum in the Fourth Grade

Reading Policy

Policy on developing reading competencies of the population is implemented at the national level. Starting in 2010, Kazakhstan implemented the Reading Kazakhstan program, the purpose of which is to introduce people to reading as a necessary tool of spiritual and intellectual breakthrough of the nation. The program is a set of measures in the following areas:

Promotion of family reading
Expanding the repertoire of the publishing industry of Kazakhstan
Addition of attractive literary texts (entertaining, popular scientific, fiction, documentary [nonfiction], interactive)
Development of the film industry in the area of screening the best examples of world literature
Revival of the reading tradition at the workplace
Development of a network of libraries for children, leisure, and educational centers
Organization of salons for children’s reading in large shopping malls
Promotion of writers’ work and the institution of literary prizes
Involvement of the media in making reading attractive through the regular publication of book reviews, literary criticism, and readers’ reviews

According to the National Book Chamber of Kazakhstan, about 3,500 book titles with 1.5 million to 2 million volumes are issued annually.

Summary of National Curriculum

Participants of PIRLS 2016 studied on the basis of:

The State Mandatory Standard of Preschool and Secondary Education (SMSE RK 1.4.002-2012) that covers primary, basic secondary, and general secondary education⁹
Standard educational programs in general subjects, electives, and extracurricular courses approved by the Ministry of Education and Science

In addition, primary school children are trained based on “We Go to School” (2010) special education programs.

General curricula for primary education focuses on development of a child’s individual abilities and skills in reading, writing, numeracy, language communication experience, and creative self-realization for further acquisition of educational programs of basic school.

Content of primary education is divided into seven educational areas: Language and Literature, Mathematics, Science, Human and Society, Art, Technology, and Physical Culture.

The standard educational program (curriculum) for the subject of literary reading at the primary level was developed in accordance with SMSE RK 1.4.002-2012. This program takes into account individual development of a child and potential acquisition of the reading competence for use in various situations. A key aspect of learning outcomes is the formation of general educational skills of analysis, synthesis, and generalization.¹⁰ The content of the program is made up of Kazakh, Russian, and world literature for children, selected based on aesthetic and educational value of the literary work and its comprehensibility to students based on their age.

The main goal of the literary reading subject is the formation of functional literacy for the moral and patriotic personality of a student through his reading activity, the ability to accept the text emotionally, and to understand and reproduce what has been read.¹¹ The objectives of this subject include:

A lucid, correct, fluent, and expressive reading level and an understanding of the thematic and ideological content of the work
Formation of readers’ horizons and expansion of students’ knowledge about the social realm based on works of Russian, Kazakh, and foreign literature
Developing and enriching coherent speech, creative imagination, and creative thinking; emotional responsiveness when reading fiction; commitment to productive and creative comprehension of what is read; creating texts of their own composition
Instilling sustainable interest in independent and systematic reading of children’s world literature comprehensible to their age; gaining experience of a conscious choice of books for independent reading

The program structure of the literary reading subject for each class of primary school includes the following sections:

Listening skills and reading
Themes and a range of readings
Theory of literature (propaedeutics)
Analysis of the text
Productive and creative activity

The academic workload of the literary reading subject is four hours per week at 136 hours per academic year in Grades 2, 3, and 4.

The process of teaching literary reading is connected with:

Language—Work on basic linguistic analysis of the text, formation of an expressive, correct, logically competent speech, improvement of writing skills, coherent speech, mastering the skill of constructing texts of different types of speech
Knowledge of the World—Use of scientific and popular works on the subject, use of life experience, material discovery in the process of analyzing a literary work
Mathematics—Use of counting in games, works of folklore, enrichment of speech with mathematical terms
Fine Arts—Enrichment of the vocabulary based on the material of the drawings, formation of aesthetic ideas and feelings; development of “verbal drawing” skills, comparing and matching what is read and seen, development of skills to describe possible illustrations to the read text
Music—Use of musical works in reading texts, development of coherent speech based on the comparison of literary and musical works
Handicraft Training—Development of fingers, and use of artwork for illustrating the read works
Physical Education—The use of physical movements to accompany rhymed texts, and organization of role playing games based on the material of read works

Interdisciplinary connections within the school subject contribute to the creation of a strong succession framework for further study of literature in the secondary education stage. The core content of this academic subject for Grade 4 includes the following components:¹²

Listening skills and reading

Attentive listening to texts, understanding of theme and main idea of the work
Synthetic reading, characterized by merging of the reading skills and understanding of what is being read
Reading tempo at the end of the year should reach 75 to 90 words and characters per minute
Development of detailed, annotated reading, reading for specific information, conscious and rapid reading to yourself; representation of informational reading (“reading for yourself”); reading for details (“reading to myself”); expressive reading aloud (intonation, logical stress, pauses)
Further development of the types of reading: independent reading, reading with a specific task, selective reading, choral and annotated reading, etc.
Continued use of various types of exercises to increase reading speed, intonationʼs expressiveness, the development of operational fields of reading, flexibility in reading

Theory of literature

Determination of themes and ideas in art; titling the read parts; making up a plan
Theme and idea of the artwork; the main characters of the work; their overall assessment
General notion of composition
General concept of the types and genres of folklore: tale, myth, heroic epic, epic tale; development of the concepts of genres: poem, story
Concept of hyperbole
Portrait and character of the work hero (identifying the author’s attitude toward the hero and assessing his feelings and character through the description of a portrait or landscape)
Repetition and deepening of information: descriptive and expressive means (epithets and similes) in literary fiction

Text analysis

Awareness of the themes and ideas in the literary work; artistic retelling with preservation of expressive language means of the works
Understanding the moral and ethical issues of the work; statement of his own attitude towards its solution
Establishing cause-effect relationships in text
Finding figurative and expressive means of language in the text, definition of their role to characterize the literary characters, understanding the author’s position
Characteristics of the hero through the description of his portrait
Development of attention to detail of the artistic image; ability to speculate about the significance of this detail for characterizing the character
Detailed answers to questions on the content of the text; constructing own questions; organization of search for answers to problems; titling parts of the text; plan for retelling of the text
Oral opinion of what has been read

Productive and creative activity

Writing tales, stories, poems based on prop words, and parts of text based on the texts read and on personal life experiences
Oral description of the heroes’ portraits in the literary work; thinking of comparisons; epithets for portrait characteristics of characters
Writing their own episodes in the development of the literary work’s plot
Compiling of tales and stories, and staging of the read works
Drawing verbal pictures to the text
Work on creative writing: tales, stories, riddles (based on the sample of the read work and illustrative material)

At the completion of Grade 4, students should know:

Genres of folklore: tale, epic tale, fable, parable (a common term)
Literary concepts: the portrait and the character of the literary work; the landscape in the literary work
Figurative and expressive means (epithets, comparisons, personification, hyperbole) in the literary work
A certain amount of vocabulary that allows them to reproduce the text that has been read; engage in heuristic conversation; discuss what has been read
The content of the literary works that are a part of the curriculum and their genre
How to recite 12 to 14 poems and two to three excerpts from prose works

Students should be able to:

Understand and articulate the theme and idea of the literary work
Distinguish between the genres of orature: Kazakh heroic epics, legends, epic tales, riddles, fairy tales (folk and literary), poems
Find in the text descriptive and expressive means of language (epithet, comparison, hyperbole) to analyze character, portrait, landscape of the read works
Read correctly, observing the orthoepic norm and intonation; read expressively, following the formulation of logical stresses and pauses, choosing the pace and power of voice in accordance with the content of what is being read; read 75 to 90 words per minute; understand the meaning of what has been read
Have skills of detailed, annotated reading; reading for specific information; reading to yourself (90 to 110 words per minute)
Be able to find in the text answers to questions; retell the content of the text
Name literary works they have read, their authors, and have an idea about their biographies
Use language in figurative and expressive means of language to communicate their feelings, thoughts, and assessment of what has been read
Convey the sequence of events; establish a causal connection in the narrative
Be able to evaluate the actions and behavior of the characters to express their attitude to what they have read, to explain the motives for their actions, to find similar examples in real life situations
Creatively interpret the content of the texts, to create their own texts
Master the norms of speech etiquette and culture of interethnic communication
Express and justify their attitude to the read literary works (what I liked and why)
Distinguish landscape, portrait, and speech of the hero in the text; find the means for artistic expression (comparisons, epithets, impersonation, hyperbole)

Students must demonstrate:

A sense of love and respect for the state symbols of the Republic of Kazakhstan; know and obey the Hymn of the Republic; love and cherish their native land; know and respect the traditions and culture of the multinational people of Kazakhstan and the national holidays
The ability to evaluate moral character of literary characters: honesty, truthfulness, justice, generosity, compassion, attentiveness, respect for elders and parents, ability to come to the aid of the weak, be kind, caring, and bold
The ability to recognize and identify (name) their emotions and the emotions of characters in the literary works; support other people; empathize with characters
The ability to perceive the beauty of nature and care for everything living; to feel the beauty of artistic expression, and seek to improve their own speech
Their feelings and evaluation in essays about friends, family, and acquaintances; compare them with the heroes of the books read

Students should apply the following systemic and activity results:¹³

Educational and organizational skills—Formulate the topic and the purpose of the lesson, assess their learning activities at the end of the lesson, participate in heuristic conversation, solve tasks
Training and information skills—Obtain information through listening and reading the text, analyzing it; the ability to allocate the main aspects of the text to determine the reasons of heroes’ actions; make a plan of the text; master different ways of retelling the text (detailed, concise, creative)
Training and logical skills—Basic types and methods of analysis and synthesis; monitoring the actions of the characters; comparison of portrait characteristics; establishing causality in the actions of the hero
Training and communication skills—Communicate in groups or in pairs when performing learning tasks; cooperation in the analysis of the text, when discussing the nature of the characters; use different ways of searching for educational information in reference books, dictionaries, and the Internet; in accordance with communicative and cognitive tasks, express their own assessment of the text, to be able to defend it in a debate