Language/Reading Curriculum in the Fourth Grade

Reading Policy

The curricula for primary school shape policies regarding instructional time. The school year in Lithuania begins on September 1 and usually concludes at the end of May in primary school and in mid-June in lower and upper secondary school. Generally, schools in Lithuania hold classes five days per week, with instructional time typically consisting of 45 minute lessons. At the fourth grade, total instructional time is slightly more than 17 hours per week with a minimum of 23 compulsory lessons per week and a maximum of 25 lessons (including optional lessons) per week. However, this does not include additional lessons that students are free to choose from depending on availability at their school. Seven to eight lessons per week are allocated to mother tongue instruction during primary school, with seven lessons per week in Grade 4.³

Lithuania’s official reading policy is described in the General Curriculum of Primary and Basic Education. According to this document, the main goals for primary school language teaching related to reading include:⁴

Helping students acquire basics of fundamental literacy and develop elementary skills for creating and understanding text

Creating prerequisites to acquire and widen intellectual capacity and emotional, moral, social, and cultural experience

The need to preserve and foster cultural traditions is emphasized at all levels of education.

Summary of National Curriculum

The national curriculum integrates reading instruction in primary school into mother tongue instruction. The language and reading curriculum describes what basic listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills students are expected to achieve by the end of Grades 2 and 4. The curriculum also describes language and reading achievement (e.g., attitudes, knowledge, skills) and provides educational guidelines, methodical recommendations, and examples for reaching them. The 2008 national curriculum, however, distinguishes the aspects of reading much more than prior curricula and conceives of it as encompassing two major areas: Reading Technique and Text Comprehension (conscious reading); and Basic Knowledge of Literature and Culture. The latter area is further divided into Reading Skills, Reading Functions, Reading of Literary and Nonliterary Texts, and Attributes of a Good Reader.⁵ Throughout Grades 3 and 4, students are expected to develop knowledge and skills in these areas:

Reading Skills—While reading literary and nonliterary texts including children’s periodicals, students constantly improve their reading skills, including reading expressiveness and text comprehension. Based on the reading purpose and specific situation, students choose the type and tempo of reading (verbal or silent and a slow, medium, or fast rate).

Reading Functions—While reading and analyzing study materials, students start to recognize cognitive, educational, and value oriented or aesthetic functions of reading. The cognitive function refers to reading to know or to discover. The educational function refers to reading to learn to do or make something practically (e.g., to make a mask or to check an essay for mistakes). The value oriented or aesthetic function refers to reading because it is pleasant to read.

Reading of Literary and Nonliterary Texts

While reading literary works or excerpts, students learn to evaluate a text, describing why they like or dislike it; indicating what in the text makes them laugh or feel happy or sad; admiring, getting angry, or experiencing other emotions; and identifying vivid words and expressions.
While reading nonliterary texts, students learn to find needed information and to describe what is important in them and what new things they have learned.
While completing tasks from textbooks, exercise books, or other texts, students learn to use explanations, suggestions, advice, and rules to carry out exercises for understanding language composition, learning writing, and creative tasks.
After reading fairy tales, stories, or legends, students learn to perform and retell those works with proper intonation, solve riddles, play children’s folk games, and sing songs.
After reading prose works, students learn to define themes, main ideas, characters, places, and time of action; explain what they like in the works and why; and identify vivid verbs, synonyms, and comparisons.
Teachers help students recite poems and discuss their imagery and mood.
Students learn to understand originality of dramas and to prepare and act out parts in dramatic works.
Students purposefully read nonliterary texts in books and periodicals and on the Internet to find necessary information and to distinguish main from secondary information. They purposefully read periodicals and watch children’s television programs and can recount what they saw in them.

Attributes of a Good Reader—By visiting school, city, or village libraries, students become active readers, develop aesthetic awareness, learn to choose valuable and needed books, and make use of informational works. Students who have been learning to use the Internet since Grade 1 should be able to find information they need on the Internet independently by Grade 4. Whether reading, listening to, or analyzing a text, students should be able to distinguish different types of writing (e.g., folk or contemporary stories), demonstrate familiarity with the composition of a book, and be able to name its parts.