Fourth Grade Literacy Content Standards
Fourth grade students are expected to:
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Reading/literature
- Identify and define the presence of figurative language in literary works (i.e. simile, metaphor, hyperbole, personification)
- Respond in a critical and thoughtful manner to a wide variety of children's literature. Distinguish between the structural features of the text and literary elements.
- Apply a variety of response strategies effectively (i.e. predictions, prior knowledge, context clue, keywords, topic sentences, illustrations)
- Experiences with self-selected and teacher directed works read from a wide range of material. (e.g. traditional and contemporary literature, a variety of cultures, different genres, writers)
- Read a variety of informational resources (i.e. books, newspapers, magazines, textbooks, visual media across the curriculum)
- Distinguish between cause and effect and between fact and opinion in expository text
- Strengthen comprehension of informational text by identifying structural patterns (i.e. compare and contrast, cause and effect, sequential-chronological order, main events)
- Use decoding strategies and context clues to determine meaning of new vocabulary, and pronunciation (i.e. word origins, synonyms, antonyms root words, idioms)
- Display fluency and intonation while reading orally
- Discuss contents from core, extended, and recreational reading in pairs, small and large groups
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Writing
- Students write clear, coherent sentences and paragraphs that develop a central idea. Students progress through the stages of the writing process (e.g. prewriting, drafting, revising, editing successive versions)
- Select a focus, an organizational structure, and a point of view based upon purpose, audience, length, and formal requirements
- Write narratives relating ideas, observations, or recollections of an event or experience by:
- Providing a context to enable the reader to imagine the world of the event or experience
- using concrete sensory details
- providing insight into why the selected event or experience is memorable
- Write responses to literature by:
- demonstrating an understanding of the literary work
- supporting judgments through references to both text and prior knowledge
- Write information reports that include:
- a central question about an issue
- facts and details for focus
- more than one source of information
- Write summaries that contain the main idea of the reading selection and the most significant details
- Quote or paraphrase information sources, citing them appropriately
- Use various reference materials as an aid to writing (i.e. dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopedia, on-line information)
- Students write with a command of standard English conventions to include:
- varied sentence structures
- grammar (i.e. parts of speech)
- punctuation (i.e. commas in direct quotations, parentheses, apostrophes in the possessive case of nouns and in contractions, and using underlining, quotation marks, or italics to identify titles of documents)
- capitalization (names of magazines, newspapers, works of art, musical compositions, organizations, and the first word in quotations when appropriate)
- spelling (roots, inflections, suffixes and prfixes, and syllable constructions)
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Listening and speaking
- Ask appropriate questions and respond to the questions of others
- Use appropriate grammar during formal presentations within small and large class groupings - paraphrase and summarize to increase understanding
- Listen responsively and respectfully to other’s points of view
- Use language which is clear, audible, and appropriate for communicating to the intended audience
- Use language, voice, and gestures expressively and appropriately while speaking and reading aloud
- Use eye contact, intonation, gesturing, phrasing, and pacing to engage listener (i.e. formal presentations, speeches, poetry recitals)