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How to learn Grade 4: English language arts

Pennsylvania academic standards: English language arts, Grade 4

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1. Speaking and Listening: Students present appropriately in formal speaking situations, listen critically, and respond intelligently as individuals or in group discussions.

  1. Listening and responding: Listen and respond appropriately to adults and peers; follow agreed-upon rules for discussion such as listening to others and taking turns speaking
  2. Multimedia Presentations: Include multimedia components and visual displays in presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes
  3. Adapting Speech to Context: Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, using formal English when appropriate to task and situation while adjusting tone, vocabulary, and style for different audiences
  4. Reporting & Recounting: Report on a topic or recount an experience with organised facts and descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace
  5. Identifying Reasons Behind a Speaker's Points: Identify the reasons and evidence a speaker provides to support particular points, evaluating whether the reasoning is logical and the evidence is relevant
  6. Evaluating a Speaker's Argument: Summarise the points a speaker makes and explain how each claim is supported by reasons and evidence, evaluating the logic and relevance of the support
  7. Paraphrasing What You Hear: Paraphrase portions of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, capturing the key ideas accurately in one's own words
  8. Summarising Spoken and Media Presentations: Summarise a written text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats including visually, quantitatively, and orally

2. Writing: Students write for different purposes and audiences. Students write clear and focused text to convey a well-defined perspective and appropriate content.

  1. Writing for an audience: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organisation are appropriate to the task, purpose, and audience, maintaining a consistent style and structure throughout
  2. Sharing and Publishing Your Writing: Read own writing aloud clearly enough to be heard by peers and the teacher; use digital tools to produce and publish writing
  3. Short Research Projects: Conduct short research projects that build knowledge about a topic, gather information from print and digital sources, and take brief organised notes
  4. Literary Evidence in Writing: Draw evidence from literary texts to support analysis, reflection, and research in writing, applying grade-level reading standards to literature
  5. Why the author wrote it: Distinguish one's own point of view from that of the author of an informational text and identify the author's purpose
  6. Evidence-Based Writing: Draw evidence from informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research in writing, applying grade-level reading standards to non-fiction
  7. Narrative Writing: Write narratives with developed settings, characters and plot, using dialogue and description to develop experiences and show character responses to situations
  8. Basic Informational Writing: Compose informative or explanatory texts that introduce a topic, use facts and definitions to develop points, and provide a concluding statement or section

3. Reading Literature: Students read and respond to works of literature—with emphasis on comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, and making connections among ideas and between texts with focus on textual

  1. Listening to Texts Read Aloud: Listen to and discuss poems, stories, and non-fiction at a level beyond independent reading; confirm understanding of texts read aloud by asking and answering questions about key details
  2. Reading between the lines: Ask and answer questions about key details in literary and informational texts; make simple inferences based on what characters say and do
  3. Comparing Books: Make comparisons within and across books, identifying similarities and differences in themes, characters, settings, and authorial choices across multiple texts
  4. Text & Media Connections: Make connections between the text of a story or drama and a visual or oral presentation of the text, identifying where each version reflects specific descriptions and directions from the text
  5. Poems, Drama & Prose: Explain major differences between poems, drama, and prose, identifying structural elements unique to each form: verse, rhythm, and meter in poetry; cast of characters, dialogue, and stage directions in drama; chapters and paragraphs in prose
  6. Combining information from texts: Integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably, combining and comparing what each source contributes

4. Reading Informational Text: Students read, understand, and respond to informational text—with an emphasis on comprehension, vocabulary acquisition, and making connections among ideas and between texts

  1. Interpreting visual information in texts: Interpret information presented visually, orally, or quantitatively in informational texts (e.g., charts, graphs, diagrams, timelines, animations) and explain how it contributes to understanding the text
  2. Main Topic of Informational Texts: Identify the main topic and retell key details of informational texts; describe connections between individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information
  3. Main Topic & Key Details: Identify the main topic of a multi-paragraph informational text, determine the focus of specific paragraphs, and explain how key details support the main idea
  4. How authors support their points: Explain how an author of an informational text uses reasons and evidence to support particular points, evaluating whether the reasoning is sound and the evidence is relevant and sufficient
  5. Structure of information texts: Describe the overall structure of an informational text (chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) and explain how the author's chosen structure helps convey information and ideas
  6. Comparing Structure in Information Texts: Compare and contrast the overall structure of events, ideas, concepts, or information in two or more informational texts, identifying patterns such as chronology, comparison, cause/effect, or problem/solution
  7. Explaining Events & Ideas: Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in an informational text, including what happened and why, by citing specific textual evidence about causes, effects, and steps in a process

5. Foundational Skills: Students gain a working knowledge of concepts of print, alphabetic principle, and other basic conventions.

  1. Reading with Expression and Accuracy: Read aloud with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression (prosody), re-reading familiar texts to build fluency and confidence, and using context to self-correct
  2. Decoding unfamiliar words: Read Y3-4 exception words with unusual spelling-sound correspondences, applying growing knowledge of morphology and etymology to decode unfamiliar exception words

6. E04.D.1 Conventions of Standard English · E04.D.2.1 Use knowledge of language and conventions.

  1. Using New Vocabulary: Use words and phrases acquired through conversations, being read to, and responding to texts in own speech and writing
  2. Antonyms & Synonyms: Demonstrate understanding of words by relating them to their antonyms (opposites) and synonyms (words with similar meanings), using synonym and antonym relationships to refine vocabulary and improve precision in writing

7. E04.D.1 Conventions of Standard English · E04.D.1.2 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling.

  1. Bullet Point Punctuation: Punctuate bullet points consistently to list information clearly, applying conventions for capitalisation, end punctuation, and parallel structure across items
  2. Commas Before Joining Words: Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, so, yet) when joining two independent clauses in a compound sentence
  3. Starting and Ending Sentences: Begin sentences with a capital letter and end them with the appropriate mark (full stop, question mark, or exclamation mark); recognise and name end punctuation
  4. Punctuating Direct Speech: Punctuate direct speech using inverted commas (speech marks), understanding that direct speech records the exact words spoken and must be enclosed in punctuation marks

8. E04.D.1 Conventions of Standard English · E04.D.1.1 Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usag

  1. Adjective Order in Sentences: Order adjectives within sentences according to conventional English patterns (opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose) to produce natural-sounding descriptions
  2. Modal Verbs and Possibility: Understand and use modal verbs (can, may, must, might, shall, will, could, should, would) and modal adverbs (perhaps, surely, certainly) to indicate degrees of possibility, necessity, and permission
  3. Progressive and Continuous Tenses: Form and use the progressive (continuous) verb tenses — past progressive (was walking), present progressive (am walking), and future progressive (will be walking) — to convey ongoing actions at different times
  4. Relative Clauses: Form and use relative clauses beginning with relative pronouns (who, whose, whom, which, that) and relative adverbs (where, when, why) to add detail, qualify nouns, and create complex sentences

9. E04.B.K Informational Text · E04.B-V.4.1 Demonstrate understanding of vocabulary and figurative language in informational texts

  1. Advanced Figurative Language: Understand and interpret figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meaning — including allusion, irony, pun, oxymoron, and extended metaphor — and distinguish between connotation and denotation when analysing or choosing words

10. E04.A-K Literature Text · E04.A-K.1.1 Demonstrate understanding of key ideas and details in literature.

  1. In-Depth Character and Setting Analysis: Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details from the text such as a character's thoughts, words, actions, and interactions
  2. Finding Theme and Summarising: Determine the theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, and provide an objective summary that captures the key events without personal opinions
  3. Quoting Accurately from Texts: Quote accurately from literary and informational texts when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences, using quotation marks and citations correctly