Grade 4 - English

Language Arts 400 (Credit: 1.00)

Language Arts 400 focuses on the sequential development and integration of communication skills in four major areas—reading, writing, speaking, and listening. It more specifically focuses on deepening and furthering students' understanding in the following ways: ï‚· Reading: Students will continue to build fluency and independent reading skills by further developing comprehension strategies. Students will read a wide variety of genres including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Students will also use text features and graphic elements to build nonfiction comprehension skills. Across the genres, student analyze text to determine and identify, main ideas, supporting details, and sequence. Students will use inferencing skills to draw conclusions based on text. Students will differentiate fact from opinion in text. The texts have been chosen to further develop students’ vocabulary skills. Students will learn how to determine meanings of unknown words in context. Students will also learn more about word parts and academic language to further develop their vocabulary.   ï‚· Writing: Using graphic organizers and following the writing process from brainstorming to final draft, students’ writing skills will become stronger. Students will write for a variety of genres, include fictional stories, poetry, and informational text. Students will learn more complex paragraph structure. Students will also learn to make their writing come to life by learning about figurative language. Students begin to identify reliable sources of information and how to give credit to those sources. Integrated within the writing curriculum are grammar and convention lessons including; developing students’ student’s understanding of sentence structure, providing hands‐on experience with subject‐verb agreement and parts of speech. Students continue their learning of cursive handwriting. ï‚· Speaking: Integrated into the Language Arts Curriculum are several projects in which students will apply their speaking skills. Students will plan for and participate in discussions. Students will orally present written work.   ï‚· Listening: Special attention is placed on developing student listening skills, Students will learn strategies for listening in different environments. Students will learn how to paraphrase claims that they have heard in a discussion.   ï‚· Special Topics: Teaches research skills, citing reliable sources and preparing study notes. Â