Journeys
  • Our Journey's Reading Program consists of 30 weekly lessons.  The children will work on skills such as comprehension, fluency (rate & accuracy of reading), target vocabulary words, vocabulary strategies, phonics, grammar, spelling, high frequency words, and writing.  Many of our weekly lessons will connect to Social Studies, Science, and Health topics too!  All of the spelling words and high frequency words are on our classroom website.  All  spelling words are also printed on the back of your child's take home folder. 
     
     
    Key Concepts in Grade 4 English Language Arts (ELA)
     
     

    Reading

    Comprehension Skills

    • Story structure: characters, setting, plot
    • Author’s purpose: to inform, to persuade, to entertain
    • Cause and effect
    • Theme: the central message of the text
    • Understanding characters: studying characters’ words, thoughts, actions
    • Fact and opinion
    • Point of view: first person, third person
    • Conclusions and generalizations
    • A conclusion is a reasonable judgment you make after looking at facts.
    • A generalization is a conclusion that is true most of the time, but not always.
    • Simile and metaphor
    • Text and graphic features
    • Text features: headings, captions, etc.
    • Graphic features: diagrams, maps, etc.
    • Sequence of events
    • Main idea and details
    • Compare and contrast
    • Idiom: a phrase that means something different than what it says (e.g., It’s raining cats and dogs.)

     

    Comprehension Strategies

    • Summarize: retell the main events in a story, but not including every detail.
    • Monitor/clarify
    • Monitor: stopping periodically to pay attention to your understanding of what you’re reading.
    • Clarify: make the meaning clearer by rereading a text slowly and thinking about the main ideas.
    • Visualize: stopping periodically to visualize places and the people who live there.
    • Analyze/evaluate
    • Analyze: to look closely at parts to find out what they mean or how they work
    • Evaluate: evaluate the actions and thoughts of the characters.
    • Infer/predict: stopping periodically to visualize places and the people who live there.
    • Question: ask questions about characters, thoughts, actions, and words.

     

    Fluency: can read orally with appropriate expression, rate, phrasing, and accuracy.

     

     

    Writing

    Write informative/explanatory texts

    • Introduce a topic clearly.
    • Develop the topic with facts, details, or other information related to the topic.
    • Provide linking words and phrases and a concluding statement.

     

    Write opinion pieces

    • Introduce an opinion clearly.
    • Provide reasons supported by facts and details.
    • Provide linking words and phrases and a concluding statement.

     

    Write narratives about real or imagined experiences

    • Introduce a narrator and/or characters.
    • Use dialogue and description.
    • Use transition words and phrases to manage sequence of events.
    • Use sensory details to convey events clearly.
    • Provide a conclusion.

     

    Short-constructed response: responding in writing to a question about a text

    • State a claim: the general answer to the question.
    • Support your claim with text details/evidence.
    • Provide a closing statement.
    • Use grade-appropriate grammar and spelling.

     

    Grammar

    Write complete sentences, recognizing and correcting fragments and run-ons

    • Correctly use frequently confused words (e.g., to, too, two; there, their, they’re; your, you’re).
    • Use correct capitalization.
    • Use commas and quotation marks to mark direct speech and quotations from text.
    • Spell grade-appropriate words correctly, consulting references as needed.