Grade 4 English Language Arts: how to help at home
What your child learns in Grade 4 english language arts in the Alberta Curriculum, and simple things to try at home.
The Big Ideas this year
- Listening and speaking build relationships and understanding.
- Reading aloud with emphasis, pausing, phrasing and intonation shows that you understand the text.
- Reading strategies help readers understand fiction and non-fiction texts.
- Texts have a purpose, a form and a structure, and these shape how they share ideas and information.
- Writing shares information and personal expression, and concise writing uses grammar, spelling and punctuation well.
- Information is accessed, shared and stored ethically, on paper or on a device.
Easy ways to practise english language arts at home
- Take turns reading a page aloud, and chat about what happened and why.
- Keep a short journal, with one or two sentences a day to start.
- Hunt for a new word a day and use it at dinner.
- Ask for a prediction before turning the page: “What do you think happens next?”
What each unit covers
Listen, Speak & Read Aloud
Good listening and speaking habits (taking turns, asking questions, speaking clearly) and reading aloud with pauses at punctuation, stress on key words and a voice that rises or falls with the meaning.
Reading Detectives
Reading short original stories and articles, then finding the main idea and key details, making inferences from clues, working out word meanings and choosing the best summary.
Text Features
Using the parts of a nonfiction book to find information: reading a table of contents and index, knowing what glossaries, captions, labels and timelines are for, and choosing headings.
Clues in Texts
Understanding hyperlinks, bold and italic type, labels and captions, telling who is narrating, spotting personification, and tracing causes and effects.
Figurative Language
Spotting similes, metaphors, personification, onomatopoeia and alliteration (plus hyperbole at the stretch level), and explaining what figurative phrases really mean.
Point of View
Telling first-person stories (I, me, we) from third-person stories (he, she, they), finding pronoun clues, and noticing when dialogue uses “I” in a third-person story.
Parts of Speech
Naming the job each word does in a sentence, with a focus on Grade 4's pronouns, adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions. Easier levels stick to nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns.
Grammar Gears
Choosing who, which, that and whose, using have, has and had with the right verb form, telling questions from commands, and using my, your, their, this and these.
Super Sentences
Joining sentences with and, but, or and so; spotting and fixing fragments and run-ons; and choosing verbs that agree with the subject and match the tense.
Sentence Builders
Spotting independent and dependent clauses and prepositional phrases, joining ideas into compound and complex sentences, and fixing run-ons and fragments.
Punctuation Power
Writing possessives (the dog's bone, the girls' bikes, the children's toys), placing commas in dates, places and lists, and punctuating dialogue with quotation marks.
Punctuation Power
Capitalizing words like Canadian and French, using commas when talking to someone by name, and putting quotation marks around the titles of poems, songs and chapters.
Word Builders
Using word parts to work out meanings: prefixes like re- and mis-, suffixes like -able and -ment, finding the base word, and (at the stretch level) roots such as port and tele.
Sound-Alikes
Choosing between words that sound alike (there/their/they're, to/too/two, its/it's) and using context to tell which meaning of a word like “bark” or “bow” is meant.
Paragraph Power
Choosing topic and concluding sentences, finding the sentence that doesn't belong, using transition words, identifying cause and effect, and putting sentences in order.
Sharing Information Fairly
How to find trusted sources, put ideas in your own words, give credit, ask permission before sharing, keep personal information private and save work safely, on paper or on a device.
What the report card levels look like at home
- Beginning
- Just getting started with this idea. Short, regular practice with lots of support helps most.
- Approaching
- Understands parts of it and is building confidence. Keep practising the tricky parts.
- Meeting
- Has it! Mixed review now and then keeps it strong.
- Exceeding
- Applies it confidently, even in new or harder situations. Try challenge mode and real-life problems.
Your child’s teacher decides the level on the report card. Read the Alberta report card guide.
Common questions
How can I help my Grade 4 child with english language arts?
Take turns reading a page aloud, and chat about what happened and why. Keep a short journal, with one or two sentences a day to start. Keep sessions short, about 10 to 15 minutes, and stop on a success.
What does my child learn in Grade 4 english language arts in Alberta?
The Alberta Curriculum Grade 4 english language arts units include listen, speak & read aloud, reading detectives, text features, clues in texts, figurative language, point of view.
Free printable Grade 4 english language arts practice sheet
Questions from every unit, with an answer key.