Grade 4 English Language Arts: how to help at home
What your child learns in Grade 4 english language arts in the Newfoundland and Labrador Curriculum, and simple things to try at home.
The Big Ideas this year
- Speaking and listening: explore and reflect. Students will speak and listen to explore, extend, clarify, and reflect on their thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences.
- Speaking and listening: communicate. Students will be able to communicate information and ideas effectively and clearly, and to respond personally and critically.
- Speaking and listening: interact with respect. Students will be able to interact with sensitivity and respect, considering the situation, audience, and purpose.
- Reading and viewing: select and read. Students will be able to select, read, and view with understanding a range of literature, information, media, and visual texts.
- Reading and viewing: interpret and combine information. Students will be able to interpret, select, and combine information using a variety of strategies, resources, and technologies.
- Reading and viewing: respond personally. Students will be able to respond personally to a range of texts.
- Reading and viewing: respond critically. Students will be able to respond critically to a range of texts, applying their understanding of language, form, and genre.
- Writing and representing: explore and reflect. Students will be able to use writing and other ways of representing to explore, clarify, and reflect on their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and learning; and to use their imagination.
- Writing and representing: create texts. Students will be able to create texts collaboratively and independently, using a variety of forms for a range of audiences and purposes.
- Writing and representing: strategies. Students will be able to use a range of strategies to develop effective writing and other ways of representing and to enhance their clarity, precision, and effectiveness.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
- Not Yet Achieving
- 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.
- Good
- Has it! Mixed review now and then keeps it strong.
- Excellent
- 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 Newfoundland and Labrador report card guide.
Common questions
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.
The Newfoundland and Labrador Curriculum Grade 4 english language arts units include reading detectives, text features, figurative language, point of view, parts of speech, super sentences.
Free printable Grade 4 english language arts practice sheet
Questions from every unit, with an answer key.