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Grade 4

 

Fourth Grade ELA:

The Wit & Wisdom Grade 4 curriculum is a comprehensive English Language Arts program designed to build literacy and critical thinking skills while fostering a love for reading and writing. It aligns with New York State (NYS) standards by incorporating rigorous content, text-based analysis, and integration of speaking, listening, and writing skills.

Key Features:

  1. Knowledge Building: Students explore deep, meaningful themes through high-quality, complex texts.

  2. Writing Development: The curriculum emphasizes varied writing styles, including informative, narrative, and opinion pieces, tied directly to module content.

  3. Vocabulary and Language Skills: Lessons include vocabulary acquisition and context-driven language skills to support comprehension.

  4. Integration with Standards: Directly aligned with NYS Next Generation ELA Standards, addressing elements like text structure, point of view, and genre comparison.

  5. Cross-disciplinary Links: Modules incorporate social studies, science, and the arts to deepen content understanding.

Grade 4 Module Themes:

  1. Module 1 - A Great Heart: Explores the biological and symbolic importance of the human heart, focusing on compassion and perseverance.

  2. Module 2 - Extreme Settings: Examines survival and resilience in harsh environments through texts like Hatchet.

  3. Module 3 - The Redcoats Are Coming!: Highlights the American Revolution, emphasizing historical literacy and citizenship.

  4. Module 4 - Myth Making: Delves into Greek mythology, exploring storytelling's role in teaching life lessons.

Alignment to NYS Standards:

  • Focused on critical standards such as:

    • Identifying and analyzing text structure (RI.5, RL.5).

    • Comparing perspectives (RL.6).

    • Analyzing visual and quantitative information to enhance text comprehension (RI.7, RL.7).

    • Building and presenting knowledge through research and writing (W.7–W.9).
       

  • Reinforces skills like phonics, fluency, and foundational literacy alongside grade-level expectations for literary and informational texts.

This curriculum also integrates art and culture to create a well-rounded educational experience while supporting the development of academic language and deep comprehension skills. 

Just Words Program for Grade 4: Key Components and Alignment with NYS ELA Standards

The Just Words program is a structured literacy intervention designed for students who are struggling with reading and spelling, particularly those who have not yet mastered foundational skills. It provides a systematic approach to help students build phonemic awareness, decode words, improve fluency, and enhance spelling. For grade 4 students, the program becomes more focused on reinforcing these skills while preparing students for more advanced literacy tasks.

Key Components of the Just Words Program for Grade 4:

  1. Phonological Awareness:

    • Students strengthen their understanding of the sounds in words, which is critical for decoding and spelling. The program focuses on blending, segmenting, and manipulating sounds within words.

  2. Decoding and Word Study:

    • The program uses multisensory strategies to teach students how to decode (sound out) words by connecting letters to sounds. It emphasizes syllable patterns, vowel teams, consonant blends, and digraphs. By Grade 4, students begin applying these skills to more complex words.

  3. Spelling Instruction:

    • Just Words integrates spelling instruction into the curriculum. By teaching spelling patterns that reflect phonological rules, the program helps students make sense of how words are constructed. This helps them gain independence when encountering unfamiliar words.

  4. Fluency Practice:

    • Students practice reading with increased speed and accuracy. The program encourages reading aloud and repeating texts to build fluency, which in turn aids comprehension.

  5. Vocabulary Development:

    • Just Words includes vocabulary development through context clues, word analysis (prefixes, suffixes, and root words), and exposure to grade-level academic vocabulary. This helps students not only decode and spell but also understand the meaning of words within different contexts.

  6. Comprehension Strategies:

    • While the primary focus of Just Words is decoding and spelling, the program also includes strategies to develop comprehension skills. Students practice skills such as identifying main ideas, making inferences, and understanding the structure of texts.

Alignment with NYS ELA Standards:

The New York State English Language Arts (ELA) Standards provide a framework for literacy skills development in students. The Just Words program aligns with these standards, specifically in the following ways:

  1. Standard 1: Language for Information and Understanding

    • Just Words supports reading comprehension through phonics, vocabulary development, and context-based understanding. Students learn how to use phonetic decoding to understand unfamiliar words, which is a key component of comprehending more complex texts.
       

  2. Standard 2: Language for Literary Response and Expression

    • By focusing on fluency, decoding, and spelling, Just Words prepares students to respond to both literary and informational texts. It builds foundational skills necessary for students to analyze and interpret texts as required by the NYS ELA standards for literature and informational reading.
       

  3. Standard 3: Language for Critical Analysis and Evaluation

    • The program’s emphasis on vocabulary building, word analysis, and fluency supports students' ability to critically analyze texts. Understanding how words function and connect in different contexts enables students to evaluate meaning and content effectively.
       

  4. Standard 4: Language for Social Interaction

    • By building fluency and vocabulary, Just Words enhances communication skills, which are essential for social interaction. Students improve their ability to use language effectively in writing and speaking, aligning with the NYS ELA standards' focus on using language in social contexts.
       

  5. Foundational Skills (NYS ELA Common Core Anchor Standards):

    • Reading Foundational Skills (RF): Just Words directly addresses the foundational reading standards, such as:

      • RF4.3: Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.

      • RF4.4: Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.

      • RF4.5: Use context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words.

    • Writing Standards (W): As students improve their spelling and decoding, they develop the skills necessary for writing. Just Words helps students internalize spelling patterns, which is crucial for spelling accuracy in their own written work.
       

  6. Integration with the NYS Literacy Curriculum:

    • The Just Words program is designed to complement and reinforce classroom instruction in reading and writing. By supporting decoding and spelling, it helps students perform better on reading and writing tasks that align with the grade-level NYS ELA expectations.

In summary, the Just Words program for Grade 4 provides a comprehensive, research-based approach to literacy development, focusing on phonics, decoding, spelling, fluency, and vocabulary. This structured program is well-aligned with the New York State English Language Arts Standards, supporting foundational literacy skills that are critical for success in both academic and social contexts.

Mathematics

In Grade 4, math instruction is focused on three key areas:

  • Developing understanding and fluency with multi-digit multiplication as well as developing an understanding of dividing to find quotients involving multi-digit dividends 
  • Developing an understanding of fraction equivalence, addition and subtraction of fractions with like denominators, and multiplication of fractions by whole numbers
  • Understanding that geometric figures can be analyzed and classified based on their properties, such as having parallel sides, perpendicular sides, particular angle measures, and symmetry.

The Common Core Learning Standards focus on the following Mathematical Practices:

  1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
  2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
  3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
  4. Model with mathematics.
  5. Use appropriate tools strategically.
  6. Attend to precision.
  7. Look for and make use of structure.
  8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Social Studies

Our Social Studies Curriculum is focused on New York State and local communities and their change over time. Students learn about the geography, history, resources, significant people, places and issues that have helped shape our state.

Topics include:

  • Geography of New York 
  • Native Americans of New York State
  • Explorers who came to North America and explored the region that is now New York
  • Colonization of New Netherlands
  • The American Revolution
  • Industrial Growth and Expansion
  • Government

Science

The 4th grade science curriculum focuses on developing the following major understandings:

  • Energy exists in various forms: heat, electrical, sound, chemical, mechani­cal, light.
  • Energy can be transferred from one place to another.
  • Some materials transfer energy better than others (heat and electricity)
  • Energy and matter interact: water is evaporated by the Sun’s heat; a bulb is lighted by means of electrical cur­rent; a musical instrument is played to produce sound; dark colors may absorb light, light colors may reflect light.
  • Electricity travels in a closed circuit.
  • Heat can be released in many ways, for example, by burning, rubbing (friction), or combining one sub­stance with another.
  • Interactions with forms of energy can be either helpful or harmful.
  • Everyday events involve one form of energy being changed to another.
    •  Animals convert food to heat and motion
    • The Sun’s energy warms the air and water
    • Humans utilize interactions between matter and energy.
    • Chemical to electrical,light, and heat: battery and bulb
    • Electrical to sound(e.g., doorbell buzzer)
    • Mechanical to sound(e.g., musical instruments, clap­ping)
    • Light to electrical(e.g.,solar- powered calculator)

Health

The health program, The Great Body Shop, is designed to promote decision-making and behaviors that foster better health. Though students study similar topics at each grade, the depth of content and complexity of ideas builds from grade to grade. All students study injury prevention and personal safety, nutrition, functions of the body, growth and development/cycles of family life, disease and illness prevention, substance abuse prevention, community health and safety/violence prevention, self worth, mental and emotional well-being, environmental and consumer health, physical fitness.