Language Arts
Curriculum Overview:
Your child will be enriched academically through a balanced literacy and writing program. Balanced literacy includes a variety of components, which create opportunities for your child to experience reading and writing in a risk free environment, and guides them towards success. The fourth grade units of study are as follows:
Unit 1: Structured Literacy/Reading Writing Workshop/Author in Residence Patricia Polacco
Unit 2: We the People
Unit 3: Power and Progression
Unit 4: American Folklore/ Amistad
Unit 5: World War II and Holocaust
Unit 6: Mythology
Our Daily Activities:
*Reading is Thinking*
We will:
- Read Aloud - teachers help children experience and contemplate literary work they cannot yet read
- Shared Reading - children participate in reading, learn critical concepts of how print works, and get the feel of reading
- Guided Reading - teachers can show children how to read and can support children as they read; Guided reading leads to the independent reading that builds the process; it is the heart of balanced literacy program
- Reading Strategies - make connections, ask questions, make inferences, visualize, determine important information, monitor comprehension, understand text structure
*Writing is Communicating*
Students will be provided with numerous opportunities to develop their writing skills in a variety of ways.
We will focus on three types of writing:
- Opinion
- Informative/Explanatory
- Narrative
We will:
- Support our ideas with details and EVIDENCE from text
- Use Empowering Writer's techniques to organize our thoughts
- Engage in journal/response writing
- Incorporate spelling/word study activities on a weekly basis in order to build vocabulary
- Practice grammar, mechanics and punctuation authentically using the student's own writing
*It is suggested that students read for 20 minutes each week day*