Grade 4 Elementary English Language Arts and Reading
Fall Semester | |||||||
Unit Title | Unit 1: Launching Strong Literacy Habits | Unit 2: Understanding Author's Purpose and Message | Unit 3: Following & Creating a Journey of Thought | Unit 4: Author's Purpose & Message: Learning and Leveraging the Power of Words | Unit 5: Examining & Developing the Heart of the Story | Unit 6: Traditional Literature and Drama | Unit 7: Absorbing and Authoring Poetry |
Time | 13 Days | 12 Days | 14 Days | 12 Days | 12 Days | 16 Days | 13 Days |
Understandings | Reading: Students self-select text based on interest, purpose, and readability. Students reflect on how their choices, behaviors, and preferences impact their growth as readers. By establishing a classroom culture that celebrates independent reading over sustained periods of time, students learn to set goals and work towards increased stamina. As they monitor their comprehension, students practice asking questions and making personal connections. They discuss ideas in text and reflect to make meaning. Students learn the expectations for responding to reading through written responses and for using text evidence to support the ideas in their responses. They also use resources and context clues to determine the meaning of unknown words. | Reading: Students examine how authors compose texts to deliver a variety of messages for a variety of purposes. Students learn how to interpret the techniques that authors use in their craft to deliver their message and how that message is received and impacts the reader. Students establish a purpose for reading, generate questions as they read, and monitor comprehension. Students learn to annotate a text and find text evidence to support their understanding. Students continue using resources and context clues to determine the meaning of unknown words | Reading: Students survey and examine a variety of texts, focusing on the author’s text/organizational structure. Students explain how the text/organizational structure contributes to the author's purpose. Students continue to monitor their understanding by utilizing effective comprehension skills and strategies, including establishing a purpose for reading, asking questions, making connections, making predictions, evaluating details, and determining key ideas. Students demonstrate their understanding by annotating texts, writing responses, and discussing ideas that include supportive text evidence. | Reading: Students survey and examine multiple genres of text, focusing on the author’s use of language and devices, including imagery, figurative language, and sound devices. Students discuss how the language used in text contributes to the author’s voice. Students describe how the language and voice supports the author's purpose and message. Students interpret the words and phrases the author selected in order to help them create mental images that improve understanding. Students continue to practice other comprehension strategies (e.g., asking questions, inferring, making connections etc.) while analyzing the impact of specific word choices on meaning. Students use their knowledge of root words and affixes to determine the meaning of words. | Reading: Students access a variety of fictional texts. They read, respond, and discuss their understanding of text by employing previously learned reading strategies that support comprehension. Through exposure to rich fictional texts, students recognize the essential literary elements of the fiction genre, including interactions and changes among characters, the plot arc (rising action, climax, falling action and resolution), and the impact the setting can have on the story. They use these literary elements, as well as text evidence to support their inferences, identify theme, and summarize texts. Students also carefully examine fictional texts for author’s purpose and craft, including the use of literary language and devices. Students study how authors use imagery, figurative language, sound devices, and point of view to establish voice, engage the reader, and enhance the message being conveyed. | Reading: Students read, interact with, write about, and discuss various traditional stories. Students examine these traditional stories for not only the literary elements of theme, character, setting, and plot, but also for their unique genre characteristics. Students flexibly use their comprehension strategies to understand and compare pieces of traditional literature. Students read, respond to/write about, and discuss multiple dramatic texts while employing strategies to support comprehension such as interacting with the text through annotating and notetaking. Students explore and explain the structural elements of drama, including character tags, acts, scenes, and stage directions. Students also examine literary elements (e.g., theme, character, plot, setting, etc.) and devices (e.g., point of view, imagery, figurative language, etc.) as well as author’s purpose and craft. Additionally, students utilize text evidence to support their ideas and inferences. | Reading: Students read and interact with poetry across a variety of poetic forms. Students explain author’s purpose, audience, genre characteristics, and analyze author’s craft in order to interpret and comprehend many different poems, including inferring theme. Students also explain the poet’s use of sound devices such as alliteration and assonance and figurative language such as simile, metaphor, and personification to achieve specific purposes, including to create images. Students continue to utilize text evidence to support their inferences and comprehension. |
Writing: Students plan and develop personal narrative drafts. Students choose a seed idea and develop their drafts into focused pieces of writing by including ideas and details. Students edit their drafts for subject-verb agreement and past verb tense (including irregular verbs), and correct spelling of high-frequency words and words with familiar sound-spelling patterns. | Writing: Students revise their first true story and share during a mini celebration. Through the writing process, students plan and develop another true story with a clear purpose and message. Writers continue to improve their language skills by editing for capitalization of proper nouns, coordinating conjunctions in compound subjects and predicates in order to maintain meaning in communicating their message. Writers apply sound-spelling patterns to spell correctly. | Writing: Students continue to engage in the writing process with an emphasis on purposeful structure and organization. Students plan and develop drafts that have a clear purpose and message as well as a structure that effectively communicates the purpose and message. Writers also learn about capitalizing for various purposes. | Writing: Students engage in the writing process and focus on language they choose to use in order to deliver their own purpose and message. Students revise their drafts to improve sentence structure and word choice in order to communicate their message. Students also use a checklist to edit drafts. Writers learn about capitalization of nationalities, races, and languages as well as apostrophes to show ownership and comparative adjectives. Students publish their essays. | Writing: Students apply what they are learning about literary elements and devices to their own writing. Students plan and draft realistic fiction (narrative) using genre characteristics and craft. It should include all of the literary elements: setting, character(s), events/plot, and theme/message. Students also learn how to use comparative and superlative adjectives as well as punctuate and capitalize dialogue in their writing. | Writing: Students compose realistic fiction and apply genre characteristics as they draft, revise, edit, and publish their own writing. Students have the option of crafting their realistic fiction as a dramatic text, or play. Students apply author’s craft learned during reading to their own writing products. Students rely on peer feedback to determine areas of their writing that need to be revised for clarity and coherence. Students edit their drafts for spelling and previously learned conventions and mechanics. | Writing: Students utilize the writing process to compose original poems by using what they have learned in Reading about the genre characteristics and structural elements of poetry as well as how poets develop voice through language and other literary devices. Students revise their poems based on self, peer, and teacher feedback. Students edit for previously learned mechanics and conventions but understand that poetry can sometimes include unconventional elements. Students publish and share their poems with others. | |
Word Study: Students use their knowledge of syllable division to decode and spell multisyllabic words with closed syllables, open syllables, VCe syllables, vowel digraphs and vowel diphthongs. Additionally, students identify and read high-frequency words. | Word Study: Students use their knowledge of syllable division patterns to decode and spell multisyllabic words with a focus on diphthongs as well as previously learned syllable patterns. | Word Study: Students decode and spell words using syllable division and applying their knowledge of all six syllable patterns with an emphasis on final stable syllables. Students also continue to apply their knowledge of orthographic (sound-spelling) patterns and rules to decode and spell words (please refer to Additional Notes for more information), including irregular plurals (e.g., men, mice, fish). Additionally, students are responsible for spelling homophones. Students also learn the rules for regular plurals, including changing y to i. | Word Study: Students use their knowledge of regular plurals, r-controlled syllables, and other r-influenced vowels to decode and spell words. | Word Study: Students will continue with r-influenced vowels, and syllable division patterns V/V. They will have the opportunity to review syllable division patterns and plural rules. Students will also learn regular plurals such as adding -s rules and adding -es rules to include changing f to v and adding -es. | Word Study: Students learn regular plurals and irregular plurals. Students also review syllable division patterns while learning final stable syllables to include C+le, -tion and -sion. | Word Study: Students will look at final stable syllables, -tion, -sion, -ture, -age and looking at syllable division patterns to include VV and VCCV.
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Grammar: Students learn about the invitational process and use verbs that agree in number and tense. Students check their verbs to make sure they sound right. | Grammar: Students use two subjects and one verb to form a compound subject and one subject and two verbs to form a compound predicate. Students capitalize proper nouns to give emphasis to names of people and places. | Grammar: Students capitalize titles of books, stories, and essays. Students also capitalize historical periods, events, and documents to emphasize importance and honor nationalities, races, and languages by capitalizing them. | Grammar: Students add an apostrophe -s to show ownership. Students compare two things using -er or more. Never both. | Grammar: Students compare three or more things using -est or most. Never both. Students open and close words spoken aloud with quotation marks. Students set off dialogue tags with punctuation. Students place end punctuation inside quotation marks. | Grammar: Students use a comma and a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS) to join two sentences. Students use prepositional phrases to tell where, when, and which one and use plural nouns to show more than one person, place, or thing. | Grammar: Students use adjectives only when they are needed to clarify what kind, how many, or which one. Students use pronouns to substitute for nouns. | |
Handwriting: Students take a pre-assessment and begin reviewing cursive writing. | Handwriting: Students continue to practice cursive letters. | Handwriting: Students continue practicing cursive lowercase letters to include joining letters. | Handwriting: Students will continue practicing their lowercase cursive letters and move into uppercase cursive letters. | Handwriting: Students will continue practicing their lowercase cursive letters and uppercase cursive letters. | Handwriting: Students continue to practice uppercase cursive writing with connected and not connected letters. | Handwriting: Students will continue practicing cursive connected and not connected letters. | |
TEKS | Phonics: 4.2Ai, 4.2Aii, 4.2Bi, 4.2Biii | Phonics: 4.2Aii, 4.2Aiii, 4.2Bi, 4.2Biii, 4.2Biv | Phonics: 4.2Ai, 4.2Aiii, 4.2Biii, 4.2Biv, | Phonics: 4.2Ai, 4.2Aii, 4.2Bi, 4.2Biii | Phonics: 4.2Ai, 4.2Aii, 4.2Aiii, 4.2Av, 4.2Bi, 4.2Biii, 4.2Biv, 4.2Bvi | Phonics: 4.2Ai, 4.2Aii, 4.2Av, 4.2Bi, 4.2Biii, 4.2Bvi | Phonics: 4.2Aii, 4.2Aiii, 4.2Bi, 4.2Biii, 4.2Biv, 4.2Bvi |
Reading: 4.1A, 4.1B, 4.1C, 4.3A, 4.3B, 4.4A, 4.5A, 4.6A, 4.6F, 4.6G, 4.7A, 4.7B, 4.8A, 4.8B, 4.8C, 4.9D, 4.9E, 4.10A, 4.10B, 4.10F | Reading: 4.1A,4.1B, 4.1C, 4.1D, 4.3A, 4.3B, 4.4A, 4.6A, 4.6B, 4.6I, 4.7C, 4.7E, 4.7G, 4.10A | Reading: 4.1A, 4.1D, 4.3A, 4.3B, 4.3D, 4.6A, 4.6B, 4.6C, 4.6E, 4.6G, 4.6I, 4.7B, 4.7C, 4.7E, 4.7F, 4.7G, 4.10A, 4.10B, 4.10C | Reading: 4.1A, 4.1C, 4.3A, 4.3B, 4.3C, 4.3D, 4.6D, 4.6E, 4.6F, 4.6G, 4.6H, 4.6I, 4.7B, 4.7C, 4.7E, 4.7F, 4.7G, 4.10A, 4.10D, 4.10F | Reading: 4.6C, 4.6D, 4.6E, 4.6F, 4.6G, 4.6H, 4.6I, 4.7B, 4.7C, 4.7D, 4.7E, 4.7G, 4.8A, 4.8B, 4.8C, 4.8D, 4.10A, 4.10B, 4.10C, 4.10E, 4.11C, 4.12B | Reading: 4.3B, 4.3C, 4.6B, 4.6C, 4.6E, 4.6F, 4.6G, 4.7B, 4.7C, 4.7D, 4.7E, 4.7G, 4.8A, 4.8B, 4.8C, 4.8D, 4.9A, 4.9C, 4.10A, 4.10B, 4.10D, 4.10E, 4.10F | Reading: 4.1A, 4.1D, 4.3A, 4.3B, 4.4A, 4.6D, 4.6E, 4.6F, 4.6H, 4.7B, 4.7B, 4.7C, 4.7E, 4.7G, 4.8A, 4.9B, 4.10A, 4.10B, 4.10C, 4.10D, 4.10E, 4.10F | |
Writing: 4.11A, 4.11Bi, 4.11Bii, 4.11C, 4.12A | Writing: 4.11A, 4.11Bi, 4.11Bii, 4.11C, 4.11D, 4.11Di, 4.11Diii, 4.11Dviii, 4.11Dix, 4.11Dxi, 4.11E, 4.12A | Writing: 4.11A, 4.11B, 4.11Bi, 4.11Bii, 4.11C, 4.11Dix, 4.12C | Writing: 4.1A, 4.11A, 4.11Bi, 4.11Bii, 4.11C, 4.12A | Writing: 4.1A, 4.11A, 4.11Bi, 4.11Bii, 4.12A
| Writing: 4.1A, 4.11B, 4.11Bi, 4.Bii, 4.11C, 4.11E, 4.12A
| Writing: 4.1C, 4.11A, 4.11Bi, 4.11Bii, 4.11C, 4.11D, 4.11E, 4.12A, 4.12B
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Grammar: 4.11D, 4.11Di, 4.11Dii | Grammar: 4.11D, 4.11Di, 4.11Diii, 4.11Dviii, 4.11Dix | Grammar: 4.11Dix | Grammar: 4.11Div, 4.11Dx | Grammar: 4.11Div, 4.11Dx | Grammar: 4.11Di, 4.11Diii, 4.11Dvi, 4.11Dviii, 4.11Dx, 4.11D | Grammar: 4.11Diii, 4.11Div, 4.11Dvii | |
Handwriting: 4.2C | Handwriting: 4.2C | Handwriting: 4.2C | Handwriting: 4.2C | Handwriting: 4.11Bii | Handwriting: 4.2C | Handwriting: 4.2C | |
Spring Semester | ||||||
Unit Title | Unit 8: Investigating Informational Text | Unit 9: Delving into Argumentative Texts | Unit 10: Compare and Contrast Text | Unit 11: Bringing it All Together | Unit 12: Piecing it All Together Through Inquiry | Unit 13: Analytical Process and Production Across Genres |
Time | 17 Days | 15 Days | 10 Days | 14 Days | 17 Days | 10 Days |
Understandings | Reading: Students read and interact with a variety of informational texts, including multimodal and digital texts. Students examine the author's purpose, audience, genre characteristics, and author’s craft to develop a deeper understanding of this genre. This includes recognizing central ideas, text/print and graphic features, and organizational patterns. Students respond to and interact with texts, including summarizing and paraphrasing texts as part of the comprehension process. | Reading: Students read and interact with a variety of argumentative texts. Students recognize characteristics and structures of argumentative text, including identifying the author’s claim/position on a topic/issue, explaining how the author uses supporting evidence, and identifying the author’s intended audience. Students also analyze the author's craft in developing argumentative text including the use of persuasive devices and techniques such as anecdotes. | Reading: Students read and interact with texts across multiple genres to compare and contrast the author's purpose and message, key ideas and details, and use of text structure. Students engage in close reading to make connections across texts and analyze how different authors develop a message or theme on similar topics. Students apply the Close Reading strategy from previous units to paired selections and discuss patterns and key understandings of the texts. | Reading: Students use close reading strategies such as notetaking and annotating to help them demonstrate understanding of text. | Reading: Students engage in inquiry and research. Students generate questions for inquiry as they develop and follow their research plan. For the purpose of research, students identify and gather relevant primary and secondary sources which they will cite appropriately through a works cited page. Through this process, students demonstrate an understanding of information as they answer their generated questions of inquiry. Additionally, students continue to incorporate ongoing reading strategies when necessary in order to improve comprehension. | Reading: Students analyze a variety of texts in different genres, analyzing authors’ use of genre characteristics, structure, language, text features, and various modalities to support their purpose and message. Students identify the author’s purpose, intended audience, and message as well as examine the author’s craft. Students use close reading strategies such as note taking and annotating to help them write responses that demonstrate understanding. |
Writing: Students utilize the writing process to compose an informational piece conveying ideas and information and apply genre characteristics and craft. Students focus on developing a clear central idea, using details, examples, and facts. Students use transitions to enhance the flow of the piece and precise language and vocabulary to inform or explain. Students revise their drafts to improve sentence structure and word choice for coherence and clarity. Additionally, they edit their drafts for punctuation and spelling as well as previously learned conventions. After revising and editing, students publish and share their writing. | Writing: Students compose argumentative text. Students apply characteristics and techniques employed by the authors of mentor texts in order to develop original argumentative texts. Students focus on developing a position/argument using evidence such as facts, details, examples, statistics, testimonials, personal anecdotes, expert opinions, quotes, etc. Students also revise their drafts for clarity and cohesion as well as edit for spelling and other previously learned conventions. Students publish and share their argumentative text. | Writing: Students will compose an argumentative extended response based on the paired passages read. Students will plan, draft, revise, edit, and score their ECR. | Writing: Students review texts for clarity, development, organization, style, word choice, and sentence variety. In editing, students review texts and edit for punctuation, grammar, and spelling. | Writing: Students will compose correspondence to request information. Students will engage as a recursive process as they brainstorm/plan, draft, revise, edit, and publish texts in the genre of their choice. Students use the writing process to deliver their research findings. Students plan how they want to present their findings based on their purpose and intended audience. Students revise their writing for both clarity and coherence. Correcting spelling and previously taught conventions are incorporated into the editing process. Students publish and present their research findings to their audience. | Writing: Students apply genre characteristics and author’s craft learned during text analysis to their own writing product. In revising, students review their texts for clarity, development, organization, style, word choice, and sentence variety. In editing, students continue to edit for punctuation, grammar, and spelling to make their message clear for an authentic audience. | |
Word Study: Students decode and spell words through syllable division. Students also will also study homophones and prefixes. | Word Study: Students will continue with prefixes mis- and mid, and will study the suffixes -ment and -ic. Students will also study rules for adding suffixes -er, -ing, -ed, and -en. | Word Study: Students will continue studying rules for suffixes -er, -ing, -ed, and -en. They will take the Unit 4 Word Study Assessment on Day 4 of this unit. Word Study Unit 5 will begin with a review of Greek roots meter, graph, and auto, which were previously taught in Reading Unit 4. Students will then study prefixes sub- and over- | Word Study: Students continue with prefixes and adding suffix rules to include doubling the consonant and dropping the e. | Word Study: Students learn the rule change y to i when adding a suffix to a base word, suffix rules for -ity/-ty. The unit will end with the suffixes -ible and -able. | Word Study: Students decode and spell words with various suffixes. Students apply the suffix rules for changing base words and learn the meaning of the suffixes they are using. | |
Grammar: Students use pronouns to substitute for nouns. Students use reflexive pronouns when the subject of the sentence is also the object. When students start a sentence with as, they’ll probably need a comma. When students start a sentence with an AAAWWUBBIS word, they’ll probably need a comma. | Grammar: When an AAAWWUBBIS word isn’t the first word in the sentence, students probably won’t need a comma. Students use adverbs to show how (degree) something happens. Students use adverbs to show how (degree) something happens and use adverbs to show how often (frequency) something happens. | Grammar: Students use adverbs to show how often (frequency) something happens and use adverbs to show how often (frequency) something happens. Students check their verbs to make sure they sound right. | Grammar: Students will review grammar and conventions from across the year. | Grammar: Students use adjectives only when they are needed to clarify what kind, how many, or which one. Students use plural nouns to show more than one person, place, or thing and use a comma and a FANBOYS (coordinating conjunction) to join two sentences. | Grammar: Students open and close words spoken aloud with quotation marks and set off dialogue tags with punctuation. Students compare two things using –er or more. Never both. I compare three or more things using -est or most. Never both. | |
Handwriting: Students continue to practice uppercase cursive writing with connected and not connected letters. | Handwriting: Students continue to practice uppercase cursive writing with connected and not connected letters. | Handwriting: Students continue to practice uppercase cursive writing with connected and not connected letters. | Handwriting: Students continue to practice uppercase cursive writing with connected and not connected letters. | Handwriting: Students continue to practice uppercase cursive writing with connected and not connected letters. | Handwriting: Students continue to practice uppercase cursive writing with connected and not connected letters. | |
TEKS | Phonics: 4.2Ai, 4.2Aii, 4.2Aiii, 4.2Aiv, 4.2Av, 4.2Bi, 4.2Bii, 4.2Biii, 4.2Biv, 4.2Bvi, 4.2Bv, 4.3D | Phonics: 4.2Aiv, 4.2Av, 4.2Bv, 4.2Bvi, 4.3C
| Phonics: 4.2Aiv, 4.2Av, 4.2Biii, 4.2Bv, 4.2Bvi, 4.3C
| Phonics: 4.2Aiv, 4.2Av, 4.2Bv, 4.2Bvi, 4.3C
| Phonics: 4.2Av, 4.2Bvi
| Phonics: 4.2Av, 4.2Bvi,
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Reading: 4.1A, 4.1C, 4.2A, 4.3A, 4.3B, 4.4A, 4.6A, 4.6B, 4.6C, 4.6F, 4.6G, 4.6H, 4.6I, 4.7B, 4.7C, 4.7D, 4.7E, 4.7F, 4.7G, 4.9D, 4.9Di, 4.9Dii, 4.9Diii, 4.10A, 4.10B, 4.10C, 4.10G | Reading: 4.1A, 4.1C, 4.2A, 4.3A, 4.3B, 4.4A, 4.6A, 4.6B, 4.6E, 4.6F, 4.6G, 4.6H, 4.6I, 4.7B, 4.7C, 4.7D, 4.7E, 4.7F, 4.7G, 4.9Ei, 4.9Eii, 4.9Eiii, 4.9F, 4.10A, 4.10B, 4.10C, 4.10D, 4.10 F, 4.10G | Reading: 4.1B, 4.1C, 4.4A, 4.6E, 4.6F, 4.6G, 4.6H, 4.6I, 4.7B, 4.7C, 4.7E, 4.7G, 4.9B, 4.9Di, 4.10A, 4.10B | Reading: 4.2A, 4.3A, 4.3B, 4.4A, 4.6A, 4.6B, 4.6E, 4.6F, 4.6G, 4.6H, 4.6I, 4.7B, 4.7C, 4.7D, 4.7E, 4.7G, 4.8B, 4.8C, 4.9A, 4.9C, 4.9E, 4.9Ei, 4.9Eii, 4.9Eiii, 4.10A, 4.10C, 4.10D | Reading: 4.1A, 4.1C, 4.6E, 4.6F, 4.6G, 4.6H, 4.7D, 4.7E, 4.10A, 4.11Bi, 4.11Bii, 4.11C, 4.11D, 4.11E, 4.12B, 4.12C, 4.12D, 4.13A, 4.13B, 4.13C, 4.13D, 4.13E, 4.13F, 4.13G, 4.13H | Reading: 4.1A, 4.1B, 4.1C, 4.6A, 4.6G, 4.6H, 4.6I, 4.7A, 4.7B, 4.7C, 4.7D, 4.7E, 4.9F, 4.10A, 4.10B, 4.10C, 4.10D, 4.10E, 4.10F | |
Writing: 4.1A, 4.1C, 4.11A, 4.11Bi, 4.11Bii, 4.11C, 4.11D, 4.11Di, 4.11Dvii, 4.11Dx, 4.11E, 4.12B | Writing: 4.1A, 4.1C, 4.11A, 4.11Bi, 4.11Bii, 4.11C, 4.11D, 4.11Di, 4.11Dv, 4.11Dx, 4.11E, 4.12C | Writing: 4.1A, 4.1C, 4.7B, 4.7C, 4.11A, 4.11Bi, 4.11Bii, 4.11C, 4.11D, 4.11Di, 4.11Dv, 4.12C | Writing: 4.1A, 4.1C, 4.1D, 4.11C, 4.11D | Writing: 4.1A, 4.1C, 4.6E, 4.6F, 4.6G, 4.6H, 4.7D, 4.7E, 4.10A, 4.11Bi, 4.11Bii, 4.11C, 4.11D, 4.11E, 4.12B, 4.12C, 4.12D, 4.13A, 4.13B, 4.13C, 4.13D, 4.13E, 4.13F, 4.13G, 4.13H | Writing: 4.1A, 4.1C,4.10A, 4.10B, 4.10C, 4.11A, 4.11Bi, 4.11Bii, 4.11C, 4.11D, 4.11E | |
Grammar: 4.11Di, 4.11Dvii, 4.11Dx | Grammar: 4.11Di, 4.11Dv, 4.11Dx | Grammar: 4.11Di, 4.11Dv | Grammar: 4.11D | Grammar: 4.11Di, 4.11Diii, 4.11Div, 4.11Dviii, 4.11Dx | Grammar: 4.11Div, 4.11Dx | |
Handwriting: 4.2C | Handwriting: 4.2C | Handwriting: 4.2C | Handwriting: 4.2C | Handwriting: 4.2C | Handwriting: 4.2C | |