Grade 4 English Language Arts
9 units matched to the Ontario Curriculum. Kids see this subject as “Reading & Writing”.
Overall expectations
- A1 Transferable Skills: Demonstrate an understanding of how the seven transferable skills (critical thinking and problem solving; innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship; self-directed learning; collaboration; communication; global citizenship and sustainability; and digital literacy) are used in various language and literacy contexts
- A2 Digital Media Literacy: Demonstrate and apply the knowledge and skills needed to interact safely and responsibly in online environments, use digital and media tools to construct knowledge, and demonstrate learning as critical consumers and creators of media
- A3 Applications, Connections, and Contributions: Apply language and literacy skills in cross-curricular and integrated learning, and demonstrate an understanding of, and make connections to, diverse voices, experiences, perspectives, histories, and contributions, including those of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit individuals, communities, groups, and nations
- B1 Oral and Non-Verbal Communication: Apply listening, speaking, and non-verbal communication skills and strategies to understand and communicate meaning in formal and informal contexts and for various purposes and audiences
- B2 Language Foundations for Reading and Writing: Demonstrate an understanding of foundational language knowledge and skills, and apply this understanding when reading and writing
- B3 Language Conventions for Reading and Writing: Demonstrate an understanding of sentence structure, grammar, cohesive ties, and capitalization and punctuation, and apply this knowledge when reading and writing sentences, paragraphs, and a variety of texts
- C1 Knowledge about Texts: Apply foundational knowledge and skills to understand a variety of texts, including digital and media texts, by creators with diverse identities, perspectives, and experience, and demonstrate an understanding of the patterns, features, and elements of style associated with various text forms and genres
- C2 Comprehension Strategies: Apply comprehension strategies before, during, and after reading, listening to, and viewing a variety of texts, including digital and media texts, by creators with diverse identities, perspectives, and experience, in order to understand and clarify the meaning of texts
- C3 Critical Thinking in Literacy: Apply critical thinking skills to deepen understanding of texts, and analyze how various perspectives and topics are communicated and addressed in a variety of texts, including digital, media, and cultural texts
- D1 Developing Ideas and Organizing Content: Plan, develop ideas, gather information, and organize content for creating texts of various forms, including digital and media texts, on a variety of topics
- D2 Creating Texts: Apply knowledge and understanding of various text forms and genres to create, revise, edit, and proofread their own texts, using a variety of media, tools, and strategies, and reflect critically on created texts
- D3 Publishing, Presenting, and Reflecting: Select suitable and effective media, techniques, and tools to publish and present final texts, and critically analyze how well the texts address various topics
Units
Unit 1
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.
Expectation: B2.1, B2.2 · prefixes, suffixes, base words and vocabulary
Unit 2
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.
Expectation: B3.2 · relative pronouns, the perfect tense, questions and commands, and pronouns used as adjectives
Unit 3
Sentence Builders
Spotting independent and dependent clauses and prepositional phrases, joining ideas into compound and complex sentences, and fixing run-ons and fragments.
Expectation: B3.1 · simple and compound sentences with prepositional phrases and independent and dependent clauses
Unit 4
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.
Expectation: B3.3 · capital letters for proper adjectives, commas for direct address and quotation marks for short titles
Unit 5
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.
Expectation: C2.6, C3.2, C3.3 · main ideas, inferences and analyzing texts
Unit 6
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.
Expectation: C1.3 · text patterns and features
Unit 7
Clues in Texts
Understanding hyperlinks, bold and italic type, labels and captions, telling who is narrating, spotting personification, and tracing causes and effects.
Expectation: C1.3, C1.6, C3.1, C3.3 · text features and graphic texts, point of view, personification and anthropomorphism, and cause and effect
Unit 8
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.
Expectation: C1.6 · the narrator's point of view
Unit 9
Figurative Language
Spotting similes, metaphors, personification, onomatopoeia and alliteration (plus hyperbole at the stretch level), and explaining what figurative phrases really mean.
Expectation: C3.1 · literary devices such as personification
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