Grade 4 English Language Arts: how to help at home
What your child learns in Grade 4 english language arts in the BC Curriculum, and simple things to try at home.
The Big Ideas this year
- Language and text can be a source of creativity and joy.
- Exploring stories and other texts helps us understand ourselves and make connections to others and to the world.
- Texts can be understood from different perspectives.
- Using language in creative and playful ways helps us understand how language works.
- Questioning what we hear, read, and view contributes to our ability to be educated and engaged citizens.
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.
What the report card levels look like at home
- Emerging
- Just getting started with this idea. Short, regular practice with lots of support helps most.
- Developing
- Understands parts of it and is building confidence. Keep practising the tricky parts.
- Proficient
- Has it! Mixed review now and then keeps it strong.
- Extending
- 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 BC report card guide.
Common questions
How can I help my Grade 4 child with english language arts?
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.
What does my child learn in Grade 4 english language arts in BC?
The BC 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.