Language+Arts+in+Fourth+Grade

Type in the content of your new page here. What Kids Should Already Know: As children enter the fourth grade, most are reasonably confident readers and writers and they have also learned to use spoken language successfully. They are also able to use books for enjoyment and as useful sources of information. They also know how to use a library and are comfortable doing so. They use writing for a variety of purposes; they understand the writing process, including the value of responses frm their peers and revisions and they have a good sense of authorship. They can also use spoken language effectively in a variety of settings--in discussions, oral reports, plays, explanations, and the like. What Kids should Learn in Reading: The main concern in grade four--and throughout the intermediate grades--is to keep children reading. This means continually enlarging classroom libraries, making extensive use of school and community libraries, referring the children to new books, talking about books, reading to the children from ever-more-complex works, and working with librarians and teachers about organizing schoolwide book fairs and author visits for the children. While some schools have organized the language arts curriculum around American literature in fourth and fifth grades, most teachers believe it is more important to keep children reading many different kids of literature, as their interests guide them, than to concentrate on a particular country, genre, or period. Children need to know that when they become readers, a very large world is available to them. They need to be helped to step into that large world -- and to stay in it.