This year, your child will be completing various vocabulary activities throughout the week.
Your child will also be completing a variety of writing activities throughout the year. Writing is so imperative to our students, and we look forward to seeing them develop as writers throughout the school year. We will be covering various grammar topics throughout fourth grade as well. For the fourth grade Virginia Standards of Learning for Language Arts, please click on the Virginia Language SOL's button.
Where we have been:
Beginning of the Year Writing Assessment
Heart Map
Topics to Write About
Synonyms and Antonyms
Introducing Work on Writing
Introducing Word Study
Ideas
Common and Proper Nouns
Verbs
Sensory Writing
Jamestown Biographies
Adjectives
Jamestown Letters
Comparative Adjectives
Turkey Writing
Organization
Pronouns
Holiday Writing
Voice
Run-On Sentences
Commas
Compound Sentences
Subject Verb Agreement
Snow Globe Writing
Possessive Nouns
Prepositions
Adverbs
Grammar Review
Conventions
Voice in writing
Similes and Metaphors
Compare and Contrast writing
Edit writing
Review
End of Year Writing Prompt
Where we are now:
End of Year Activities
Where We Will Be:
Word Study:
Purpose of Word Study:
It teaches students to examine words to discover the regularities, patterns, and conventions of the English
language in order to read and spell.It increases specific knowledge of words – the spelling and meaning of individual words.
Layers of Word Study:
• Alphabet – learning the relationship between letters and sounds
• Pattern – learning specific groupings of letters and their sounds
• Meaning – learning the meaning of groups of letters such as prefixes, suffixes, and roots. Vocabulary increases.
Sorting:organizing words into groups based on similarities in their patterns or meaning.
Assessment:
Students are assessed using the Developmental Spelling Assessment (DSA) at the beginning of the year, middle of the year, and end of the year to find their developmental spelling level.Your child will be completing a variety of writing and word study activities throughout the year. Writing and spelling is so imperative to our students, and we look forward to seeing them develop throughout the school year. We will be covering various grammar topics throughout fourth grade as well. For the fourth grade Virginia Standards of Learning for Language Arts, please click on the Virginia Language SOL's button.
Writer's Workshop:
In fourth grade, we will have Writer's Workshop during the Language Arts block everyday. Writer's Workshop will begin everyday with a mini-lesson focusing on a strategy or skill, after which students will have the opportunity to practice. Time will be given at the end for sharing and reflecting on usage of the skill or strategy. We will explore the 6+1 Traits of Good Writing which consist of Voice, Organization, Ideas, Conventions, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, and Presentation.
As with reading, it is important that students practice Writing at home. This can be done in a variety of ways such as keeping a journal, writing letters or emails to friends and family, writing out written explanations for things they know how to do well, writing book or movie reviews, etc.
We will spend the beginning weeks of writing instruction learning how to generate ideas for writing, which is often a struggle for fourth graders. By doing this, we can hopefully avoid those "I don't have anything to write about" moments, and, instead, focus on letting ideas flow so that we can then refine the craft and conventions of the writing.
This year, your child will be completing various vocabulary activities throughout the week.
Your child will also be completing a variety of writing activities throughout the year. Writing is so imperative to our students, and we look forward to seeing them develop as writers throughout the school year. We will be covering various grammar topics throughout fourth grade as well. For the fourth grade Virginia Standards of Learning for Language Arts, please click on the Virginia Language SOL's button.
Included below are also some helpful links: