Reading and writing
Grade 4 is roughly where learning to read turns into reading to learn. The texts get longer and more factual, so the year is about strategies for understanding them, writing that passes on information, and handling other people's information honestly.
What Alberta asks for by the end of Grade 4
The subject: English language arts and literature
- Listen and speak in ways that build relationships and understanding.
- Read aloud with emphasis, pauses, phrasing and intonation that show the text was understood.
- Examine and use strategies that help with understanding a text.
- Write a variety of texts, both to share information and to express themselves.
- Find, share and store information ethically, on paper or on a screen.
- Use grammar, spelling and punctuation to make writing concise.
- Identify the purpose, form and structure of different texts, and how they get ideas across.
Two of these are new this year and easy to skim past. Ethically is the start of saying where information came from and not copying it — Grade 4 is often the first report written from books and websites, and the first time copy and paste is tempting. And concise is a change of direction: earlier grades asked for more detail, and Grade 4 starts asking for the same meaning in fewer words.
The words, first
These are the terms a teacher will use at a parent interview, defined before anything below uses them.
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Comprehension strategy | Something a reader does on purpose to understand: predicting, asking questions, picturing it, rereading, summarizing. |
| Intonation | The rise and fall of the voice. It is how a listener hears a question, a joke or a warning, and it is only right when the reader understood. |
| Phrasing | Reading in meaningful groups of words rather than one word at a time. |
| Summarize | Say what a text was about in a sentence or two, in your own words. The best single test of whether it was understood. |
| Informational text | Writing meant to teach or explain: a report, an article, instructions. The opposite job from a story. |
| Text features | Headings, captions, labels, diagrams, bold words and a glossary. They are there to be read, and skipping them is a habit worth breaking. |
| Purpose, form, structure | Why a text was written, what kind of text it is, and how it is put together — a recipe, a letter and a news story differ on all three. |
| Source | Where a piece of information came from: a book, a website, a person. Grade 4 starts writing them down. |
| Paraphrase | Putting someone else's idea into your own words. It still needs a note of where it came from. |
| Plagiarism | Presenting someone else's words or ideas as your own. Usually it happens by accident, which is why the habit is taught early. |
| Concise | Saying it in as few words as it needs, without losing the meaning. |
| Dialogue | The words characters say, in quotation marks. Alberta's Grade 4 overview asks children to notice what dialogue adds to a story. |
Before
Read the title and headings. Guess what it will be about.
During
Stop at anything confusing. Ask a question, picture it, reread.
After
Say what it was about in one sentence, in your own words.
What to do at home
- Ask for the one-sentence version — “What was that chapter about, in one sentence?” It is harder than it sounds, and it is the fastest check on understanding there is.
- Read the headings before the page — With any non-fiction — a museum sign, a cereal box, a website. Predicting from the headings is a strategy, and it is free.
- Let them read the instructions out — For a recipe or a board game. Reading aloud for someone who needs to follow it is where intonation stops being a performance.
- Write down where a fact came from — “Where did you read that?” asked kindly. A child who can answer is already doing the ethical-information outcome.
- Cut a sentence in half — Take one of their long sentences and ask whether it could say the same thing in fewer words. Concise is a skill that has to be shown before it can be asked for.
- Notice disagreement — Alberta's overview says Grade 4 explores other people's opinions. Asking “why might someone think the opposite?” about a book character is the start.
Sheets you can print for this
- Read it like you mean it — emphasis, pauses and phrasing
- Stop and think — strategies for a harder text
- Write to inform — plan a short report
- Where did it come from? — using information honestly
- Say it shorter — concise writing
The expectations above are paraphrased from Alberta Education's New K–6 curriculum fact sheets, which publish a snapshot of each grade rather than the complete program of studies. Alberta's full programs are at alberta.ca/curriculum.