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K12 Course Introductions

LANGUAGE ARTS

Grade 4

© 2000-04 K12 Inc. All rights reserved.

K12 Course Introductions: Language Arts

© 2000-04 K12 Inc. All rights reserved. Page 1

Language Arts/English Overview

Kindergarten and Grade 1 Structured lessons on readiness skills, language skills, and literature help develop comprehension skills, build vocabulary, and open the doors to a wide range of imaginative experiences. We focus on classic literature—folk tales, fairy tales, fables, and poetry—with an emphasis on works that embody exemplary virtues (such as compassion, courage, perseverance, honesty, and loyalty), as well as a generous variety of titles for fun reading. Grade 2 The program provides a comprehensive sequence of lessons that focus on:

• Language skills: Structured lessons on composition, spelling, vocabulary, analogies, and handwriting.

• Literature: Guided reading lessons on traditional stories and modern classics, with an emphasis on works that embody exemplary virtues (such as compassion, courage, perseverance, honesty, and loyalty). Lessons are designed to develop comprehension skills and build vocabulary.

Grades 3-5 Courses provide a comprehensive sequence of lessons that focus on:

• Language skills: Structured lessons on composition, vocabulary, and grammar, usage, and mechanics.

• Literature: Lessons on traditional stories and modern classics, with an emphasis on works that embody exemplary virtues (such as compassion, courage, perseverance, honesty, and loyalty). Lessons are designed to develop comprehension skills, build vocabulary, open the doors to a wide range of imaginative experience, and help your student become a more independent and thoughtful reader.

• Spelling: Structured lessons on spelling. Students learn relationships between sounds and spellings in words, rules for adding suffixes, and how prefixes and suffixes affect meaning.

Intermediate English A and B Courses provide a comprehensive sequence of lessons that focus on:

• Language Skills: Structured lessons on composition, vocabulary, and grammar, usage, and mechanics. Intermediate Language Skills A offers a systematic approach to the development of written and oral communication skills, and is designed to give students the essential building blocks for expressing their own ideas in standard (or formal) English.

• Literature: Lessons on traditional works and modern classics. Lessons sharpen reading comprehension skills, engage readers in literary analysis, and offer a variety of literature to suit diverse tastes.



Grade 4

• Lesson Time and Scheduling • Lesson Structure • Lesson Materials • Student Portfolio

K12’s Language Arts program provides a recommended schedule, Teacher Guide, and Student Pages for step-by-step lesson guidance. You will need to print some of these materials, as explained below. While almost all of the teaching and learning in the Grade 4 Language Arts program is offline, the progress and planning functions and student assessment entry are online.

Lessons Supplied in Print As part of the standard materials for Grades 3-5 Language Arts, K12 provides paper copies of the Teacher Guide and Student Pages for the Language Skills lessons (which include lessons in Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics; Composition; Vocabulary; Analogies; and, Test Readiness), the Literature (Classics and Test Ready) lessons and the Spelling lessons. K12 also provides online backup copies of these lessons, which you can print as needed from the Materials section of the Plan. These online files are provided for your convenience. You do not need to print them, except to replace lost or damaged sheets from the paper lessons you received as part of the standard materials for Language Arts.

Novels You will find the Teacher Guide and Student Pages for Novels lessons online, as files to be printed. They can be found within the Plan’s day view and by clicking the “Show Materials” link from the Plan’s week view. They can also be found within the lesson itself by clicking the "Materials” button. The Teacher Guide is located with the materials designated “for the adult.” The Student Pages for the day’s lesson are located with the materials designated “for the student.”



Lesson Time and Scheduling

• Total lessons: 180 • Lesson time: 120 minutes. Actual lesson time will vary, depending on the individual

student. Feel free to split the lessons into smaller segments and provide breaks for your student as needed. K12’s online lesson tracking system allows you to pick up wherever you left off on any given lesson. • Language Skills: 40 minutes • Literature: 60 minutes • Spelling: 20 minutes

A typical week in the Grade 4 Language Arts program: Minutes Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday 40 Vocabulary,

GUM, Composition, or Test Readiness

Vocabulary, GUM, Composition, or Test Readiness




60 Classics, Novels, or Test Readiness Read Aloud Independent Reading

Classics, Novels, or Test Readiness Read Aloud Independent Reading




20 Spelling Spelling Spelling Spelling Spelling

Lesson Structure

Grade 4 Language Arts lessons include: • Language Skills • Literature • Spelling

Lesson Materials

Materials Supplied by K12

Language Skills • Exercises in English, Book D from Loyola Press • Writing in Action, Books C and D from Loyola Press • Vocabulary Workshop, Orange Series from Sadlier-Oxford • Test Ready Language Arts, Book 4 • Language Skills Teacher Guide and Student Pages

Literature • Classics for Young Readers, Volumes 4A and 4B – an anthology from K12 • Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (K12 edition, retold for young readers) • Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter (K12 edition, abridged for young readers) • If You Lived in the Days of the Knights by Ann McGovern • Amelia Earhart: Adventure in the Sky by Francene Sabin



• Nonfiction collections: Feathers, Flippers, and Fur and Nature’s Way • Test Ready Plus: Reading – Book 4 from Curriculum Associates

Student Portfolio

To record your child’s progress in Language Arts, you will need to put together a portfolio. We suggest that you use a three-ring binder with pocket folders to hold:

• Completed practice sheets • Completed lesson assessment sheets • All original compositions, poetry, and artwork

When you complete each unit, take some time with your child to review the Language Arts portfolio and celebrate a job well done!



Language Skills

• Composition • GUM (Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics) • Vocabulary • Test Readiness

K12’s Grade 4 Language Arts program provides a comprehensive sequence of lessons on Language Skills, Literature, and Spelling. The Language Skills program provides structured lessons on composition, vocabulary, analogies, and handwriting, as well as grammar, usage, and mechanics.

Composition

In 72 lessons spread across the course, your student is introduced to the idea of writing as a process and taught to work through a sequence of steps:

• Pre-write to generate ideas, choose a topic, gather information, and think about the audience.

• Write a draft. • Revise to clarify meaning, improve organization, and add detail. • Proofread to correct errors in capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. • Publish, that is, share the finished writing with others.

Topics include opportunities for creative writing, as well as a book review, reports, a persuasive paper, a news article, and writing to a prompt.

Writing as a Process This program provides a framework for turning students into writers, a framework based on research into what good writers do. This research shows that while writing may be a daunting task for beginners, it becomes manageable when the process is broken down into a series of steps:

1. Pre-writing 2. Drafting 3. Revising 4. Proofreading and publishing

Of course, not all writers follow this process, although many follow some version of it. Nor is writing always a linear process in which one step leads neatly to another. Even so, teaching young writers to use these steps does help them understand that a polished piece of prose comes from planning and effort. By practicing these steps in his or her own writing, your student will learn strategies that good writers use.

• Prewriting: Before they begin to write, students read, reflect, plan, and discuss to help them develop ideas. In prewriting, mistakes in spelling, punctuation, or grammar don't count. The teacher encourages and helps stimulate ideas.

• Drafting: The goal of this stage is to get ideas on paper. Students should write thoughtfully and carefully, but without focusing on structure and mechanics—those come later. The teacher acts as coach and cheerleader. The more encouragement, the better: “That’s an interesting beginning—it makes me want to know more.” Guiding questions help, too: “What did Uncle Steve do next?”

• Revising: In this step, students revise for content, structure, and style. They may use editing and proofreading symbols, cut-and-paste techniques, and other tools that help them revise without constant recopying. Here, the teacher acts as editor: “I like the way you describe the lion you saw during your trip to the zoo. Now, can you describe the monkeys, too? Can you help me see them? What did they sound like?” Provide encouragement and gently point out problems: “It seems that here you tell how Uncle



Steve fell out of the boat, but you haven’t yet told us that he went fishing. How can you fix that?”

• Proofreading and publishing: When proofreading, students look closely at spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and grammar. They do their best to correct errors and get everything just right in a neat, clean, final copy. For the purposes of student writing, publishing means sharing writing with parents, siblings, friends, and others. When students share their finished writing, they learn the thrill of seeing that someone is interested in what they have written. Students also learn that they must write clearly and accurately to ensure that their audience understands what they want to say. Young writers whose works are open for public scrutiny are motivated to make their work as polished as possible.

The Writing Folder Keep a writing folder in which all of your student’s drafts are readily available. You can also keep a checklist in the folder to keep track of skills you want to concentrate on—anything from focus to paragraph organization to correct use of question marks.

GUM: Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics

Part of writing is self-expression and creativity. Part of writing is knowing the rules and conventions. K12’s Grade 4 Language Skills course includes 108 GUM lessons, delivered offline, designed to introduce your student to some basic rules of usage as well as:

• Sentence structure and types • Parts of speech • Punctuation • Capitalization • Synonyms, antonyms, and homonyms

How the Program Is Organized There are 12 units with 4-9 lessons per unit. Lessons are delivered offline. You receive a Teacher Guide, Student Pages, and a workbook, Exercises in English, Book D. A typical GUM lesson consists of:

• A Get Ready teaching activity to review previous concepts and explain new ones • A Try It section to give your student a chance to practice skills taught in the lesson • A workbook exercise for your student

Pretests Some units begin with an optional pretest that reviews material from K12’s Grammar, Usage, and Mechanics program for Grade 3. If your student has not previously studied the topics covered in the pretest, there is no need to administer the pretest—just have your student do the lessons. If your student has previously studied the topics, administer the pretest to see if he or she has retained the information. Based on the results, you can decide whether your student needs to work through the lessons covered by the pretest. You will find more detailed directions for using the pretests in the relevant GUM lessons. Unit Assessments In general, each unit ends with a review lesson, followed by a unit assessment. Your student takes these assessments on his or her own, then you score them and enter the results online. Midcourse and End-of-Course Assessments To encourage long-term mastery and retention, we provide semester assessments at the midpoint and the end of the course. These assessments are cumulative, covering the major topics and concepts introduced in the previous semester. Each assessment is spread across three lessons. Again, after your student completes the assessment independently, check the work and enter the results online.



Vocabulary

Level Orange of Vocabulary Workshop has been designed to enrich your student’s vocabulary, develop word analysis skills, and prepare for standardized tests. To get started, you may want to review the concepts and terms in “The Vocabulary of Vocabulary” on pages 5-8 of Vocabulary Workshop. This section reviews the following:

• Parts of speech • Synonyms and antonyms • Context clues • Analogies

How the Program Is Organized

Units and Lessons Vocabulary Workshop presents 192 words in 16 units. K12 organizes each unit into five lessons:

• Lesson 1: Definitions and Pronunciation • Lesson 2: Match the Meaning, Synonyms/Antonyms • Lesson 3: Completing the Sentence, Word Associations • Lesson 4: Writing for Understanding • Lesson 5: Unit Assessment

Activities in Lessons 1-3 Lessons 1-3 in each unit include activities in the Vocabulary Workshop book as follows:

• Lesson 1, Definitions and Pronunciation: Your student reviews the definition of each vocabulary word, which includes the part of speech, the standard pronunciation, a sentence that uses the word in context, and a list of synonyms and antonyms.

• Lesson 2, Match the Meaning: This lesson reinforces the meaning of the vocabulary words. Your student must select the word that best completes the sentence. The Synonyms and Antonyms exercises require your student to refer to the definitions of the 12 vocabulary words and choose the correct synonym or antonym for the highlighted word.

• Lesson 3, The Completing the Sentence: Exercises present an assortment of short paragraphs about art, history, geography, science, civics, or some other interesting topic. Your student is expected to use contextual clues to choose the correct word to fill in the blanks in the text. In addition to reinforcing vocabulary, this exercise gives your student practice in the “process of elimination” and other test-taking strategies. The Word Associations exercises challenge your student to demonstrate knowledge of the vocabulary words by answering a question or choosing the answer that best completes a sentence.

Activities in Lesson 4, Writing for Understanding Exercises for Lesson 4 in each unit are not in the student workbook. We suggest you devote a composition book to these lessons (or set aside a section of the Dictation Notebook used in K12’s Spelling program). Have your student write to demonstrate that he or she understands the meanings of the words. Possible writing activities include:

• Write a sentence for each word. (It’s also fine to use more than one vocabulary word in a sentence.) The sentence should show that your student understands the meaning of the word. For example, if the vocabulary word is garrulous, meaning “excessively talkative,” consider the following sentences:

Unacceptable: He was garrulous. Acceptable: The garrulous announcer talked so much that people started to leave the show.

• Write a paragraph or two, using the vocabulary words in a brief made-up story. • Rewrite the definitions of the vocabulary words in your own words.



• Write riddles for the vocabulary words. • Ask and answer questions, serious or silly, using the vocabulary words. • Create an advertisement using as many of the vocabulary words as possible.

It’s fine for your student to mix and match any of the above activities, or to do another activity that you approve of, as long as he or she demonstrates in writing an understanding of each word.

Answer Keys You will find answer keys for the workbook exercises in a section of the supplied pages for the Language Skills Teacher Guide.

Recommended Lesson Schedule In the Language Arts schedule, K12 recommends that your student complete the five vocabulary lessons in each unit over a span of two weeks—on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of the first week, and Tuesday and Thursday of the second week.

Reviews and Cumulative Reviews

Reviews After every four units, there is a review designed to reinforce the vocabulary. Each review includes the following exercises:

• Selecting Word Meanings: Match vocabulary words with a synonym or a synonymous phrase.

• Spelling: Fill in the missing letters in the vocabulary words. • Antonyms: Supply the antonym for the vocabulary word. • Vocabulary in Context: Fill in missing words in a passage. • Analogies: Complete comparisons and explain the relationship between the words;

move on to the challenge of making up a comparison. • Word Families: Select the correct word related to the new vocabulary to complete

the sentence. • The final section of each review is a word game. The game or puzzle differs from unit

to unit, but in each case it reviews and reinforces the vocabulary words presented in the previous four units.

Cumulative Reviews There are two cumulative reviews, one halfway through the book (after the Units 5-8 Review), and the other at the end (after the Units 13-16 Review). In the cumulative reviews, your student matches Definitions and Antonyms, and fills in the blank with the best word in Completing the Sentence. The Classifying exercise challenges your student to recognize the relationship between words and select a vocabulary word that fits the category.

Testing Program You will find tests for the Vocabulary Workshop program in a section of the supplied pages for the Language Skills Teacher Guide. When the time comes to give a test, remove the test sheet and give it to your student. Make sure your student understands the directions and completes the test independently. After your student finishes, score the test. You will find answer keys for these tests in the supplied pages for the Language Skills Teacher Guide. Discuss any incorrect answers with your student. After you correct each test, you will need to return to the computer to enter your student’s score. Tests include:

• A unit test for each of the 16 units: Each unit test has 25 items organized in the same format as the exercises in the unit



• Four mastery tests, which correspond to the reviews: Each mastery test has four exercises, which involve matching definitions, identifying parts of speech, and completing sentences.

• A final mastery test: The Final Mastery Test has 40 items. They include word meanings, synonyms, antonyms, word associations, and completing the sentences.

Test Readiness

Many of K12’s Grade 4 Language Skills lessons help your student develop spelling, mechanics, expression, and writing skills. To complement those lessons, we also provide a test preparation booklet from Curriculum Associates called Test Ready Language Arts. This booklet serves a specific practical purpose: its format—multiple-choice questions and a short writing exercise—helps prepare your student for similar exercises on many standardized tests.

How the Program Is Organized The lessons in Test Ready Language Arts provide practice in answering questions similar to those found on standardized tests. The test preparation booklet includes eight lessons with four parts.

• Part One – Spelling • Part Two – Mechanics • Part Three – Resources • Part Four – Writing

The answer form on the back cover of the student booklet lets your student practice recording answers in a “fill-in-the-bubble” format similar to many standardized tests. In the recommended Language Arts schedule, Test Ready Language Arts begins in the second semester with the Practice Test, which you can find at the back of the booklet. Guide your student through this test to introduce the Test Ready materials.



Literature

• Classics (includes nonfiction) • Novels • Test Readiness • Independent Reading • Read Aloud

K12’s Grade 4 Language Arts program provides a comprehensive sequence of lessons on Language Skills, Literature, and Spelling. The Literature course provides lessons on traditional stories and modern classics, with an emphasis on works that embody exemplary virtues (such as compassion, courage, perseverance, honesty, and loyalty). Lessons are designed to develop comprehension skills, build vocabulary, open the doors to a wide range of imaginative experience, and help your student become a more independent and thoughtful reader.

Classics

Classics lessons include readings in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, with activities to develop appreciation and skills of literary analysis.

Procedure Lessons include varying combinations of the following components:

• Vocabulary: Defines challenging words in the reading selection. • Think Ahead: Includes questions to review previous reading and prepare for the day’s

reading. • Questions: Your student writes brief responses to questions in the Reading Notebook,

dates the entry, and adds the title of the story or book used in the lesson. • Discuss: You and your student discuss ideas and issues in the readings, in response to

questions provided in the lesson. • Activities: Your student completes any of a variety of activities designed to deepen

understanding and enhance enjoyment, such as dramatizing part of a story, writing a creative or analytical response, or completing a supplied activity page on comprehension skills (such as describing characters, inferring and drawing conclusions, or comparing and contrasting).

Assessments Each unit ends with an assessment. Your student completes the assessment on his or her own, and then you check your student’s work and enter the results online. Questions on the unit assessment are similar to those found in many of the lesson activities. The unit assessment allows you to check whether your student is retaining important concepts and skills from the lessons. To encourage long-term mastery and retention, we provide semester assessments at the midpoint and end of the course. Again, your student completes the assessment on his or her own, and then you check your student’s work and enter the results online. You can use the results of these assessments to guide your review or additional practice. If your student misses any items, we suggest that you go back and briefly review the relevant material in the lessons.



Novels As part of the Literature course, your student reads four novels, selected from a list of dozens of possible titles designed to meet a variety of interests and reading abilities. You can find these novels at libraries or purchase them at bookstores. K12 provides lessons for all of these novels. You can access the lessons online, and then print them for offline use. More information on the reading level and content of each novel is available in the online lessons. The novels you may choose from include the following titles. They are listed in order of increasing difficulty as measured by the Lexile scale, a system that measures reading difficulty by sentence length and vocabulary (see http://www.lexile.com). Keep in mind that because many factors determine an individual child’s reading level, it is difficult to rely solely on any numerical rating; thus, these ratings should be used only as a starting point for selecting works of appropriate difficulty. Novel Lexile Level A Lion to Guard Us by Clyde Robert Bulla 360 Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner 550 Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan 560 Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary 670 Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White 680 Li Lun: Lad of Courage by Carolyn Treffinger 720 In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord 730 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder 760 The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander 770 Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt 770 The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare 770 The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden 780 Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien 790 My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George 810 Call it Courage by Armstrong Sperry 830 Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary 860 Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren 870 The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes 870 Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor 890 Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink 890 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis 940 Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery 990 The Door in the Wall by Marguerite de Angeli 990 Ben and Me by Robert Lawson 1010

Lexile ratings roughly correspond to grade levels Approximate Grade Level

Lexile Range

3 500-700 4 650-850 5 750-950



To provide a broad array of novels from which to choose, K12 is making available lessons on the following novels that are part of our English curriculum. Novel Lexile Level From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg 700

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle 740

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury 740

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton 750

The Bronze Bow* by Elizabeth George Speare 760

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech 770 War Comes to Willie Freeman by Christopher and Lincoln Collier 770

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes 840

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkein 860

The Cay by Theodore Taylor 860

Dragonwings by Laurence Yep 870

Jacob Have I Loved** by Katherine Paterson 880

Old Yeller by Fred Gipson 910 Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor 920

The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper 920

Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis 950

White Fang by Jack London 970

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell 1000

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne 1030

Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle 1090 Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt 1100

Catherine, Called Birdy by Karen Cushman 1170

War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells 1170

Swiss Family Robinson by Johann Wyss 1260

The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford 1320

* The Bronze Bow, by Elizabeth George Speare: This novel is historical fiction set in the time of Christ, and deals with the Roman occupation of the land in which the Jews lived. While the main characters of the book are fictional, there are actual historical figures in the novel, including Jesus Christ. In the novel, Jesus appears as both a historical figure and as the leader of a religious movement that focuses on love and forgiveness as based in Jewish law. Characters in the book make occasional reference to the Jewish belief that a messiah will appear, and more than one character refers to Jesus as that messiah. ** Jacob Have I Loved, by Katherine Paterson: This novel addresses two issues that might be sensitive for some readers. (1) As the book progresses, one character begins to show signs of mental illness and her religious convictions manifest themselves as judgments and accusations. (2) The novel deals sensitively with the emerging sexuality of the young protagonist. Her affections become focused on an older man, but these feelings never go beyond thoughts. These lessons differ slightly in format. Lessons may be accessed online and printed for offline use.

Procedure Lessons may be accessed online and printed for offline use. There are five to ten lessons per novel, depending on the length of the book. The recommended schedule for Language Arts allots two weeks for the reading of each novel. Your student may take more or less time, as needed. Lessons include the following components:

• Vocabulary: Defines challenging words in the reading selection. • Think Ahead: Includes questions to review previous reading and prepare for the day’s

reading.



• Discuss: You and your student discuss events and ideas in response to questions provided in the lesson.

• Write: In the Reading Notebook, your student writes a brief response to questions provided in the lesson.

• Optional Activities: Your student may complete any of a variety of activities designed to deepen understanding and enhance enjoyment.

• Online Review (final lesson only): The final lesson in each unit offers an online review to prepare for the unit assessment. The review, in the form of an interactive game, asks questions about major characters, incidents, and ideas in the novel.

Lesson Assessments Each lesson except the last in a unit ends with an online lesson assessment. Your student should return to the computer to answer questions designed to check comprehension of the reading selection. The results are automatically scored and recorded. Note that novels that are part of the Intermediate English curriculum do not contain daily lesson assessments, but rather contain online comprehension questions..

Unit Assessments The final lesson in the unit presents a Unit Assessment. This assessment is offline, and generally requires that your student write responses to a set of interpretive questions. Your student completes the assessment on his or her own, and then you check your student’s work and enter the results online.

Test Readiness

Many of K12’s Grade 4 Literature lessons help develop your student’s reading comprehension skills. To complement those lessons, we also provide a test preparation booklet from Curriculum Associates called Test Ready Plus: Reading. This booklet serves a specific practical purpose: the content and format—reading selections followed by multiple-choice questions and a short writing exercise—help prepare your student for similar exercises on many standardized tests.

How the Program Is Organized • The lessons in Test Ready Plus: Reading provide practice in answering reading

comprehension questions similar to those on standardized tests. • The test preparation booklet includes reading selections, referred to as passages, from

the following genres: Folktales, Narratives, Poetry, Letters, Fables, Informational Text, Biographies, and Point of View Articles.

• The Answer Form, on the back cover of the booklet, lets your student practice recording answers in a “fill-in-the-bubble” format similar to many standardized tests.

• The Practice Test at the back of the booklet gives your student the opportunity to practice answering multiple-choice questions. In the recommended Language Skills schedule, guide your student through this test as his or her first experience with the Test Ready materials.

Independent Reading

This is quiet time for your student to enjoy a favorite book—whatever he or she enjoys most or finds most interesting. During Independent Reading, try to find a quiet space for your student, free from distractions. If possible, set an example for your student by curling up with a book or magazine of your own. Let your student see that you, too, value and enjoy reading. In casual conversation, talk with your student about what he or she has read. Share your thoughts about what you have been reading as well. Be a model of enthusiasm and interest in words and ideas.



Your student may devote a section of the Reading Notebook to a log of independent reading. Here, your student can write the title, author, and date that he or she finished reading the work, as well as a few sentences about what your student thought of it.

Read Aloud

Numerous studies have confirmed the value of reading aloud to your student every day. As part of our Grade 4 Language Arts program, we set aside time daily for reading aloud.

Ideas for Reading Aloud You and your student might have your own favorites for reading aloud. For suggested titles, consult these guides:

• “Children’s Classics” recommended by The Horn Book, available as a file to download and print at http://www.hbook.com/parents.shtml.

• The Read-Aloud Handbook (4th edition), by Jim Trelease (Penguin, 1995) • The New York Times Parent’s Guide to the Best Books for Children by Eden Ross Lipson

(Three Rivers Press, 2000) • Books That Build Character: A Guide to Teaching Your Child Moral Values Through

Stories by William Kilpatrick, Gregory Wolfe, and Suzanne M. Wolfe (Simon & Schuster, 1994)

• Great Books for Boys: More Than 600 Books for Boys 2 to 14 by Kathleen Odean (Ballantine, 1998)

• Great Books for Girls: More Than 600 Books to Inspire Today's Girls and Tomorrow's Women by Kathleen Odean (Ballantine, 1997)

You might also enjoy reading aloud selections from the following:

• The Children’s Book of America (Simon & Schuster, 1998); The Children’s Book of Faith (Doubleday, 2000); The Children’s Book of Heroes (Simon & Schuster, 1997); The Children’s Book of Virtues (Simon & Schuster, 1995), all ed. William J. Bennett.

• Classics to Read Aloud to Your Children and Classic Myths to Read Aloud, both ed. William F. Russell (Crown Publishers, 1992)



Spelling K12’s Grade 4 Language Arts program provides a comprehensive sequence of lessons on Language Skills, Literature, and Spelling. The Spelling course provides structured lessons to help the student develop an understanding of sound-symbol relationships and spelling patterns, identify affixes and how they affect the meaning of words, and recognize base words and roots in related words.

How the Program Is Organized • There are 36 units with 5 lessons per unit, for a total of 180 lessons. Six of the 36 units

are review units. • Every fifth lesson is an assessment—a spelling quiz on the words studied in the previous

four lessons. • Review Units provide a way for the student to review information presented in previous

lessons while studying the spelling of new words.

K12’s Grade 4 Spelling Program: • Reinforces spelling conventions taught in earlier grades and introduces new spelling

conventions • Introduces vocabulary study through the presentation of meanings for word parts, such

as prefixes, suffixes, base words, roots, and unfamiliar words • Includes the names of all 50 United States, the United States capital, the continents, and

the countries that border the United States • Includes commonly misspelled words • Includes contractions, compound words, and homophones • Encourages correct pronunciation by having the student articulate each syllable in

multisyllabic words

The Spelling List Every Spelling List includes 22 words presented in five categories:

• Words that Follow the Rules: These words include the spelling pattern taught or reinforced in the unit.

• Words with Prefixes or Suffixes: These words all have the same prefix or suffix. Lessons explain the meaning of the affix and any spelling conventions related to adding the affix to the base word or root.

• Related Words (words with common base words or roots): The related meanings for these words are explained and the parts with the same spellings are emphasized.

• Spelling Dangers: These are commonly misspelled words. Lessons give hints to help the student remember the correct spelling.

• Proper Nouns and Geographical Proper Names: These words include the names of all 50 states in the United States, the United States capital, the continents, and the countries that border the United States.

Lessons present the words on the Spelling List divided into syllables. Words with Prefixes or Suffixes are shown with the prefix or suffix added to the base word, and divided into syllables. The meaning of the prefix or suffix is given, for example: Words with Prefixes: The prefix sub- means under substandard (sub + standard) (sub-stand-ard) submarine (sub + marine) (sub-ma-rine) subtitle (sub + title) (sub-ti-tle) subway (sub + way) (sub + way)



Related Words are shown with their affixes added (prefixes and suffixes), and divided into syllables. The meaning of the base word or root is given, for example:

Related Words: The base word flex means to bend flex (flex) (flex) flexible (flex + ible) (flex-i-ble) inflexible (in + flex + ible) (in-flex-i-ble) reflex (re + flex) (re-flex)

Activities Each unit includes a pretest, practice pages, spelling review, and dictation. Pretest The pretest, which you administer on the second day of the five-day unit, helps identify the words that will require additional study. The words your student misspells are written on index cards and placed in the Spelling Box. Practice Pages and Spelling Review These activities allow the student to practice writing words on the spelling list and reinforce spelling patterns and word meaning. Dictation Dictation exercises help your student learn to spell words fluently and to use the spelling words while also practicing handwriting and punctuation. Dictation exercises include sentences of varying length to help students build their ability to remember sentences as they write them.

The Spelling Box The Spelling Box (an index card filing box divided into three sections: Current Unit, Previous Units, and Retired Words) is a tool to help your student learn words he or she may find difficult. Your student writes these words on index cards and places them in the Current Unit or Previous Units section of the Spelling Box. When your student demonstrates that he or she can spell a word correctly three times in a row, you move that card to the Retired Words section. (It’s important for your student to spell the word correctly over time to demonstrate that he or she has really learned it, not just momentarily memorized it.)

A Typical Spelling Unit Lesson Activities 1 1. Introduce the Words in the Unit

2. Practice the Spelling Words 2 3. Pretest

4. Create Cards for the Spelling Box 5. Spelling Word Stumper 6. Get to Know the States

3 1. Match the Meaning 2. Spelling Box Practice

4 1. Practice Page 2. Spelling Box Practice 3. Dictation

5 1. Assessment 2. Update the Spelling Box



The last lesson in each unit presents an assessment of the 22 words studied in the unit and three review words from the previous lesson. Every sixth unit is a review unit. The review units contain 25 words—10 words that follow rules taught in the previous five units, four words that contain affixes previously taught, four words that belong to word families previously taught, three words that review Spelling Dangers, and four words that review Proper Nouns. Assessments in review units also include items that assess your student’s knowledge of prefixes and suffixes.



Representing Sounds in Sound Boxes As a guide to pronunciation, sounds are written within slashes that we call sound boxes. For example, the long o sound in boat is indicated as follows: b//t The following chart is a key to the sounds designated in sound boxes:

Vowel Sounds

Consonant Sounds

Sound Guidewords, with sample spellings underlined

Sound Guidewords, with sample spellings underlined

Short Vowel Sounds /b/ bat, rabbit, cab /a/ apple, sat /d/ dog, riddle, nod /e/ echo, pet /f/ fun, taffy, puff, phone /i/ it, tip, gym /g/ gas, wiggle, tug /o/ ox, pop, watch /h/ hat /u/ up, cut /j/ jam, gem, edge

Long Vowel Sounds /k/ cat, kiss, duck /a/ acorn, rain, may, bake, steak /l/ lamp, shallow, fall /e/ eat, feet, be, cookie

/m/ mop, hammer, Sam, lamb

/i/ idea, kite, by, light /n/ nap, manner, sun /o/ open, boat, grow, bone /p/ pan, zipper, hop /u/ or /yoo/

unit, cute, cue, few /r/ rat, barrel, purr, tar

Diphthongs /s/ sad, kiss, cent /oi/ boy, foil /t/ top, matter, sat /ow/ out, now /v/ van, rave

Other Vowel Sounds /w/ wind /oo/ super, school, rule, blue /y/ yes /oo/ book, put, could /z/ zoo, rose, jazz /aw/ awful, pause, claw /ch/ chin, watch /? / signal, novel, gossip, seldom,

cactus /ng/ thing

R-controlled Vowels /nk/ think /ar/ car /sh/ ship, dash /ur/ her, fur, dirt, doctor, dollar, learn /th/ -

voiced thumb, math

/or/ for, roar, more /th/ - unvoiced

that, bathe

/nk/ think /wh/* whale /zh/ treasure, television

* In America, most people pronounce this sound just like /w/, as opposed to in England where /wh/ is a distinct sound. In America, which and witch sound the same, whereas in England the words have two distinct pronunciations and are easily distinguished from one another.



Glossary Antonyms Words that are opposite in meaning: hot/cold, up/down. Base word A word to which suffixes or prefixes can be attached. For example, in unhappiness, the base word is happy. Blend A sequence of two or three consonants before or after a vowel sound within a syllable in which each consonant retains its own sound, such as cl, br, st, scr, str. Challenge Words Words included in the unit to give students the opportunity to read and spell words that are more difficult than expected for the grade level. These words are optional and not included in the assessment score. Challenge Words are included in the unit activities. Contraction One word condensed from two words, with an apostrophe representing the letters omitted, for example: isn’t = is not; I’ve = I have. Digraph Two letters that represent one sound. Consonant digraphs included in Grade 3 spelling words are: th, wh, sh, ch, ck, and ph. Examples of vowel digraphs included in Grade 3 spelling words are: ai, ay, ea, ee, igh, ie, oa, ow, ue, and ew. Diphthong A vowel sound that may feel as though it has two parts. K12’s program considers /oi/ as in toy and /ow/ as in cow to be diphthongs. Heart Words High-frequency words included in each spelling list that do not follow the rules of spelling that have been previously taught to the student. Multisyllabic Having more than one syllable. Phoneme A speech sound that combines with others in a language system to make words. Prefix A word part that precedes a root or base word and that contributes to or modifies the meaning of the word. Adding a prefix does not change the spelling of a base word. For example, in the word undo, un- is the prefix. R-controlled vowels When a vowel sound is before the sound /r/, it is often distorted and, for reading, the sound is easier to understand by combining the vowel sound with the /r/ sound. For example, in the /ur/ sound in her, it is hard to separate the vowel sound from the /r/ sound. Therefore, we call /ur/ in her, bird, fir, dollar, and tractor one sound because the vowel is controlled by the /r/ that follows it. Schwa The schwa sound / / is an indistinct vowel sound found in unaccented syllables. To many



people, the schwa often sounds similar to a short u or a short i. The schwa can be spelled with any of the letters that are vowels. Examples of the schwa are: the a in about, the e in oxen, the i in gossip, the o in wagon, and the u in cactus. Suffix A word part, added to a root or base word, that often changes the word’s part of speech and modifies its meaning. For example, in the word actor, the suffix is -or. Syllable A word or word part that contains one vowel sound. It may or may not have consonant sounds before or after the vowel sound. For example, the word dog has one syllable; the word acorn has two syllables—a and corn. Synonyms Words that have the same or almost the same meaning: for example, pretty and beautiful. Vowel team group of one or more letters that represent a vowel sound. For example, ai is the vowel team in rain and ough is the vowel team in though. A vowel team can include consonants or it may be all vowels.

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