Indiana State Standards for Language Arts: Grade 4

IN.1. Reading: Word Recognition, Fluency, and Vocabulary Development: Students understand the basic features of words. They see letter patterns and know how to translate them into spoken language by using phonics (an understanding of the different letters that make different sounds), syllables, word parts (un-, re-, -est, -ful), and context (the meaning of the text around a word).

4.1.1. Decoding and Word Recognition: Read aloud grade-level-appropriate literary and informational texts with fluency and accuracy and with appropriate timing, changes in voice, and expression.

4.1.2. Vocabulary and Concept Development: Apply knowledge of synonyms (words with the same meaning), antonyms (words with opposite meanings), homographs (words that are spelled the same but have different meanings), and idioms (expressions that cannot be understood just by knowing the meanings of the words in the expression, such as couch potato) to determine the meaning of words and phrases.

4.1.3. Vocabulary and Concept Development: Use knowledge of root words (nation, national, nationality) to determine the meaning of unknown words within a passage.

4.1.4. Vocabulary and Concept Development: Use common roots (meter = measure) and word parts (therm = heat) derived from Greek and Latin to analyze the meaning of complex words (thermometer).

4.1.5. Vocabulary and Concept Development: Use a thesaurus to find related words and ideas.

4.1.6. Vocabulary and Concept Development: Distinguish and interpret words with multiple meanings (quarters) by using context clues (the meaning of the text around a word).

4.1.7. Vocabulary and Concept Development: Use context to determine the meaning of unknown words.

IN.2. Reading: Comprehension and Analysis of Nonfiction and Informational Text: Students read and understand grade-level-appropriate material.

4.2.1. Structural Features of Informational and Technical Materials: Use the organization of informational text to strengthen comprehension.

4.2.8. Structural Features of Informational and Technical Materials: Identify informational texts written in narrative form (sometimes with undeveloped characters and minimal dialogue) using sequence or chronology.

4.2.2. Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Nonfiction and Informational Text: Use appropriate strategies when reading for different purposes.

4.2.3. Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Nonfiction and Informational Text: Draw conclusions or make and confirm predictions about text by using prior knowledge and ideas presented in the text itself, including illustrations, titles, topic sentences, important words, foreshadowing clues (clues that indicate what might happen next), and direct quotations.

4.2.4. Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Nonfiction and Informational Text: Evaluate new information and hypotheses (statements of theories or assumptions) by testing them against known information and ideas.

4.2.9. Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Nonfiction and Informational Text: Recognize main ideas and supporting details presented in expository (informational texts).

4.2.5. Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Nonfiction and Informational Text: Compare and contrast information on the same topic after reading several passages or articles.

4.2.6. Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Nonfiction and Informational Text: Distinguish between cause and effect and between fact and opinion in informational text.

4.2.7. Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Nonfiction and Informational Text: Follow multiple-step instructions in a basic technical manual.

IN.3. Reading: Comprehension and Analysis of Literary Text: Students read and respond to a wide variety of significant works of children's literature.

4.3.1. Structural Features of Literature: Describe the differences of various imaginative forms of literature, including fantasies, fables, myths, legends, and other tales.

4.3.2. Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Literary Text: Identify the main events of the plot, including their causes and the effects of each event on future actions, and the major theme from the story action.

4.3.3. Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Literary Text: Use knowledge of the situation, setting, and a character's traits, motivations, and feelings to determine the causes for that character's actions.

4.3.4. Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Literary Text: Compare and contrast tales from different cultures by tracing the adventures of one character type. Tell why there are similar tales in different cultures.

4.3.5. Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Literary Text: Define figurative language, such as similes, metaphors, hyperbole, or personification, and identify its use in literary works.

4.3.6. Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Literary Text: Determine the theme.

4.3.7. Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Literary Text: Identify the narrator in a selection and tell whether the narrator or speaker is involved in the story.

IN.4. Writing: Processes and Features: Students write clear sentences and paragraphs that develop a central idea. Students progress through the stages of the writing process, including prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing multiple drafts.

4.4.1. Organization and Focus: Discuss ideas for writing. Find ideas for writing in conversations with others and in books, magazines, newspapers, school textbooks, or on the Internet. Keep a list or notebook of ideas.

4.4.2. Organization and Focus: Select a focus, an organizational structure, and a point of view based upon purpose, audience, length, and format requirements for a piece of writing.

4.4.3. Organization and Focus: Write informational pieces with multiple paragraphs that: provide an introductory paragraph; establish and support a central idea with a topic sentence at or near the beginning of the first paragraph; include supporting paragraphs with simple facts, details, and explanations; present important ideas or events in sequence or in chronological order; provide details and transitions to link paragraphs; conclude with a paragraph that summarizes the points; use correct indention at the beginning of paragraphs.

4.4.4. Organization and Focus: Use logical organizational structures for providing information in writing, such as chronological order, cause and effect, similarity and difference, and posing and answering a question.

4.4.5. Research Process and Technology: Quote or paraphrase information sources, citing them appropriately.

4.4.6. Research Process and Technology: Locate information in reference texts by using organizational features, such as prefaces and appendixes.

4.4.7. Research Process and Technology: Use multiple reference materials and online information (the Internet) as aids to writing.

4.4.8. Research Process and Technology: Understand the organization of almanacs, newspapers, and periodicals and how to use those print materials.

4.4.9. Research Process and Technology: Use a computer to draft, revise, and publish writing, demonstrating basic keyboarding skills and familiarity with common computer terminology.

4.4.10. Evaluation and Revision: Review, evaluate, and revise writing for meaning and clarity.

4.4.11. Evaluation and Revision: Proofread one's own writing, as well as that of others, using an editing checklist or set of rules, with specific examples of corrections of frequent errors.

4.4.12. Evaluation and Revision: Revise writing by combining and moving sentences and paragraphs to improve the focus and progression of ideas.

IN.5. Writing: Applications (Different Types of Writing and Their Characteristics): At Grade 4 are introduced to writing informational reports and responses to literature.

4.5.1. Writing Processes and Features: Write narratives that: include ideas, observations, or memories of an event or experience; provide a context to allow the reader to imagine the world of the event or experience; use concrete sensory details.

4.5.2. Writing Processes and Features: Write responses to literature that: demonstrate an understanding of a literary work; support statements with evidence from the text.

4.5.4. Writing Processes and Features: Write summaries that contain the main ideas of the reading selection and the most significant details.

4.5.5. Writing Processes and Features: Use varied word choices to make writing interesting.

4.5.6. Writing Processes and Features: Write for different purposes (information, persuasion, description) and to a specific audience or person.

4.5.3. Research Application: Write or deliver a research report that has been developed using a systematic research process (defines the topic, gathers information, determines credibility, reports findings) and that: includes information from a variety of sources (books, technology, multimedia) and documents sources (titles and authors); demonstrates that information that has been gathered has been summarized; organizes information by categorizing it into multiple categories (such as solid, liquid, and gas or reduce, reuse, and recycle) or includes information gained through observation.

IN.6. Writing: English Language Conventions: Students write using Standard English conventions appropriate to this grade level.

4.6.1. Handwriting: Write smoothly and legibly in cursive, forming letters and words that can be read by others.

4.6.2. Sentence Structure: Use simple sentences (Dr. Vincent Stone is my dentist.) and compound sentences (His assistant cleans my teeth, and Dr. Stone checks for cavities.) in writing.

4.6.3. Sentence Structure: Create interesting sentences by using words that describe, explain, or provide additional details and connections, such as verbs, adjectives, adverbs, appositives, participial phrases, prepositional phrases, and conjunctions.

4.6.4. Grammar: Identify and use in writing regular (live/lived, shout/shouted) and irregular verbs (swim/swam, ride/rode, hit/hit), adverbs (constantly, quickly), and prepositions (through, beyond, between).

4.6.5. Punctuation: Use parentheses to explain something that is not considered of primary importance to the sentence, commas in direct quotations (He said, 'I'd be happy to go.'), apostrophes to show possession (Jim's shoes, the dog's food), and apostrophes in contractions (can't, didn't, won't).

4.6.6. Punctuation: Use underlining, quotation marks, or italics to identify titles of documents. When writing by hand or by computer, use quotation marks to identify the titles of articles, short stories, poems, or chapters of books. When writing on a computer italicize the following, when writing by hand underline them: the titles of books, names of newspapers and magazines, works of art, and musical compositions.

4.6.7. Capitalization: Capitalize names of magazines, newspapers, works of art, musical compositions, organizations, and the first word in quotations, when appropriate.

4.6.8. Spelling: Spell correctly roots (bases of words, such as unnecessary, cowardly), inflections (words like care/careful/caring), words with more than one acceptable spelling (like advisor/adviser), suffixes and prefixes (-ly, -ness, mis-, un-), and syllables (word parts each containing a vowel sound, such as sur-prise or e-col-o-gy).

IN.7. Listening and Speaking: Skills, Strategies, and Applications: Students listen critically and respond appropriately to oral communication.

4.7.1. Comprehension: Ask thoughtful questions and respond orally to relevant questions with appropriate elaboration.

4.7.2. Comprehension: Summarize major ideas and supporting evidence presented in spoken presentations.

4.7.3. Comprehension: Identify how language usage (sayings and expressions) reflects regions and cultures.

4.7.4. Comprehension: Give precise directions and instructions.

4.7.15. Comprehension: Connect and relate experiences and ideas to those of a speaker.

4.7.5. Organization and Delivery of Oral Communication: Present effective introductions and conclusions that guide and inform the listener's understanding of important ideas and details.

4.7.6. Organization and Delivery of Oral Communication: Use logical structures for conveying information, including cause and effect, similarity and difference, and posing and answering a question.

4.7.7. Organization and Delivery of Oral Communication: Emphasize points in ways that help the listener or viewer follow important ideas and concepts.

4.7.8. Organization and Delivery of Oral Communication: Use details, examples, anecdotes (stories of a specific event), or experiences to explain or clarify information.

4.7.9. Organization and Delivery of Oral Communication: Engage the audience with appropriate words, facial expressions, and gestures.

4.7.10. Analysis and Evaluation of Oral and Media Communications: Evaluate the role of the media in focusing people's attention on events and in forming their opinions on issues.

4.7.16. Analysis and Evaluation of Oral and Media Communications: Distinguish between the speaker's opinions and verifiable facts.

4.7.11. Speaking Applications: Make narrative presentations that: relate ideas, observations, or memories about an event or experience; provide a context that allows the listener to imagine the circumstances of the event or experience; provide insight into why the selected event or experience should be of interest to the audience.

4.7.17. Speaking Applications: Make descriptive presentations that use concrete sensory details to set forth and support unified impressions of people, places, things, or experiences.

4.7.12. Speaking Applications: Make informational presentations that: focus on one main topic; include facts and details that help listeners focus; incorporate more than one source of information (including speakers, books, newspapers, television broadcasts, radio reports, or Web sites).

4.7.13. Speaking Applications: Deliver oral summaries of articles and books that contain the main ideas of the event or article and the most significant details.