What should fourth graders know by the end of the year

Support analytical thinking with specific examples from the text. In North America, the fourth grade is the fifth school year of elementary school.

Students are usually 9 or 10 years old, depending on their birthday, unless they started school at an earlier or later date than the average student. What Do Fourth Graders Learn? In 4th grade, students will learn to use research tools to write reports. They will master addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division skills and start to explore simple geometry. They will read and create their own charts, graphs, and tables.

For many kids, fourth grade can be a hard year. There are a lot of changes in teaching from third to fourth grade. Friendship becomes more important, and cliques tend to get more common around fourth grade. And even if these changes may not seem like a big deal, they can be very stressful for kids.

Fourth-graders should understand the meaning of operations and be able to explain the relationships between addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They research, plan, and revise their work more by themselves — setting the foundation to be lifelong, self-starting learners.

Read on for what to expect this year, and shop all books and resources for 4th grade at The Scholastic Store. For more book and reading ideas, sign up for our Scholastic Parents newsletter!

Much of the 4th grade reading curriculum teaches students how to analyze the books they read. Rather than just understand the plot and information given in a text, students are encouraged to think about the messages and how they relate to their own lives. They also compare texts to each other and make connections both within one text and across multiple texts.

In short, 4th graders begin to learn how to think and talk about a text to find deeper meanings and messages. This is done both with texts students read independently and those read by the whole class or smaller groups of students. Teachers may often use a class read-aloud to show students strategies for thinking about and analyzing what they read, encouraging them to do this in their own reading.

Students also do this as they write in more detail about the texts they read. Read and Research Together : Read the same book as your child independently, together, or a combination of both. Talk about the book as you read it, reviewing main ideas and plots and expressing your opinions. Then read an additional book or books on the same subject and compare and contrast how they dealt with the same issue. Compare Perspectives : Read two texts — one written in first person and one in third person — about the same event.

Talk with your child about the differences and why they thinks these differences exist. Or, try it yourself! After sharing an experience with your child, each of you can write about it from your own perspective.

Here are some ideas:. Role-play social situations. Use multisensory techniques to build reading skills. Try multisensory techniques to build math skills , too. In fourth grade, kids are expected to understand many types of stories and write research papers.

Share Skills kids need going into fourth grade. Podcast Wunder community app. Main menu Our work Blog Surveys and research. Join our team Privacy policy Terms of use Fundraising disclosure Sitemap. At a Glance In preparation for fourth grade, third graders focus on using language and writing in all subjects. Most kids who are ready for fourth grade understand why and how multiplication works.

Fourth graders have to support their statements about a text with facts and details. Skills to get ready for grade 4: English language arts and literacy. Rising fourth graders are also expected to know how to:. Practice word problems with more than one step or operation.