Language

In this unit you will grow as a listener, speaker and word detective. First you will listen in groups: asking questions that help speakers say more, building on other people's ideas, and choosing listening strategies. You will speak for a purpose and audience, using paraphrasing and restating, expression, gestures and body language, and precise words and varied sentences.

Then you will use morphemes (meaning parts) to read long words: new Grade 4 prefixes and suffixes, and roots from Latin and Greek. You will learn where words come from, including words from First Nations languages and Inuktitut, use context clues with word parts to figure out new words in math, science and social studies, explore shades of meaning, idioms and analogies, and read fluently with accuracy, the right pace and expression.

Remember from Grade 3: you learned syllable types, prefixes and suffixes, word families and reading with expression. Grade 4 builds on all of these. Spelling, grammar and handwriting are in the companion writing unit. Every lesson has a hands-on activity, lots of practice and a short quiz.

Curriculum expectations covered: A1, A3, B1.1, B1.2, B1.3, B1.4, B1.5, B2.1, B2.2, B2.3, B3.1 (The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1–8: Language, 2023, Grade 4). Strand A1 (transferable skills) and A3 (applications, connections and contributions) are woven in, and B3.1 (sentence structure) is used for reading in phrases.

In this unit you will build the skills that make your writing easy to read, correctly spelled and clear. You will make your cursive legible and fluent and begin to touch-type, then use a word processor to edit.

You will spell tricky sounds using position patterns (winter, word, camel, musical), silent letters (knee, climb, design) and the ie/ei clue, and choose the right homophone (hear/here, threw/through). You will use prefixes (inter-, trans-, semi-, il-, ir-), suffixes (-sion, -ous, -ive, -ian, and doubling in beginning) and Greek and Latin roots (tele, graph, port, spect) to read and spell big words, including words from science and social studies.

Then you will write all four sentence types using interrogative and imperative verbs, build sentences with clauses and prepositional phrases, fix fragments and run-ons, use relative pronouns and pronouns as adjectives, and use the perfect tense (has seen, had left, will have finished). Finally, you will capitalize proper adjectives, use commas for direct address and quotation marks for titles of short works, and edit with CUPS.

Remember from Grade 3: you began cursive, spelled long words with syllable types, used prefixes and suffixes, wrote simple, compound and complex sentences, and used commas, quotation marks and apostrophes. Grade 4 builds on all of it. This unit goes with Foundations of Reading. Every lesson has a hands-on activity, lots of practice and a short quiz.

Curriculum expectations covered: B2.1 (using morphemes to read and spell), B3.1, B3.2, B3.3, with B2.2 (vocabulary) and Strand A (A1.2, A3.1) woven in (The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1–8: Language, 2023, Grade 4). Cursive and keyboarding (D2.2) and editing with a word processor (D2.6) come from Strand D and are included here because they support writing.

In this unit you will become a sharper, more critical reader, listener and viewer. You will explore new genres and cultural text forms, choose texts for a purpose, find spatial order in graphic texts, and use type styles and hyperlinks. You will explain how images, graphics and visual design create meaning and how media creators use techniques for an audience.

You will practise reading strategies: using prior knowledge, making and checking predictions, adjusting your reading rate, reading ahead, consulting references, making connections, and summarizing with a conclusion.

You will think like a critic: follow multiple plots and cause-and-effect chains, make local and global inferences, analyze a writer's style, explain personification and anthropomorphism, compare first-, second- and third-person narrators, and detect bias. You will explore cultural elements and learn from texts by First Nations, Métis and Inuit creators, and you will become a smart researcher and responsible digital citizen.

Every lesson has short texts written for this site, a hands-on activity, practice questions and a quiz.

Curriculum expectations covered: A1.1, A1.2, A2.1–A2.7, A3.1, A3.2, A3.3, C1.1–C1.7, C2.1–C2.7, C3.1–C3.8 (The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1–8: Language, 2023, Grade 4).

In this unit you will grow as a writer and creator. You will plan by naming your topic, purpose and audience, and explain why your chosen genre, form and medium fit. You will find ideas and details (including ideas about fairness and inclusion), research with a variety of sources and record them, and select, group and sequence your content. You will draft narratives with a plot that builds to a climax, persuasive texts with evidence and a call to action, reports and explanations with text features, media texts like comics, infographics and announcements, and poems full of figurative language. You will choose a tone that fits, check your writing for point of view, perspectives and bias, revise with feedback, edit with help from a word processor, begin touch-typing, and publish, present and reflect.

Every lesson has model texts, a worked example, a hands-on activity, practice questions with answers and a short quiz. Grade 4 builds on Grade 3: children now write several paragraphs, explain their choices of medium, record sources, consider perspectives and bias, and describe the strategies that help them grow.

Curriculum expectations covered: D1.1, D1.2, D1.3, D1.4, D1.5, D2.1, D2.2, D2.3, D2.4, D2.5, D2.6, D3.1, D3.2, D3.3, with connections to Strand A (A1.1, A1.2, A2.1, A2.2, A2.3, A2.4, A2.5, A3.1, A3.2) (The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1–8: Language, 2023, Grade 4). Cursive handwriting (part of D2.2) is taught in the Foundations of Writing unit; touch-typing (the other part of D2.2) is introduced here.