Fourth Grade Curriculum Overview
Reading
Fourth graders continue to read many types of text—literary,
informational, and practical pieces. Through reading, they can make
connections with situations beyond their own experience. In narrative
texts, they recognize organizational patterns and motives of
characters. They can make inferences, draw conclusions, and are
learning to support their opinions about what they read. Fourth graders
are becoming more skillful at following written directions and in
reading for information in a variety of sources.
Writing
Fourth graders write for a variety of reasons and for different
audiences They are learning to use more detail, sequence, and
description in their narratives. Narratives have a logical, coherent,
organized structure. As members of “reading/writing groups,” they give
suggestions for revision to others. They edit their written work for
basic sentence formation, usage, mechanics, and spelling
Mathematics
The mathematics curriculum is organized into five strands:
(1) number and operations; (2) measurement; (3) geometry; (4) data
analysis and probability; and, (5) algebra. Problem-solving strategies
are imbedded into each of the 5 strands.
Proficient 4th grade students have expanded their abilities to perform
mathematical tasks and to use models to demonstrate their
understanding. They are confident in exploring new concepts with
concrete materials because they have had repeated opportunities to
experiment with manipulatives. The evaluation of student achievement in
mathematics should reflect what students can do, explain, and record.
Social Studies
Fourth grade students proceed from studying their community to a study
of the state of North Carolina. Students learn about the
characteristics of North Carolinians, who we are and where we came
from. The geographic regions, landforms, climate, and resources are
explored. The social, economic, and political institutions are studied
as students develop a broad context of the southeast, the nation, and
the world economy.
Science
The focus for fourth grade students is on analyzing systems and learning how they work.
Science Concepts: animal behavior and adaptation, composition and uses
of rocks and minerals, electricity and magnetism, food energy for
growth and repair of the body
Art/Music
Arts Education includes four separate and distinct disciplines; dance,
music, theatre arts, and visual arts—each with its own body of
knowledge and skills, The intent of the National Standards for Arts
Education, along with the standard courses of study in each area, is
that a comprehensive understanding of one or more of the arts is
accomplished by each student throughout the K-12 Program.
Health/PE
The Healthful Living Education program promotes behaviors that
contribute to a healthful life-style and improved quality of life for
all students. The Healthful Living Education portions of the NC
Standard Course of Study support and reinforce the goals and objectives
of its two major components—health education and physical education.