Language Arts Secular Homeschool Curriculum Skills List | Fourth Grade

Language arts activities have a social studies or science theme and incorporate reading, handwriting, and English skills. The activities provided during the year continue to drill phonics and blend these skills with sight word recognition to promote fluency and comprehension in reading and writing. The questions for discussion of literature stimulate higher-level thinking skills and incorporate new vocabulary words that become part of your child’s usable vocabulary. Practice worksheets to reinforce these concepts are included within the lessons.

Reading

• Use word recognition skills and strategies to read and comprehend text.
• Learn new sight words and vocabulary words.
• Read orally with fluency and expression.
• Look at an illustration and tell a story about the illustration, using a variety of descriptive words.
• Identify and use words that rhyme, start, or end with the same sound.
• Develop the ability to recognize and describe the main idea, setting, plot, supporting details, characters, conflict, and theme in a story.
• Analyze a main character in a story.
• Demonstrate evidence of literal and inferential comprehension.
• Understand foreshadowing and symbolism.
• Understand and identify figurative language: simile, metaphor, alliteration, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, or personification.
• Use context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
• Define words using a dictionary.
• Sort and define words by category.
• Recognize and write a synonym and antonym.
• Understand and recognize a homophone and homonym.
• Understand story sequence.
• Develop the ability to make inferences and draw conclusions.
• Identify cause and effect relationships.
• Expand comprehension by analyzing, interpreting, and synthesizing information in text.
• Read to learn new information, to perform a task, or to enjoy a story.
• Understand literature written in a variety of genres.
• Identify differences between fiction and non-fiction.
• Identify the point of view in literature.
• Determine fact and opinion.
• Identify true and false statements.
• Read directions, and follow a recipe.

Spelling

• Apply spelling and phonics concepts through oral, written, and tactile practice.
• Learn basic spelling rules.
• Recognize silent letters in words.
• Understand and spell abbreviations and contractions.
• Identify a prefix and a suffix.
• Add a suffix to a word.
• Add a prefix to a word.
• Identify base words.
• Decode and spell words by breaking them into syllables.
• Identify the number of syllables in a word.
• Identify and write compound words.
• Write words in alphabetical order.
• Recognize and spell plural words.

Writing and Grammar

• Write in a journal.
• Create a travel brochure.
• Use free writing to gather ideas about a story.
• Understand that proper nouns begin with a capital letter.
• Write a newspaper article.
• Use pronouns correctly.
• Identify types of pronouns: nominative, objective, possessive, relative.
• Use coordinating conjunctions correctly.
• Use a mnemonic to learn subordinating conjunctions.
• Use a subordinating conjunction, and write a complex sentence.
• Properly write contractions.
• Use commas to separate items in a list.
• Recognize irregular plural nouns.
• Identify nouns and verbs; use correct subject-verb agreement.
• Differentiate between a concrete and abstract noun.
• Recognize the four principal parts of verbs: present tense, present participle, past tense, and past participle.
• Recall helping verbs.
• Identify a prepositional phrase, a preposition, and the object of a preposition.
• Identify collective nouns.
• Identify a linking verb.
• Identify the progressive form of a verb.
• Identify a predicate nominative.
• Diagram a predicate nominative.
• Identify the simple and complete subject in a sentence.
• Identify the simple and complete predicate in a sentence.
• Diagram the simple subject and simple predicate in a sentence.
• Diagram the compound subject and compound predicate in a sentence.
• Identify a direct and indirect object.
• Diagram the direct and indirect object in a sentence.
• Identify an adjective phrase.
• Diagram an adjective phrase.
• Differentiate between a predicate nominative and a predicate adjective.
• Identify a predicate adjective.
• Diagram a predicate adjective.
• Identify an adverb.
• Write the comparative and superlative forms of an adverb.
• Correctly use adverbs and adjectives in sentences.
• Understand how to write and use possessive nouns.
• Identify the adjective that describes the noun.
• Compare nouns using comparative and superlative adjectives.
• Identify and use past, present, and future verb tenses properly.
• Identify an appositive.
• Identify an antecedent.
• Learn how to gather information to use as a writing tool for research and inquiry.
• Write an outline using correct format.
• Understand that a sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a punctuation mark.
• Identify types of sentences: statement, question, exclamation, command.
• Identify a group of words as a phrase, independent clause, or dependent clause.
• Correct a run-on sentence.
• Write dictated words and sentences.
• Write a paragraph or story about a designated topic.
• Fill in missing words in sentences.
• Use proper punctuation in writing.
• Recall punctuation and capitalization rules for direct quotations.
• Use a graphic organizer to organize main ideas and supporting details.
• Understand and use a writing process.
• Write a title page and a simple bibliography.
• Write in a variety of forms for different audiences and purposes.
• Write clearly and effectively.
• Describe people, places, things, and events with relevant details.
• Recognize and use alliteration, personification, similes, and metaphors.
• Analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of written work.
• Learn about famous authors and their style of writing.
• Identify and avoid double negatives in writing.
• Use transition words to make sentences flow more smoothly.
• Write a pun and an acrostic.
• Use literary devices and word relationships to write jokes.
• Write a haiku, a limerick, a couplet, a triplet, a cinquain, a diamond poem, and a concrete poem.
• Write a poem using a given rhyming pattern.
• Create a comic strip.
• Write a tall tale.
• Write an algorithm to complete a specific task.
• Apply the rules for italicizing titles of literary works, movies, music, artwork, ships, planes, and trains.

Communication

• Use listening and observation skills and strategies to gain understanding.
• Use communication skills and strategies to interact and work effectively with others.
• Write statements or questions for a story, card, or interview.
• Demonstrate the ability to express an opinion, or present ideas in a variety of situations.
• Use transitional words and phrases to connect ideas.
• Write and read a persuasive speech.
• Use effective vocabulary and logical organization to relate or summarize ideas.
• Respond clearly to a statement with relevant details.
• Participate in dramatic play.
• Recite and memorize poems.
• Evaluate an oral presentation using a rubric.
• Listen and follow a set of multi-step directions.
• Describe the location of one object relative to another object using prepositional words.
• Understand the meaning of an idiom.
• Complete word analogies.
• Develop listening comprehension and the ability to retell a story.
• Communicate with charades.
• Communicate in different languages.
• State the main idea of a paragraph.
• Create a puppet show.