4th Grade ACSU Curriculum Standards

Fourth Grade Curriculum Standards:

Understanding the ACSU K-6 Reporting System

What does Being Proficient Mean in Grade 4

The following summaries of the Power Standards and Indicators for this grade level should be used by parents with the Progress Reports, and as part of the parent conferences, to better understand what is meant by Being Proficient.

Reading

Word Identification and Strategies: Students apply word identification / decoding strategies leading to automaticity.

Indicators: Students will:

  • Identify multi-syllabic words by using knowledge of the six syllable types and syllable division

Vocabulary Strategies:  Students identify the meaning of unfamiliar words.

Indicators: Students will:

  • use knowledge of word structure, including prefixes/suffixes and base words
  • use knowledge of context clues
  • use resources such as dictionaries, glossaries, or prior knowledge

Accuracy and Fluency:  Students read material with accuracy and fluency.

Indicators: Students will:

  • read grade level material with at least 90% accuracy
  • read grade level material with an oral fluency rate of at least 115 words correct per minute
  • read grade level material with phrasing and expression using text features such as punctuation, italics, and dialogue

Understanding, Interpretation and Analysis of Literary Text/Citing Evidence:  Students analyze and interpret elements of literary texts, citing evidence as appropriate.

Indicators: Students will:

  • make inferences about problem, conflict, and/or solution in text
  • identify author’s message or theme
  • identify significant changes in characters over time

Understanding Interpretation and Analysis of Informational Text/Citing Evidence:  Students analyze and interpret informational text, citing evidence as appropriate.

Indicators: Students will:

  • use information from text to answer questions related to explicitly stated main/central ideas or details
  • organize information to show understanding, such as representing main/central ideas or details within text through paraphrasing or summarizing
  • make connections across texts and synthesize information about text (e.g., constructing appropriate titles, formulating assertions or controlling ideas)
  • draw inferences about text, including author’s purpose (e.g. to inform, explain, entertain) or message

Writing

Writing Process: Students use the writing process of prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and critiquing to produce final drafts that show appropriate command of purpose, organization, details, and voice/tone.

Indicators: Students will:

  • prewrite, draft, revise, and edit

Conventions and Structures: Students demonstrate appropriate command of conventions and structures.

Indicators: All of previous indicators, plus students will:

  • identify grammatical errors when given examples
  • apply basic capitalization rules (names, proper nouns, titles)
  • identify words that might be misspelled
  • use commas correctly in dates, series
  • represent common syllable patterns and affixes characteristic of English spelling system (e.g., doubling rule, y to i, drop silent e)
  • use common and less frequent vowel teams in spelling
  • use simple and compound sentences
  • correctly use paragraph form (indent, main idea, supporting details)

Response to Text: Students write in response to literary and informational text.

Indicators:

Independent Writing – Students will:

  • set context for response by selecting appropriate information to summarize text
  • state focus in response to given question which prompts inferential thinking
  • maintain and support focus with specific evidence from text which shows understanding of text
  • organize ideas using basic transition words and writing a conclusion

Informational Writing: Students write to inform, to persuade, and to demonstrate a process.

Indicators:  Report, Procedure

Independent Writing – Students will:

  • group ideas logically (categories, steps, reasons)
  • write introduction to set context (includes materials list in procedures)
  • state and maintain a perspective (focus, controlling idea) on a subject/topic
  • use transition words, phrases
  • include details/information/ideas to adequate depth that are relevant to a given focus and that shows understanding of focus (in procedures, help reader understand process)
  • list sources at end of report if appropriate

Expressive Writing: Students write to tell and dramatize a coherent story or reflect on a personal experience.

Indicators: Narrative

Independent Writing – Students will:

  • create a clear story line with beginning, middle, and end
  • establish problem and solution
  • identify characters
  • use relevant and descriptive details

Math

Number and Operation: Students demonstrate computational fluency – emphasizing conceptual understanding as well as efficient calculation.

Indicators: Students will:

  • have a conceptual understanding of multiplication facts through 12 x 12,  develop efficient strategies for quickly determining division facts with divisors to 10 and dividends to 100
  • solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division story problems using a variety of efficient paper/pencil and/or mental strategies
  • develop a conceptual understanding of multiplication and division (limited to 2 digits and 3 digits by 1 digit)
  • use a variety of physical and visual models to conceptualize fractions and interpret different meanings for fractions (e.g., equal parts of a unit whole, parts of a set, length, area, money, time)
  • estimate and evaluate reasonableness of solutions

Geometry and Measurement: Students demonstrate knowledge of measurement, properties of figures, and dimensionality.

Indicators: Students will:

  • accurately determine length, perimeter, and weight to the nearest metric unit and to the nearest U.S. customary quarter-unit (e.g., ¼ of an inch), and elapsed time, making unit conversions within systems
  • develop strategies for finding the perimeter and area of rectangles and related triangles and parallelograms
  • identify, describe, compare, and classify 2-D and 3-D geometrical shapes by attributes of their sides and angles, (e.g., An equilateral triangle has sides of equal length and angles of equal measure, a square is a rectangle with congruent sides)
  • predict and describe the results of performing reflections (flips), rotations (turns) and translations (slides) of polygons and use the results to demonstrate understanding of congruency
  • locate and identify coordinates of points on grids, maps, globes, and other charts

Algebra and Functions: Students demonstrate knowledge of patterns, change, and generalization; evaluate the missing variable; demonstrate conceptual understanding of equality; and translate from English to algebraic expression and vice versa.

Indicators: Students will:

  • describe, extend, and make verbal and written generalizations about numeric and geometric patterns to make predictions and solve problems (e.g., If 2/8 = 1/4 and 4/8 = 2/4, then 6/8 must equal 3/4)
  • represent and analyze patterns and functions using words, tables, graphs, or number sentences

Probability and Statistics: Students organize and interpret data, use measures of central tendency, demonstrate understanding of concept of probability and fundamental counting principle, and determine and use sample space.

Indicators: Students will:

  • interpret and construct a wide variety of graphs, including bar, line, double line, line plots, pictographs, and circle (pie) graphs
  • determine the mode and range of a set of data
  • predict and represent all possible outcomes for a simple probability situation in an organized way (e.g., tables, grids, tree diagrams), solve simple counting problems (“James has 3 pairs of pants and 4 shirts.  How many different outfits can he wear?”)
  • express the outcome of probability events verbally and numerically using both whole numbers and fractions (e.g., 3 out of 4 or 3/4), and using such terms as impossible, unlikely, somewhat likely, very likely, certain, and equally likely

Science, Grade 3-4

Note:  In each content area of science, students will use the scientific inquiry skills: questioning, predicting and hypothesizing, designing and doing experiments, recording/representing data, analyzing/explaining data, and using the data (drawing conclusions, applying data to prior knowledge, personal experiences, etc.) The Science Power Standards cover a two-year period from third through fourth grade.

The Human Body: Students use scientific inquiry skills to show and explain that the human body is a unique combination of systems that can be affected by the environment.

Indicators: Students will:

  • identify similarities that are inherited from a biological parent
  • show connections between external and internal body structures and how they help humans survive

Physical Science: Students use scientific inquiry skills to show and explain that all living and non-living things are composed of matter having characteristic properties that distinguish one substance from another.

Indicators: Students will:

  • investigate and measure how the total weight of the parts of a substance, no matter how they are combined, remains the same (e.g., water and gravel mixture)
  • identify, describe and compare properties of solids, liquids, and gases

Physical Science: Students use scientific inquiry skills to show and explain that energy is necessary for change to occur.

Indicators: Students will:

  • investigate and describe how different amounts of force can change the direction and speed of an object in motion
  • build complete circuits, draw diagrams of these electric circuits and explain why electricity flows or does not flow through the circuit

Life Science: Students use scientific inquiry skills to show and explain that populations of organisms survive in an ecosystem by maintaining interdependent relationships with one another and using biotic and abiotic resources from the environment, including the sun.

Indicators: Students will:

  • research and design a habitat and explain how it meets the needs of the organisms that live there
  • explain how one organism depends upon another organism to survive

Life Science: Students use scientific inquiry skills to show and explain that all living organisms have identifiable characteristics that allow for survival.

Indicators: Students will:

  • describe and sort plants and animals into groups based on structural similarities and differences (e.g., all pine, spruce, and evergreen trees have similar leaf structures; spiders have eight legs and insects have six)
  • identify how the physical structure/characteristics of an organism allow it to survive and defend itself (e.g., the coloring of a fiddler crab allows it to camouflage itself in the sand and grasses of its environment so that it will be protected from predators; a rose is protected by its thorns)

Earth Science: Use scientific inquiry skills to show and explain that the universe, earth, and all earth systems have undergone change in the past, continue to change in the present and are predicted to change in the future.

Indicators: Students will:

  • build models that simulate deposits of sediments (e.g., a stream table)
  • explain how the cycle of water relates to weather and the formation of clouds

Social Studies

Inquiry: Students design, conduct and present research.

Indicators: Students will:

  • ask relevant and focusing questions
  • develop a hypothesis or research statement by using prior knowledge to predict results or propose a possible action
  • identify tasks and how they will be completed
  • conduct research by following a plan for an inquiry and locating relevant materials
  • support the research statement by organizing and displaying information
  • propose solutions to problems and summarize their findings through oral, written, or visual presentations

History: Students connect the past, present, and future through understanding and interpreting history.

Indicators: Students will:

  • describe ways that life in the community and Vermont has both changed and stayed the same over time (e.g., general stores and shopping centers)
  • identify and use various sources for reconstructing the past such as documents, letters, diaries, maps, textbooks, photos, and other sources
  • differentiate among fact, opinion, and interpretation in various events
  • make predictions and/or decisions based on an understanding of the past and the present

Geography:  Students interpret geography and solve geographic problems.

Indicators: Students will:

  • identify characteristics of surrounding towns and the state of Vermont using resources such as road signs, landmarks, models, maps, photographs and mental mapping
  • observe, compare, and analyze patterns of local and state land use (agriculture, forestry, industry) to understand why particular places are used for certain human activities
  • locate places on maps and globes using latitude and longitude
  • locate major global physical divisions such as continents, oceans, poles, equator, tropics, Arctic and Antarctic Circles, tropical, mid-latitude and polar regions
  • ask appropriate geographic questions and use geographic resources to answer them (e.g., atlas, reference books, maps)
  • describe how people have changed the environment in Vermont for specific purposes

Geography:   Students understand the concept of culture in various places and throughout the world.

Indicators: Students will:

  • describe the contributions of various cultural groups to Vermont and the U.S. (e.g., describing French cultural diffusion in Vermont)

Government and Society:  Students act as informed citizens who demonstrate an understanding of human interdependence.

Indicators: Students will:

  • identify problems, plan, and implement solutions in the classroom, school, or community
  • explain what makes a just rule or law
  • give examples of ways that she or he is similar to and different from others (e.g., gender, race, religion, ethnicity)

Economics:  Students examine the interconnectedness of individuals and the economy.

Indicators: Students will:

  • describe how producers in Vermont have used natural, human, and capital resources to produce goods and services (e.g., the various resources needed to produce maple syrup)
  • explain the relationship between taxation and governmental goods and services in Vermont
  • explain ways people meet their basic needs and wants (e.g., buy oil because they need heat)

These grade level summaries address the five ACSU Performance Targets for reading, writing, mathematics, science and social studies.  The expectations listed within each Performance Target are based on K-12 ACSU Power Standards, the Vermont Grade Expectations, Vermont Framework of Standards, and ACSU Curricula. For each ACSU Performance Target between four to six components (Power Standards) have been identified as common across K-12.  For each component you’ll find indicators specific to your child’s grade level.

To view copies of all K-6 summaries and the above documents in their entirety, please contact your school principal or visit your school library or website.