Language Arts

Grade 4: Reading	Planning: Term # Tracking: Ach. Level
Overall Expectations	1	2	3	4
1. read and demonstrate an understanding of a variety of literary, graphic, and informational texts, using a range of strategies to construct meaning;
2. recognize a variety of text forms, text features, and stylistic elements and demonstrate understanding of how they help communicate meaning;
3. use knowledge of words and cueing systems to read fluently;
4. reflect on and identify their strengths as readers, areas for improvement, and the strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading.
Specific Expectations
1. Reading for Meaning
Variety of Texts: 1.1 read a variety of texts from diverse cultures, including literary texts (e.g., myths, plays, short stories, chapter books, letters, diaries, poetry), graphic texts (e.g., graphic novels, diagrams, brochures, graphs and graphic organizers, charts and tables, maps), and informational texts (e.g., textbooks, non-fiction books on a range of topics, print and online newspaper and magazine articles or reviews, print and online encyclopedias and atlases, electronic texts such as e-mails or zines)
Purpose: 1.2 identify a variety of purposes for reading and choose reading materials appropriate for those purposes (e.g., letters and diaries for information and new ideas, leisure/hobby books and magazines for recreation and interest, print and online magazine or newspaper articles to research a current issue, instructions or information about how to play a computer game)
Comprehension Strategies: 1.3 identify a variety of reading comprehension strategies and use them appropriately before, during, and after reading to understand texts (e.g., activate prior knowledge through brainstorming; ask questions to focus or clarify reading; use visualization to clarify details about such things as the sights, sounds, and smells in a medieval castle; make and confirm predictions based on evidence from the text; synthesize ideas during reading to generate a new understanding of a text)
Demonstrating Understanding: 1.4 demonstrate understanding of a variety of texts by summarizing important ideas and citing supporting details (e.g., make an outline of a section from a textbook in another subject to prepare for a test)
Making Inferences/Interpreting Texts: 1.5 make inferences about texts using stated and implied ideas from the texts as evidence. Teacher prompts: "What does the graphic show that the text doesn't tell you?" "If you just saw the picture without the speech bubble/text box, what would you think?" "What does the author want you to realize when she says...?"
Extending Understanding: 1.6 extend understanding of texts by connecting the ideas in them to their own knowledge, experience, and insights, to other familiar texts, and to the world around them. Teacher prompts: "Are there personal connections that you can make to the events in the text?" "How are other books by this author similar to the one we are reading?" "Which other books/movies/articles/online texts share a similar topic/theme/point of view?"
Analysing Texts: 1.7 analyse texts and explain how specific elements in them contribute to meaning (e.g., narrative: characters, setting, main idea, problem/challenge and resolution, plot development; review: statement of opinion, reasons for opinion, concluding statement). Teacher prompts: "How does the author use the setting to establish the mood of the text? Is it effective?" "How does the author use the opening paragraph to establish a framework for the book review?"
Responding to and Evaluating Texts: 1.8 express opinions about the ideas and information in texts and cite evidence from the text to support their opinions. Teacher prompts: "Do you agree with the decisions made by the main character in the story?" "What is your opinion of this newspaper article? What evidence in the text supports your opinion?"
Point of View: 1.9 identify the point of view presented in a text, citing supporting evidence from the text, and suggest some possible alternative perspectives (e.g., identify words or phrases that reveal the point of view presented; write a letter or use role play to present the perspective of a character whose voice is not heard in the text). Teacher prompt: "Whose voice/opinion is missing from this text? Why do you think it has been left out of the text? What words might you give to this missing voice?"
2. Understanding Form and Style
Text Forms: 2.1 explain how the particular characteristics of various text forms help communicate meaning, with a focus on literary texts such as a diary or journal (e.g., first-person record of events, thoughts, and feelings, usually in prose, gives a personal perspective on events; dated daily or weekly entries provide context), graphic texts such as a brochure (e.g., headings, subheadings, text boxes, photographs, lists, and maps clarify and highlight important material), and informational texts such as an encyclopedia (e.g., table of contents, glossary, index, headings, and subheadings help the reader use key words to locate information)
Text Patterns: 2.2 recognize a variety of organizational patterns in texts of different types and explain how the patterns help readers understand the texts (e.g., comparison in an advertisement; cause and effect in a magazine or newspaper article)
Text Features: 2.3 identify a variety of text features and explain how they help readers understand texts (e.g., the back cover copy for a book helps readers decide whether the book will interest them; titles, subtitles, captions, labels, a menu allow the reader to skim a text to get a general idea of what it is about)
Elements of Style: 2.4 identify various elements of style - including alliteration, descriptive adjectives and adverbs, and sentences of different types, lengths, and structures - and explain how they help communicate meaning (e.g., alliteration and rhythm can emphasize ideas or help convey a mood or sensory impression)
3. Reading with Fluency
Reading Familiar Words: 3.1 automatically read and understand high-frequency words, most regularly used words, and words of personal interest or significance in a variety of reading contexts (e.g., words from grade-level texts; terminology used regularly in discussions and posted on anchor charts; words from shared-, guided-, and independent-reading texts and some regularly used resource materials in the curriculum subject areas)
Reading Unfamiliar Words: 3.2 predict the meaning of and rapidly solve unfamiliar words using different types of cues, including: • semantic (meaning) cues (e.g., prefixes, suffixes, base words, phrases, sentences, and visuals that activate existing knowledge of oral and written language); • syntactic (language structure) cues (e.g., word order; language patterns such as those for regular and irregular plurals, possessives, and contractions; punctuation); • graphophonic (phonological and graphic) cues (e.g., familiar words within larger words: highlight, enlighten; recognizable sequences of letters within long words: spacious, conscious, delicious)
Reading Fluently: 3.3 read appropriate texts at a sufficient rate and with sufficient expression to convey the sense of the text readily to the reader and an audience (e.g., read orally in role as part of a readers' theatre, using appropriate phrasing and expression)
4. Reflecting on Reading Skills and Strategies
Metacognition: 4.1 identify, in conversations with the teacher and peers or in a reader's notebook, what strategies they found most helpful before, during, and after reading and how they can use these and other strategies to improve as readers. Teacher prompts: "How do you check to be sure that you are understanding while you read?" "What helps you identify the important ideas while you are reading?" "What helps you 'read between the lines'?" "How do you know if you are not understanding?" "What 'fix-up' strategies work effectively for you?"
Interconnected Skills: 4.2 explain, in conversations with the teacher and peers or in a reader's notebook, how their skills in listening, speaking, writing, viewing, and representing help them make sense of what they read (e.g., orally summarizing what has been read helps a reader to check on understanding; engaging in dialogue about a text helps the reader understand other perspectives and interpretations of a text). Teacher prompt: "How does conferencing with a peer or the teacher about a text help you understand the text better?"

Expectations: Copyright The Queen's Printer for Ontario, 2006.  Format: Copyright B.Phillips, 1998.