A Parent Guide to Year 4 English
In Year 4, your child will get to know more complex punctuation like inverted commas and apostrophes, will learn key spellings, and will continue to develop their reading and writing. This is also the first year most children will be graduate from using a pencil to using a pen – this can be a great incentive to improve handwriting!
Reading in Year 4 – your child will:
apply their growing knowledge of root words, prefixes and suffixes to read aloud and understand the meaning of new words they meet
read a range of fiction, poetry, plays and non-fiction texts
re-tell stories orally
perform poems and play scripts, showing understanding through intonation and action
infer characters' feelings though their actions, justifying their inference with evidence
identify main ideas drawn and summarise
Children should be allowed to choose a book at school to take home with them to read. You may be given an exercise book to write your comments in when you read with them. Children will be reading with their teacher in groups once a week (known as guided reading).
Try this at home:
Bedtime stories are still important – choose something which may be a little tricky for your child to read themselves
Take an interest in what your child reads and encourage them to explain why they like a certain book or author
If you have a reluctant reader, try something which is funny, such as a comic or joke book
Be a role model – let them see you reading!
Writing in Year 4 – your child will:
understand how to spell words with a variety of prefixes and suffixes
use the possessive apostrophe in words with regular plurals
use a wider range of connectives (when, before, after, while, so, because)
start using inverted commas to punctuate speech
use fronted adverbials with commas (for example: Cautiously, she opened the door...)
become more confident in joining their handwriting, increasing its legibility and quality
create settings, characters and plot in narratives using a range of descriptive language
use paragraphs to organise ideas around a theme
assess and improve their writing
Try this at home:
When you are away, encourage your child to send postcards to their friends, or help them find a penpal
Suggest your child keeps a diary, writing a little every day, or tries another fun writing activity.
And that’s it for our guide to Year 4 English! We wish you and your little Year 4 all the best, and are super excited for you to engage with the course!
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