Language Program Year 4 2010

English program Year 4 2010

RATIONALE:

Literacy is defined as the ability to read, use written information and to write appropriately, in a range of contexts with many different purposes and also the ability to communicate with a wide variety of audiences. Literacy is integrally related to learning in all areas of the curriculum and enables all individuals to develop world knowledge, understanding and deep thinking skills.

Reading and writing, when integrated with speaking, listening, viewing and critical thinking, constitute valued aspects of literacy in modern life. It is important that students develop the literacy skills needed in a world that is rapidly changing due to cultural diversity, mass communication, technical advancement and digital technology.

AIMS:

• To provide the opportunity for all children to develop their capacity and extend their ability in all three dimensions: reading, writing, oral language.
• To encourage students to explore the meaning of texts, including multimedia and to comprehend how meaning is conveyed.
• To develop the knowledge of how language is used along with related text structures and features.
• To enhance teacher skills to facilitate students’ learning related to acquiring the knowledge, skills and personal qualities of literacy.
• To use explicit teaching to enable students to become competent at reading, viewing and listening critically. This also applies to thinking, speaking and writing clearly and confidently.
• To empower students to apply their knowledge and skills in a variety of situations.
• To integrate the learning of literacy across all areas of the curriculum.

CONTENT:

The English program will cover the three dimensions:

- Reading
- Writing
- Oral Language (Speaking and Listening)

IMPLEMENTATION:

General
- English to be explicitly taught on a daily basis.
Programs will be sequential, developmental and matched to the needs of individual children.
- Intervention programs will be offered in consultation with the Special Needs Team. English as a Second Language (ESL) student will be provided with additional language assistance as deemed necessary.
- First Steps Writing inservice sessions will be attended
- Growth in multimedia means that students need to develop comprehension and research skills, such as discriminating and questioning, to effectively use these multiliteracies. The English program will be flexible, adaptive and creative in order to embrace new technologies..
- Consideration will be given to ensure that both girls and boys have relevant learning activities.
Reading
- Read Aloud, Shared or Modelled Reading, with an explicit teaching focus, will occur each day with the whole class.
- Students will be engaged in sustained, purposeful Independent Reading every day to build a love of reading, reading stamina and reading competence.
- The Smartboard program will complement the reading program by allowing students more access to such components as ebooks, research opportunities and appropriate software.
- Guided Reading sessions will be taken each day.
- Students will have a Classroom Library to which students have contributed ideas and take responsibility. From this library, students will select their weekly texts for Independent Reading.
- Selected students will articulate their new learning during Share Time, e.g. What have I learnt today to make me a better reader?
- Comprehension will be an integral component of all reading sessions as the gaining of meaning from a text provides the purpose of reading. The aim is to develop in students a higher level of understanding and the ability to think deeply/critically about their reading.
- The focus of teaching comprehension skills will be on building strategies to use on continuous text i.e. books.

Writing

• Students will learn to control language and apply the grammatical structures of English, by learning to spell and use punctuation effectively.
• Daily handwriting sessions will concentrate on letter formation, pen/pencil grip, size, speed and style of writing.
• One hour session of writing to be taken daily. Each structured session has a focus; a daily independent writing time; a publishing time; a share time. Teaching strategies will include shared, modelled, interactive, guided and independent writing.
• There will be a balanced approach to the text types (genres) to be taught.
• Students can compose writing in a variety of forms:

Recount
Information Report
Procedure
Explanation
Description
Narrative
Exposition
Discussion


Oral Language (Speaking and Listening)
- A rich oral language in discussions has a vital role in providing scaffolded learning experiences for students.
- Quality dialogue promotes greater student awareness of the world around them.
- Teaching will be explicit to ensure that the students understand what skills they are being taught when doing the task and what links they can make to prior knowledge.
- Effective oral language includes auditory and listening skills; correct pronunciation; adequate description; the ability to categorise; accurate grammar; developing sentence structure; ability to formulate questions; social skills of communication.
- Speakers and listeners co-construct meaning through their conversations, using verbal and non-verbal behaviour and both have active roles in this meaning-making process.
ASSESSMENT:

Assessment enables us to provide ongoing information about each child’s development in English using a variety of assessment tools, including self and peer assessment, to assess each child’s progress. Assessment will be in accordance with the school’s Assessment and Reporting policy.

EVALUATION OF PROGRAM:

The English Program will be reviewed and revised as needed. This will ensure that the above aims are being met. The Torrens Primary School Scope and Sequence will provide guidelines for auditing the effectiveness of the teaching of English.

Valuable writing tips

Can be found in the professional readings How To Write Yourself Sane.

Tips include the following models:

- Write to release pain or express joy.
- Set aside time to write.
- Resist the urge to be afraid of your feelings.
- Find focus in your writing.
- Decide what you will do with your writing.

Your poems, recipes, anecdotes, journal entries or stories can be self published into a hard bound book with blurb.com. I have made 16 so far. My best is a trip report with photos and journaling.

Year 4 writing - adjectives

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more scrumptious and delectable...

Your task today is use descriptive and creative adjectives to describe chocolate!

2010 Year 4 Writing

Click on the images to make them larger.

2010 Year 4 Listening and Speaking

Click on an image to see it clearly.

Listening activities:

Listening is making sense of oral language. Teachers should engage students in listening with a purpose, and support and encourage them to do this. Many opportunities for teaching listening skills and strategies can be incorporated into daily classroom language experiences.

The following activities enhance students' listening skills and strategies (as well as supporting the other language strands): reading along, choral reading, tape recordings, and sing-alongs.

It is important to give students guidance and explicit instruction that develop active listening skills and strategies. Balance direct instruction, guided listening, and independent listening.


- Reading Aloud: Read aloud every day to students. It is an important means of teaching listening and a powerful means of developing and expanding students' language repertoire and vocabulary. It is also important for modeling reading strategies

- Establish a practice of reading to the class from a variety of fiction and nonfiction books at least once a day.

- Read interesting articles from newspapers, magazines, and resources relevant to studies in other subject areas. Students, as a follow-up, should summarize what they have heard, put events in order, dramatize the story, answer questions about who did what, or participate in other activities to support their learning.

- Read aloud a poem each day (i.e., poetry pauses) to help students develop an awareness of the language, rhythms, and imagery of poetry.

- Provide many opportunities for students to hear a range of oral texts including: announcements, apologies, awards, concerts, conversations, dialogues, directions, discussions, dramas, explanations, speeches, songs, illustrated talks, improvisations, instructions, interviews, introductions, invitations, jokes, meetings, monologues, newscasts, oral interpretations, proverbs, problem-solving groups, puns, radio plays, reader's theatre, rebuttals, riddles, rules, slogans, songs, speeches, storytelling, sports casts, talking circles, testimonials, tributes, voice mail messages, weather forecasts, and others.

- In Talking and Sharing Circles during SRC meeting time: Give students, in small groups or as a class, an opportunity to share and discuss their ideas, stories, puppet plays, and written work. In turn, they give their peers an opportunity to practise listening behaviours and to provide helpful feedback.

- Use Listening and Media Centres (DVD sets, Hairy MacLary): The Smartboard can be used in addition to reading aloud to students. It gives students opportunities to experience a text a number of times. Using a Smartboard, students can use DVDs to listen for enjoyment, to listen as they "read along" with the text.

- Use Listening Games: Listening games can help students focus their listening, concentrate, and learn a number of listening skills and strategies

Our class listening includes:

Before Listening

What is the speaker's purpose?
What is my purpose for listening?
Will I need to make notes?
Which strategies could I use?
Which one would work best?

During Listening

Is my strategy still working?
Am I putting information into categories?
Is the speaker giving me clues about the organization of the message?
Is the speaker giving me non-verbal cues such as gesture and facial expressions?
Is the speaker's voice giving me other cues?

After Listening

Do I have questions for the speaker?
Was any part of the message unclear?
Are my notes complete?
Did I make a good choice of strategies? Why or why not?

Speaking Activities:

- speeches, can include: Demonstrate a science experiment, magic trick, hobby,
sport, or favorite recipe.
- book reports
- debates
-

In evaluation speaking/communication skills, consider the capacity to learn and understand new ideas and ways of working quickly by:

- expressing ideas succinctly

- ustifying, qualifying and explaining what they say

- using language in ways that reflect an appreciation of the knowledge and interests of specific audiences;

- ability to take on demanding tasks – researching, comparing and synthesising information from a range of different sources, including ICT;

- ability to argue and reason.

In Year 4:

2010 Year 4 Reading and Viewing

Click on the images to view them.

Grammar 2010 Year 4

Click on the images to see program details.

Challenge

Topics for 2010 include the following:

Spirit Bear
The Dead Sea
Dragons
Owls

English language

Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it
was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.

19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg
in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in
pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or
French fries in France .

Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't
sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we
explore its paradoxes, we find that

quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a
guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing,
grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of
tooth is teeth, why isn't the

plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2
meese? One index, 2 indices?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one
amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a
vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be
committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what
language do people:

Recite at a play and play at a recital?

Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?

Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a
wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in
which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you
fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes
off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it
reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course,
is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out,
they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are
invisible.

PS: Why doesn't "buick" rhyme with "quick"?

5 Random Things

Write down five random things you've never done before.

I've never:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Now, write down five exotic/important things that you have done.

I have:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Treasure Hunt for Knowledge!

You are on a quest. Work in pairs in your workbooks.
Here are your tasks:

How many words can you make from "elephant"?
Write down as many words as you can for the color "red".
List six bones in the human body.
Find the author of The Wind in the Willows.
Draw a net of a cube and put it together.
List six words that have the THRASS sound "oa".
Write down the frst four lines of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 18.
Write a haiku about rain.
Draw a map of a treasure island and include a key and a compass.
What are the symbols for lead, gold and silver?

Grade 4 Spelling Test

This spelling test (Test 2) comprehensively covers spelling areas like compound words; adding s,ed, er, est; dropping final 'e' before adding 'ing'; silent 'g'; and non phonetic spelling.

CLOZE for Grade 4 - Matilda by Roald Dahl

Matilda is a great book for ______ in Grade 3-5. It tells the story of a 5 year old girl ______ Matilda. Matilda is a very bright girl. She started talking ________ when she was one year old and could read _______ when she was five. All her parents thought of her was a noisy little _________.

At Matilda's school there is a very mean Headmistress called Miss Trunchbull. She is very ________ and doesn't seem to like children. Then there is Matilda's teacher called Miss Honey who is nice to everyone. This ________ book tells about the wonderful adventures of Matilda and what type of special powers she _______.

If you like the ______ of this book go down to your local or school library to read it and be amazed by Matilda.

fluently, readers, violent, gets, named, perfectly, wonderful, chatterbox, sound




Written by Slinky.

CLOZE for Grade 4 - The Swimming Carnival

On the 4th of May our school went to the swimming _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and had a really good time. Jack V. was the Junior Boy's Champion _ _ _ _ _ _ _ all his races and the
Junior Girls _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ was Freda S. who swam really well in _ _ _ _ of her races.

The races at the carnival included freestyle, breaststroke, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ , backstroke and the girls and boys medley. All the children at Howards Primary School got on the _ _ _ at 9:30 in the morning and got at the pool at 9:45. The first race _ _ _ _ _ _ off at 9:50 and was the girls and boys medley. This was just one of the _ _ _ _ _ that Freda and Jack won.

Altogether the _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ carnival was the best ever one I have been to.



bus
pool
winning
Champion
most
races
kicked
carnival
swimming
butterfly

Written by Slinky.

CLOZE for Grade 4 - The Golden Wishing Ring

Meanwhile the farmer reached home and showed his ring to his wife. "Now we cannot fail to make a fortune," he said.

"We must think very carefully how we shall use our _ _ _ _ ."

"Why don't we wish for the land next _ _ _ _ so that our farm can be twice as big?" _ _ _ _ _ his wife.

"Well that would be all right," said the _ _ _ _ _ _ , "but I'd rather _ _ _ _ really hard and see if we can save the money for the land, and in that way we will still have our wish."

And that's what happened. They worked so hard that they were able to buy the land next door. " Let's wish for a horse and a cow,"said the wife.
"No, we don't want to waste our wish'" said the farmer. "If we work hard it will not take long to buy the cow."

Sure enough, they were soon able to buy a beautiful horse and cow.



Answers:

wish, door, asked, farmer, work, money, wish, happened, were, buy, horse, waste, work, animals

CLOZE for Grade 4 - Ali Baba

The men stayed inside the rock for some time but Ali Baba didn't move. At last the door opened and forty men came out. The door closed and the rock looked like an ordinary _ _ _ _ again. Then the men galloped away. As soon _ _ they were gone, Ali Baba climbed _ _ _ _ and stared at the rock for a _ _ _ _ time. Then he cried, "Open Sesame!"

The door opened. Ali Baba _ _ _ _ _ _ inside and couldn't believe
his _ _ _ _ . There was _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ everywhere. Gold and _ _ _ _ _ _ laying heaps on the floor and jars were filled to the brim _ _ _ _ gleaming jewels. Costly silks _ _ _ _ thrown everywhere. Rare carpets were heaped in the _ _ _ _ _ _ . Money _ _ _ _ lay in piles.

When Ali Baba _ _ _ this, he was sure the forty _ _ _ had been robbers, and that this was their treasure . "Thank _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ they didn't see me, " he thought.


Answers:

rock, as, down, long, looked, eyes, treasure, silver, with, were, corners, bags,
saw, men, goodness

Cooperative reading

Reading engagement and successful reading are linked and research supports this view, so Cooperative Reading in our classroom focuses on specific processes that facilitate reading engagement and motivation to read.

Engaged readers are motivated to make choices about what they read, how they read and what they take from the reading.

Engaged readers:

- are motivated to read by personal goals
- use a range of effective reading strategies to understand what they read
- are knowledgeable in the way they built new understanding from text
- are socially interactive in their approach to literacy

In our classroom:

- students choose from a range of books
- the teacher explicitly teaches social skills necessary for partner and group discussions and cooperative learning
- students interact around a text
- teacher reads aloud with pauses from time to time to model explicitly what readers do as they read
- students read aloud and use peer support to scaffold reading of difficult texts
- students read exciting and interesting novels, poems, short stories and specifically - blog entries such as Daisy's Designs and Jessica Watson's solo voyage around the world.

We will also read aloud the works of Beatrix Potter, namely Peter Rabbit and Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle.

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

Word List:
anchor, fathom, engine, port, starboard, dinghy, chart, mast, sail, porthole,

Writing Topics

New Experiences
Learning to ride a bike
Flying
Making friends
Moving house

Favourite Things
Being in a sports team
Eating out
Favourite games
Foods I like
Friends
Hobbies
Holidays
My cubby
My family
My favourite toy
My pet
Parties
Staying overnight

Games and pastimes
Board games
Building a go-kart
Dressing Up
Swimming
The cooking experiment

Special Days
Christmas Day
First day of school
School holidays
Dress up day

People in my life
Aunts
Siblings
Best friends
Favourite singers
Grandparents
People I like

Special Places
My Bedroom
My trip overseas
My Favourite country
Staying at a motel/hotel
The most unusual place I've ever been
The museum
My treehouse

Good Times
After school
Going fishing
Going on a plane
Horse riding
In my spare time
My biggest success so far

Writing Topics - Grade 3-4

New Experiences
Learning to ride a bike
Flying
Making Friends
Moving House

Favourite Things
Being in a sports team
Eating out
Favourite games
Food I like
Friends
Hobbies
Holidays
My cubby
My family
My favourite toy
My pet
Parties
Staying Overnight

Games and Pastimes
Board games
Building a go-kart
Dressing up
Swimming
The cooking experience

Special Days
Christmas Day
First day of school
School Holidays
Dress up day

People in my life
Aunts
Brothers and Sisters
Favourite singers
My best friend
Grandparents
People I Like

Special Places
My bedroom
My trip overseas
My favourite country
Staying a a mote
The most unusual place i have ever been
The museum
My tree house

Good Times
After school
Going fishing
Going on a plane
Horse riding
In my spare time
My biggest success so far