4th Grade Newsletter

December 4, 2019

Dear 4th Grade Families,

We hope you all had a restful November break. We are excited to be back and to
launch into some new units of study with the fourth graders.

Adventures in Writing
The fourth grader are now learning how to write a personal and persuasive essays.
We love teaching this unit because students get to choose topics in which they are
passionate about. Students will learn the structure of an essay, how to develop a thesis
statement, how to organize evidence that supports their reasons, how to craft an
interesting introduction, and how to write an inspiring conclusion. They will also
continue to practice the process of editing their own work and helping their peers edit
and improve their work as well.

Adventures in Reading
The 4th graders have embarked on a new adventure in nonfiction reading. In this
nonfiction unit, your child will build an ​awareness of text structure.​ This becomes more
challenging as nonfiction texts become longer and more complex in 4th grade.
Your child will examine how different expository texts are organized into specific
text structures such as problem-solution and compare and contrast. They will then learn
how to use their knowledge of text structures to figure out what is and isn’t important in
the text. For example, students reading an article about California’s drought can think,
“This looks like a cause and effect text” and then be alert for a list of effects.
They will also learn how to set up mental or ​physical note taking systems​. A
reader who can distill the main ideas and important points of a nonfiction text is able to
summarize.​ Learning to summarize requires not only that students can informally
outline a text, but that they can be selective, as summaries should be brief.
Reading Homework
One way students can practice nonfiction reading for homework is to log onto their
newsela.com​ account at home. This is a great website that rewrites real news articles at
a “just right” level for kids.

To log onto newsela your child needs to:

1. Log into their google account
2. Go to newsela.com
3. Click sign in
4. Click “Sign in with Google”
5. Select an article to read
6. Remember to check that the article is at a just right level. Usually 4th grade
articles are in the 550L--850L range. Check the blue bar to the right of the article
and make sure the appropriate lexicon level is selected.
7. It’s optional to take the quiz.

Students may be assigned articles to read in class. These articles can be found in their
newsela binder. They may choose any article to read for homework. I know that some of
the kids are really excited to be reading more nonfiction in class. Others are not as
thrilled. It’s up to you to find a balance of nonfiction and fiction reading at home. Most
importantly the kids should be reading every night.

Many Thanks,
Ms. Finney, Ms. Mortan, and Ms. Mazzeo