Listening/Speaking.  Students:

• listen to gain information and supporting evidence
• monitor their understanding of a spoken message and appropriately seek clarification
• interpret speaker's message (both verbal and nonverbal), purposes and perspectives
• monitor their own understanding of the spoken message and seek clarification as needed

Reading.  Students:

• read and comprehend a variety of fourth-grade level texts
• adjust reading rate according to purpose for reading
• monitor their own comprehension and reread, use reference aids, search for clues, and ask questions when understanding breaks down
• use multiple reference aids, including software, to clarify and seek information
• study word meanings across content areas and through current events
• respond to readings and ideas through journal writing, discussion, and media
• paraphrase and summarize text
• represent text information by generating outlines, timelines, and graphics
• offer observations, make connections, react, speculate, interpret, and raise questions after reading

Writing.  Students:

• capitalize, use punctuation, and spell correctly in 'published' pieces of writing
• evaluate written compositions using assigned and established criteria
• conduct research and raise new questions for further investigations
• write to express, discover, record, develop, reflect on ideas, and problem solve
• compose journals, letters, reviews, poems, narratives, and instructions  

Viewing/Representing.  Students:

• understand and interpret visual messages and media
• analyze and critique media
• produce visual images, messages, and meanings that communicate effectively

 In fourth grade mathematics, your child will learn:

Number, Operation, and Quantitative Reasoning.  Students:

• read, write, compare, and order whole number through millions
• read, write, compare, and order decimals through hundredths
• model fractions greater than one
• generate equivalent fractions using models
• compare and order fractions using concrete and picture models
• relate fractions and decimals for tenths and hundredths
• add and subtract whole numbers and decimals to hundredths
• model factors and products
• represent multiplication and division
• recall and apply multiplication facts
• multiply with two-digit multipliers
• divide with a one-digit divisor
• use addition and subtraction to solve problems
• round to ten, hundred, or thousand
• estimate products and quotients

Patterns, Relationships, and Algebraic Thinking.  Students:

• use patterns to remember multiplication facts
• solve division problems using fact families
• use patterns to multiply by 10 and 100
• describe the relationship between two sets of data

Geometry and Spatial Reasoning.  Students:

• use formal language for angles
• identify parallel and perpendicular lines
• describe shapes and solids with vertices, edges, and faces
• demonstrate translations, reflections, and rotations
• verify congruence and symmetry
• locate and name whole numbers, fractions, and decimals on number line

Measurement.  Students:

• estimate and measure weight and capacity
• measure length, perimeter, time, temperature, and area

Probability and Statistics.  Students:

• interpret bar graphs
• list possible outcomes of a probability experiment
• use a pair of numbers to describe the probability of an event

Problem Solving.  Students:

• identify the mathematics in everyday situations
• use a problem-solving model
• select or develop an appropriate problem-solving strategy
• explain and record observations
• relate informal language to mathematical language and symbols
• make generalizations from patterns

In fourth grade science, your child will learn:

Scientific Investigations.  Students:

• demonstrate safe, environmentally appropriate, and ethical practices
• learn to use and conserve, dispose, and recycle resources

Scientific Inquiry and Critical Thinking.  Students:

• plan and implement descriptive and simple investigations, ask well-defined questions, formulate hypotheses, select and use appropriate equipment and technology, collect, analyze, and interpret information, observe and measure, and communicate valid conclusions
• construct graphs, tables, maps, charts to organize, examine, and evaluate information

Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making Skills.  Students:

• analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations/hypotheses/theories, including strengths and weaknesses, and draw inferences on promotional materials for products and services
• evaluate research on scientific thought, society, and the environment
• connect scientific concepts with history of science and contributions of scientists

Tools and Models.  Students:

• collect information, measure, and compare using tools, including safety goggles, microscopes, sound recorders, computers, hand-lenses, thermometers, meter sticks, balances, and compasses
• represent the natural world using models and analyze their limitations
• demonstrate that repeated investigations may increase the validity of results

Systems, Cycles, Patterns, and Change.  Students:

• identify and describe roles of organisms in living systems and parts in nonliving objects and predict and draw conclusions when part of a system is removed
• identify patterns of change and use reflection to verify symmetry

Matter and Physical Properties.  Students:

• observe and record changes in state of matter caused by heat and conduct tests, compare data, and draw conclusions about physical properties of matter-states, conduction, density, and buoyancy

Adaptations.  Students:

• identify characteristics that allow survival and reproduction of species
• compare adaptive characteristics of species and identify and compare species that lived in the past to existing species
• distinguish inherited and learned characteristics providing examples

Past, Present, and Future Events.  Students:

• identify and observe effects of events that require time for change to become noticeable

Processes of the Natural World.  Students:

• test properties of soils, effects of oceans on land, and the Sun as our major source of energy

In fourth grade social studies, your child will learn:

History.  Students:

• compare similarities and differences of Native-American groups in Texas and the Western Hemisphere before European exploration
• explain causes and effects of European exploration and colonization of Texas and the Western Hemisphere
• explain causes and effects of the Texas Revolution, the Republic of Texas, and the annexation of Texas to the United States
• describe political, economic, and social changes in Texas during the last half of the 19th century
• describe important issues, events, and individuals of the 20th century in Texas

Geography.  Students:

• use geographic tools to collect, analyze, and interpret data
• describe political, economic, and physical regions in Texas and the Western Hemisphere
• explain the location and patterns of settlement and the geographic factors that influence where people live in Texas
• describe how people in Texas adapt to and modify their environment

Economics.  Students:

• explain basic patterns of work and economic activities of early societies in Texas
• describe the characteristics and benefits of the free enterprise system in Texas
• identify how Texas, the United States, and the world are economically interdependent

Government.  Students:

• compare how people organized governments in different ways during the early development of Texas
• identify important ideas in historic documents, such as the Texas Declaration of Independence
• explain the basic functions of the three branches of state government

Citizenship.  Students:

• explain important customs, symbols, and celebrations of Texas
• explain the role of the individual in state and local elections
• identify leaders in state and local government and tell how to contact them

Culture.  Students:

• identify the contributions of people of various racial, ethnic, and religious groups to Texas

Science, Technology, and Society.  Students:

• describe the impact of science and technology on life in Texas

Social Studies Skills.  Students:

• apply critical-thinking skills, communicate effectively, and use problem-solving and decision-making processes