The Cathedral Grammar School .::. Year 4 Standard

By the end of Year 4 , students will read, respond to, and think critically about texts in order to meet the reading demands of The New Zealand Curriculum at Level 2. Students will locate and evaluate information and ideas within texts appropriate to this level as they generate and answer questions to meet specific learning purposes across the curriculum.

The texts that students use to meet the reading demands of the curriculum at this level will often include:

some abstract ideas that are clearly supported by concrete examples in the text or easily linked to the students' prior knowledge
some places where information and ideas are implicit and where students need to make inferences based on information that is easy to find because it is nearby in the text and there is little or no competing information
a straightforward text structure, such as a structure that follows a recognisable and clear text form
some compound and complex sentences, which may consist of two or three clauses
some words and phrases that are ambiguous or unfamiliar to the students, the meaning of which is supported by the context or clarified by photographs, illustrations, diagrams, and/or written explanations
other visual language features that support the ideas and information, for example, text boxes or maps
figurative language, such as metaphors, similes, or personification.

Such texts will include both fiction and non-fiction in electronic and print media. They may be published individually, for example, as picture books, junior novels, multimedia resources, or junior reference materials, or they may appear in collections (for example, the School Journal often includes poems, plays, procedural texts, and information texts designed for this age group).

The writing standard

By the end of Year 4, students will create texts in order to meet the writing demands of The New Zealand Curriculum at Level 2. Students will use their writing to think about, record, and communicate experiences, ideas, and information to meet specific learning purposes across the curriculum.

Key characteristics of students' writing at this level:

Students will write for a range of different purposes to meet the specific demands of the curriculum at this level, using a process appropriate to the task and drawing on the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will help them achieve their purpose. The knowledge, skills, and attitudes expected at this level, including those needed for spelling and punctuation, are described in the Literacy Learning Progressions.

Students will independently write texts, using language and a simple text structure that suit their audience and purpose (for example, when recounting, describing, narrating, reporting, or explaining). These texts will include, when appropriate:

content that is mostly relevant to the curriculum task, covers a range of ideas, experiences, or items of information, and often includes detail and/or comment supporting the main points
mainly simple and compound sentences that vary in their beginnings,structures, and lengths and are mostly correct grammatically
attempts at complex sentences
words and phrases, in particular, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, that clearly convey ideas, experiences, or information.

The mathematics standard

By the end of Year 4, students will be achieving at Level 2 in the mathematics and statistics learning area of The New Zealand Curriculum.

In contexts that require them to solve problems or model situations, students will be able to:

Number and algebra

apply basic addition facts and knowledge of place value and symmetry to:

combine or partition whole numbers
find fractions of sets, shapes, and quantities

create and continue sequential patterns with one or two variables by identifying the unit of repeat
continue spatial patterns and number patterns based on simple addition or subtraction.

Geometry and measurement

measure the lengths, areas, volumes or capacities, weights, and temperatures of objects and the duration of events, reading scales to the nearest whole number and applying addition, subtraction, and simple multiplication to standard units
sort objects and two- and three-dimensional shapes by two features simultaneously
represent and describe the symmetries of a shape
create nets for cubes
describe personal locations and give directions, using simple maps.

Statistics

investigate questions by using the statistical enquiry cycle independently:

gather and display category and simple whole-number data
interpret displays in context

compare and explain the likelihoods of outcomes for a simple situation involving chance, acknowledging uncertainty.