New Mexico State Standards for Language Arts: Grade 4

NM.I: Reading and listening for comprehension. Students will apply strategies and skills to comprehend information that is read, heard and viewed.

1-A: Listen to, read, react to and retell information:

1-A:1. Use meta-cognitive strategies to comprehend text and to clarify meaning of vocabulary (e.g., re-read the text, consult other sources, ask for help, paraphrase, question).

1-A:2. Visualize and recall story details, including characterization and sequence.

1-A:3. Read a variety of texts, including: fiction (e.g., legends, novels, folklore, science fiction), non-fiction (e.g., auto-biographies, informational books, diaries, and journals), poetry, drama.

1-A:4. Increase vocabulary through reading, listening and interacting.

I-B: Locate and use a variety of resources to acquire information across the curriculum.

I-B:1. Use key words, indices, cross-references and letters on volumes to find information.

I-B:2. Use multiple representations of information (e.g., maps, charts, photos) to find information.

I-C: Demonstrate critical thinking skills to comprehend written, spoken, and visual information.

I-C:1. Respond to fiction, poetry, and drama using interpretive, critical and evaluative processes by:

I-C:1.a. analyzing author's word choice and context,

I-C:1.b. examining reasons for characters' actions,

I-C:1.c. identifying and examining characters' motives, and

I-C:1.d. considering a situation or problems from different characters' perspectives.

I-C:2. Respond to non-fiction using interpretive, critical and evaluative processes.

I-C:3. Analyze characters, events and plots from different texts and cite supporting evidence.

I-C:4. Analyze how language and visuals bring characters to life, enhance plot development and produce a response.

I-C:5. Demonstrate deductive and inductive reasoning by drawing logical conclusions.

I-D: Acquire reading strategies which include phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension.

I-D:1. Use word identification strategies appropriately and automatically when encountering words (e.g., graphophonic, syntactic, semantic).

I-D:2. Identify key words and discover their relationships.

I-D:3. Adjust speed of reading to suit purpose and difficulty of material.

I-D:4. Read aloud with fluency, accuracy and comprehension when presented with a grade level passage of connected text.

I-D:5. Increase vocabulary through reading, listening and interacting.

NM.II: Writing and speaking for expression. Students will communicate effectively through speaking and writing.

II-A: Demonstrate competence in speaking to convey information.

II-A:1. Actively contribute to a discussion.

II-A:2. Use language to: present information and ideas clearly and concisely, interview, solve problems and make decisions.

II-A:3. Make oral presentations, using technologies when appropriate, with an awareness of audience and purpose.

II-A:4. Use appropriate non-verbal communication while giving presentations.

II-A:5. Read aloud grade-level text with fluency and comprehension.

II-B: Apply grammatical and language conventions to communicate.

II-B:1. Use simple and compound sentences in writing and speaking.

II-B:2. Combine short, related sentences with appositives, participial phrases, adjectives, adverbs and prepositional phrases.

II-B:3. Identify and use regular and irregular verbs, adverbs, prepositions and coordinating conjunctions in writing and speaking.

II-B:4. Use parentheses, commas in direct quotations and apostrophes in the possessive case of nouns and in contractions.

II-B:5. Use underlining, quotation marks or italics to identify titles of documents.

II-B:6. When appropriate, capitalize names of magazines, newspapers, works of art, musical compositions, organizations, proper nouns and the first word in quotations.

II-B:7. Spell correctly roots, inflections, affixes and syllable constructions.

II-B:8. Compose multiple paragraphs with:

II-B:8.a. topic sentences,

II-B:8.b. specific, relevant details,

II-B:8.c. logical progression and movement of ideas,

II-B:8.d. coherence,

II-B:8.e. elaboration, and

II-B:8.f. concluding statement related to the topic.

II-B:9. Speak in a manner that guides the listener to understand important ideas by using proper phrasing, pitch and modulation.

II-C: Demonstrate competence in the skills and strategies of the writing process.

II-C:1. Produce a variety of written compositions using:

II-C:1.a. descriptive writing (e.g., using relevant details and ideas that figuratively recreate an event or experience),

II-C:1.b. narrative writing (e.g., using sequence, point of view and character to tell a story), and

II-C:1.c. expository writing (e.g., identifying and staying on the topic; developing the topic with simple facts, details, examples and explanations).

II-C:2. Use planning strategies that generate topics and organize ideas (e.g., brainstorming, mapping, webbing, reading, discussion).

II-C:3. Focus revision on sequence of events and ideas, transitional words and sentence patterns.

NM.III: Literature and Media. Students will use literature and media to develop an understanding of people, societies and the self.

III-A: Use language, literature and media to gain and demonstrate awareness of cultures around the world.

III-A:1. Examine the reasons for characters' actions.

III-A:2. Identify and examine characters' motives.

III-A:3. Consider a situation or problem from different characters' point of view.

III-A:4. Trace the exploits of character types across literature and media depicting various cultures.

III-B: Identify and use the types of literature according to their purpose and function.

III-B:1. Identify beginning, middle and end of a story.

III-B:2. Describe the contextual differences of various forms of literature.

III-B:3. Describe the reasons why an author would choose a particular genre.

III-B:4. Compose fiction, non fiction, poetry and drama, using self-selected or assigned topics and forms.

III-B:5. Respond to fiction, non-fiction, poetry and drama, using interpretive, critical and evaluative processes by:

III-B:5.a. analyzing author's word choice and context,

III-B:5.b. examining reasons for characters' actions, and

III-B:5.c. identifying and examining characters' motives, considering a situation or problems from different characters' perspectives.