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Alabama Standards

Alabama 4th Grade ELA Standards

All 48 Alabama English language arts standards for 4th grade, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Alabama State Department of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.

48 standards

Recurring Standards for Grades 4-5

6 standards
4.R1
Listen actively in pairs, small groups, and whole-class discussions, following agreed rules like building on a classmate's point before adding a new one.
4.R2
Use context clues to work out the meaning of unfamiliar words heard or read, like figuring out arid from a nearby mention of a desert.
4.R3
Use digital tools safely, responsibly, and honestly when researching and writing, alone or in a group, like crediting a website used in a report.
4.R4
Work through each stage of writing, from planning and drafting to revising, editing, and publishing, in genres like opinion pieces and narratives.
4.R5
Find literary devices in stories and poems, like similes, personification, or foreshadowing, and explain what each one does.
4.R6
Judge how formal a situation is and choose fitting words and tone, like speaking differently to a principal than to a friend.

Phonics

4 standards
4.1
Read unfamiliar longer words correctly, alone or in a sentence, using letter-sound patterns, syllable types, and word parts.
4.2
Identify syllable types, like open, closed, silent e, r-controlled, vowel team, consonant-le, and schwa syllables, to sound out unfamiliar long words.
4.3
Use roots, prefixes, and suffixes to read unfamiliar long words, like breaking unbreakable into un, break, and able.
4.4
Use roots, prefixes, and suffixes to spell unfamiliar long words, like building transportation from trans, port, and ation.

Fluency

4 standards
4.5
Read fourth grade texts with fluency and respond to them easily in speech or writing, like discussing a chapter without long pauses.
4.6
Read fourth grade texts aloud with fitting pauses, phrasing, stress, tone, and pace, blending them so the meaning comes through.
4.7
Read words with regular and irregular spellings correctly and without hesitation, like rain, though, and island.
4.8
Write often and independently about texts read, like a quick journal response after each chapter.

Vocabulary

5 standards
4.9
Correctly understand general academic words and subject-specific words and phrases, like analyze or ecosystem.
4.10
Interpret figurative language like similes, idioms, and hyperbole, explain how word choice shapes tone, and use synonyms, antonyms, and homographs to grasp meanings.
4.11
Use commonly confused words correctly in writing, like their, there, and they're or affect and effect.
4.12
Look up how to pronounce unfamiliar words and phrases in a dictionary, glossary, or online reference.
4.13
Use fourth grade academic and subject words in presentations and discussions, like explaining erosion when sharing a science project.

Comprehension

18 standards
4.14
Show understanding of stories and nonfiction by drawing on their content when talking or writing about them.
4.15
Examine a story or play closely by studying one character, setting, or event with text details, tracing how characters change and inferring why they act as they do.
4.16
Explain how writers create meaning with devices and features in stories, poems, and plays, using text clues and prior knowledge to infer unstated meanings with evidence.
4.17
Identify who narrates a story, telling first person from third person limited or omniscient, explain how the narrator's view differs from a character's, and judge the choice.
4.18
Describe how a story would change if a different character or narrator told it, compare characters' perspectives, and contrast firsthand and secondhand accounts of an event.
4.19
Compare how stories, myths, and folktales from different cultures handle a shared theme, naming each theme or life lesson and tracing how it develops.
4.20
Use text details to show what a nonfiction text says directly, list the questions it answers, sort facts from opinions with reasons, and tell primary from secondary sources.
4.21
Explain how key details support a stated or implied main idea, find the central idea, and summarize the supporting details with evidence from the text.
4.22
Analyze events, steps, or ideas in nonfiction, explaining what happened and why from text details, and cite evidence showing the author's attitude toward the topic.
4.23
Judge how text features and structures like sequence, description, comparison, problem and solution, and cause and effect build meaning in nonfiction, in print and online.
4.24
Explain how an author backs up points and claims with reasons and evidence in nonfiction or an argument, and infer why the author holds that position.
4.25
Explain how a poem's form, like its line breaks, stanzas, or shape, adds to what it means.
4.26
Analyze how the beat and rhyme pattern of a poem help build its meaning.
4.27
Pick out the reasons and evidence a speaker gives to support each point, such as the facts behind a classmate’s case for a longer recess.
Common Core SL.4.3
4.28
Write clear, well-organized responses to texts that support a point with evidence the text states directly or implies.
4.29
Add audio recordings to presentations when they help, like music or a narrated quote that strengthens the main idea or theme.
4.30
Combine information from several texts on a topic to write or speak about it knowledgeably, inferring what matters most and explaining differing viewpoints with evidence.
4.31
Paraphrase aloud parts of a text, video, or other media while working in a group or giving a presentation.

Writing

11 standards
4.32
Write responses to stories, plays, poems, and texts from other subjects, on their own and with help, at a fourth grade level.
4.33
Use research to write clearly organized pieces suited to the task, purpose, and audience, introducing the topic, grouping ideas, paraphrasing, and citing evidence.
4.34
Write smoothly and neatly in cursive, forming each letter correctly and spacing words evenly.
4.35
Write true or imagined stories with a logical plot, transitions, sensory details, and dialogue, finishing with a satisfying ending.
4.36
Write informational pieces from sources that use academic words and include an introduction, facts, developed details, and a conclusion.
4.37
Write an argument urging readers to act or take a side, with an introduction, reasons supported by sources, and linking words that tie reasons to evidence.
4.38
Write correct sentences, ordering adjectives, using prepositional phrases, commas, and quotation marks, fixing fragments and run-ons, and checking spelling in references.
4.39
Show command of grammar, like using who, whose, which, and that, progressive tenses such as was running, and helping verbs like can, may, and must.
4.40
Write friendly and formal letters with a date, greeting, body, and signature, and address an envelope with return and mailing addresses.
4.41
Give an opinion aloud with ideas in a sensible order backed by relevant facts, and answer listeners' questions thoughtfully.
4.42
Speak in an organized way to report on a topic, retell a story, or share an experience, using facts, vivid details, clear speech, steady pace, and good volume.

The official Alabama documents

The plain-English lines on this page are EMStudio's own explanations of Alabama's standards, not the official wording, which Alabama State Department of Education publishes in the documents above. Codes and strand names identify each standard.