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Massachusetts Standards

Massachusetts 4th Grade ELA Standards

All 43 Massachusetts English language arts standards for 4th grade, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education's document, linked at the end of this page.

43 standards

Reading Standards for Literature

9 standards
RL.4.1
Point to details and examples in a story when explaining what it says outright and when making inferences about it.
RL.4.2
Use details in a story, play, or poem to work out its theme, then sum up the whole text briefly.
RL.4.3
Describe a character, setting or event in a story or play in depth, using specific details such as what the character thinks, says and does.
Common Core RL.4.3
RL.4.4
Figure out word meanings in a text, including words from mythology like Herculean, and explain how similes and metaphors make the writing richer.
RL.4.5
Explain how prose, poetry, and drama differ, pointing to parts like chapters, stanzas, and stage directions when writing or talking about a text.
RL.4.6
Compare the points of view different stories are told from, including the difference between first-person and third-person narrators.
RL.4.7
Connect a written story or drama to a visual or spoken version of it, noting where the version follows the text's descriptions and directions.
RL.4.9
Compare how stories, myths and folktales from different cultures handle a similar theme, like good versus evil, or a pattern of events, like a quest.
Common Core RL.4.9
RL.4.10
Read fourth grade stories, poems, and plays from many genres, cultures, and perspectives independently and with real understanding, like novels and myths.

Reading Standards for Informational Text

10 standards
RI.4.1
Use details and examples from a nonfiction text to back up both what it directly says and the inferences drawn from it, like why a species is endangered.
RI.4.2
Find the main idea of a nonfiction text, explain how key details support it, and summarize the text.
RI.4.3
Explain events, steps, ideas, or concepts in a history, science, math, or technical text, including what happened and why, using specific facts from it.
RI.4.4
Work out general academic and subject-specific words in a fourth grade text, like ecosystem in a science article or treaty in a history book.
RI.4.5
Describe how a text or a section of it is organized, such as in time order, as a comparison, as cause and effect or as a problem and its solution.
Common Core RI.4.5
RI.4.6
Compare a firsthand account, like a diary entry, with a secondhand account, like a textbook page, of the same event, noting what each focuses on and tells.
Common Core RI.4.6
RI.4.7
Read charts, graphs, diagrams, timelines, and interactive web features, including spoken or animated ones, and explain how they help a reader understand the text.
RI.4.8
Explain how an author backs up each point in an informational text with reasons and evidence, such as a fact or a statistic.
Common Core RI.4.8
RI.4.9
Combine facts from two texts on the same topic to write or speak about it knowledgeably, like two articles on volcanoes.
RI.4.10
Read fourth grade nonfiction independently and with understanding, including history, science, math, and technical texts like an article on the water cycle.

Reading Standards for Foundational Skills

2 standards
RF.4.3
Say the main sound of each consonant, know the long and short sounds of a, e, i, o and u, and read common sight words like the, of and you.
Common Core RF.K.3
RF.4.4
Read 1st-grade books aloud smoothly and accurately with expression, understand them, and reread when a word or sentence does not make sense.
Common Core RF.1.4

Writing Standards

10 standards
W.4.1
Write an opinion piece that introduces the topic, states the opinion, gives reasons backed by facts, links them with phrases like for instance, and closes.
Common Core W.4.1
W.4.2
Write an informative piece that introduces a topic, groups related facts and definitions, links them with words like also, and closes with a final sentence.
Common Core W.3.2
W.4.3
Write stories or poems that set the scene, use dialogue, transitions, vivid words, similes, metaphors, and sensory details, close well, and use sound and line patterns in poems.
W.4.4
Write clearly, shaping and organizing the piece for its task, purpose and reader, like a how-to for younger students versus a book review for the class.
Common Core W.4.4
W.4.5
Plan, revise, and edit to make writing stronger, using correct fourth grade conventions and fitting academic and subject vocabulary.
W.4.6
Use technology, including online tools, to publish writing and work with others, and type at least one page in a single sitting.
W.4.7
Do a short research project that looks into different sides of a topic, such as a state’s history, land and people, to build knowledge about it.
Common Core W.4.7
W.4.8
Pull facts from memory, books and websites, take notes, sort them into categories, and list where they came from.
Common Core W.4.8
W.4.9
Pull evidence from stories or nonfiction to support their analysis, reflection, and research writing, using fourth grade reading skills as needed.
W.4.10
Write regularly, from a report built over several days to a journal entry finished in one class, for different subjects, purposes and readers.
Common Core W.3.10

Speaking and Listening Standards

6 standards
SL.4.1
Come to discussions on grade 4 topics having read the material, follow the rules and your role, ask and answer follow-up questions, and review the key ideas at the end.
Common Core SL.4.1
SL.4.2
Put into their own words parts of a text read aloud or information shared in media, like charts, numbers, or spoken reports.
SL.4.3
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
SL.4.4
Give an organized talk on a topic, text, process, or math solution, or tell a story or experience, backing main ideas with facts and details and speaking clearly.
SL.4.5
Add an audio recording or a visual display, such as a poster or slide, to a presentation when it helps develop the main ideas.
Common Core SL.4.5
SL.4.6
Tell when formal English fits, like presenting research, and when casual talk is fine, like small-group chat, and use formal English when the situation needs it.

Language Standards

6 standards
L.4.1
Use correct grammar, fixing fragments and run-ons, telling their from there, and using helping verbs, relative pronouns, prepositional phrases, and progressive tenses.
L.4.2
Capitalize the first word of a sentence and the word I, name the period and question mark, and spell simple words the way they sound, like kat for cat.
Common Core L.K.2
L.4.3
Notice the difference between formal and casual English, like Good morning, Mrs. Lee versus Hey, and choose which fits the moment.
Common Core L.2.3
L.4.4
Work out an unknown word on a grade 4 topic from context clues, from Greek and Latin roots like graph in telegraph, or by checking a dictionary or thesaurus.
Common Core L.4.4
L.4.5
Explain a nonliteral phrase like take steps, name someone who is friendly to link a word to real life, and rank knew, believed and suspected by how sure they are.
Common Core L.3.5
L.4.6
Learn and use fourth grade academic and topic words correctly, including precise action and feeling words like stammered and words basic to a topic like conservation.

The official Massachusetts documents

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