4th Grade - Gateway 2

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 4 meet the criteria that materials contain sets of coherently sequenced questions and tasks that require students to analyze the language, key ideas, details, craft, and structure of individual texts.

Throughout the lessons, students work independently and collaboratively to complete questions and tasks requiring analysis of individual texts. Lessons in ELA and Shared Reading include close reads with sequenced and scaffolded questions. Key ideas are targeted through specific questions and are designed to guide the thinking process toward precise, accurate details to help students identify main ideas, settings, characters, and chronological events. Students are supported with graphic organizers during Shared Reading lessons, for both vocabulary and written responses.

Examples include:

• In Week 9, Shared Reading, Days 1-5, students read the historical fiction text Blood on the River by Elisa Carbone. Throughout the reading instruction, students are asked text-dependent questions to build comprehension including, “Why do you think the author chooses to tell us about the severed head of the traitor? What happened to the boy and his mother before she dies? Why does Samuel have a bad attitude about learning from John Smith? How can we tell the boys are ‘lowest’ in power?”
• In Week 12, ELA Lesson, Days 1-5, students read the autobiography My Life in Dog Years: “Cookie” by Gary Paulsen, and are asked text-dependent questions about the characters and their motives such as, “Why do you think Ike would not cross the bridge and go home with Gary? What information did we learn about Cookie? What information did we learn about Gary Paulsen? How was snowball different from Cookie? What new information did we learn about Paulsen? How was Rex different from Dirk?”
• In Week 21, ELA Lesson, Days 1-5, students read Around the World in a Hundred Years by Jean Fritz, and are asked to complete various writing tasks and activities using what they have learned from the text to imagine different scenarios such as, “Pretend that you could send a message back through time to Ptolemy. What would you tell him? Stick to the main ideas that you know but that he didn’t.”
• In Week 26, ELA Lesson, Days 1-3, students read a text about words with multiple meanings called, Miss Alaineus by Debra Frasier. Students are asked a series of questions during the reading including, “What does she mean by defining the word fall as what happened on Vocabulary test day? What was she thinking? What can we infer about the costumes at the vocabulary parade? Why do you think she won a trophy when she chose a word that wasn’t even a word at all?”

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 4 meet the criteria that materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to interact with and build key academic vocabulary words in and across texts.

Shared Reading lessons include a Word Study segment, designed to bring attention to the spelling and word meaning of vocabulary words. Students also engage in explicit vocabulary instruction during Shared Reading, through word meaning, multiple meanings, and super sentences. Words selected for this part of the lesson come from the day’s text, and are displayed and introduced prior to reading. Most of the words selected have multiple meanings, and the Shared Reading lesson builds awareness of “how context constraints these meanings.” Following explicit instruction, students read the words in context and write sentences using the words. Students use semantic webs to plan compound or complex super sentences. ELA Lesson plans incorporate vocabulary instruction primarily in the Model a Comprehension Strategy and Ask Questions During Reading segments of the lesson.

Appendix D in the Teacher Manual includes an overview of vocabulary words chosen for each week. Although the vocabulary routines are explicit and consistent throughout the year, the routines do not vary or increase in the rigor of application required by the student.

• Shared Reading daily vocabulary routine includes “Teach Meaning Vocabulary,” which is direct instruction for vocabulary words, and “Assign Written Response,” which requires students to create a super sentence for the words. The super sentence often includes an additional task of incorporating a reading comprehension strategy. For example:
• Weeks 5-8 Shared Reading, while reading Steal Away Home by Lois Ruby, during Teach Meaning Vocabulary, the teacher provides direct instruction on a set of six words weekly. During the Assign Written Response, students write super sentences with the words, incorporating an additional comprehension based task such as capturing important details from the chapter.
• ELA lesson incorporates vocabulary instruction into Interactive Reading during the “Model a Comprehension Strategy” and “Ask Questions During Reading” segments. The words are pulled for their relevance to teaching the text. For example:
• Week 12, ELA Lesson, Day 1, students read My Life in Dog Years by Gary Paulsen. The lesson begins with “Introduce Book and Preview Technical Vocabulary.” There is no technical vocabulary for this text, so the lesson focuses on Tier II words instead. Students learn the term autobiography and the structure of this text. During Teach Meaning Vocabulary, students learn the words analyze and unabashed in a structured routine.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 4 meet the criteria that materials support students’ increasing writing skills over the course of the school year, building students’ writing ability to demonstrate proficiency at grade level at the end of the school year.

Students are supported through the writing process, and various activities are placed throughout lessons to ensure students’ writing skills are increasing throughout the year. Students are encouraged to develop writing stamina by writing frequently and for various purposes. Students engage in reading and discussion of texts similar to those they are planning to write, and they examine and identify a range of text structures. They are guided to assess the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing. Students are instructed on the nuances of the different types of writing during the ELA Lessons, using checklists and rubrics. During Shared Reading, students write in response to reading with question prompts in opinion, narrative, and informative genres. The “Writing” Appendix in the Teacher Manual explains the design of writing instruction, stating it is intentionally “structurally repetitive.” Students engage in the same sequence with different content throughout the year as follows:

• Learn the characteristics of the genre
• Evaluate good and poor examples of the genre
• Learn to plan the genre
• Learn to draft the genre
• Learn to revise, both with peers and independently

For example: 
Opinion Writing

• In Week 2, ELA Lesson, Days 2-5, students engage in initial opinion writing instruction for the year. The teacher facilitates a discussion on the important parts of opinion writing and then creates a list of the parts of an opinion. As a whole group, students read a sample text and determine if the text meets the criteria for opinion writing.
• In Week 13, ELA Lesson, Day 5, after reading My Life in Dog Years by Gary Paulsen, students compare and contrast two dogs from the text to write an opinion paper in response to the prompt “Which dog would you want to have as a pet the most and which dog would you want to have as a pet the least?”
• In Weeks 26-27, ELA Lesson, students respond to the opinion prompt, “Should you do what’s right for the good of a group or should you do what you think is the right thing to do for you?”

Narrative Writing

• In Week 1, ELA Lesson, students begin learning about narratives by reviewing different narrative texts. After the teacher models the use of the narrative checklist and graphic organizer, students and the teacher draft a story about having indoor recess.
• In Week 19, ELA Lesson, Day 5, after reading Hatchet by Gary Paulsen, students complete a narrative checklist and graphic organizer and then write their own survival story. Students are instructed to include all narrative elements.

Informative Writing

• In Weeks 3-4, ELA Lesson, students learn about informative writing using a checklist. As a class, students analyze informative texts, then the teacher alternates modeling paragraphs and allowing students to write paragraphs. Students then complete a graphic organizer and write an essay using whole/whole or similarities/differences essays to compare the book Charlie and the Chocolate by Roald Dahl with the movie version.
• In Week 23, ELA Lesson, Days 2-5, after reading Roanoke the Lost Colony by Jane Yolen and Heidi Elisabet Yolen Stemple, students write newspaper articles informing readers about what happened to the colonists of the Roanoke Colony.

The instructional materials reviewed for Grade 4 meet the criteria that materials provide a design, including accountability, for how students will regularly engage in a volume of independent reading either in or outside of class.

Independent reading within the daily lessons is most often represented by re-reading text from instruction during Shared Reading. During the Differentiated Instruction block, self-selected reading is a task students can choose to complete after they have finished other tasks such as word work, text-based responses, and work with the teacher.

In the Teacher Manual, in Differentiated Instruction, there is a section titled “Self-Selected Reading”. This section explains that Bookworms was designed to maximize authentic, connected reading and writing every day and states, “For teachers who want to hold students accountable for their choices, we recommend a Book Recommendation Board.” The Teacher’s Manual also explains that Bookworms does not recommend restricting students’ book choices based on level and that students should be able to self-select books of interest from classroom libraries. This basic guidance does partially meet the expectations.

The Differentiated Instruction portion of the ELA block does not have specific daily lessons for the teachers to use. The Teacher Manual provides a reference to books used for curriculum development and brief overviews of parts of differentiated instruction. The Planning tab of the Teacher Manual also has a Homework section which explains that wide reading is the most beneficial homework. There is a sample reading log provided as a homework option for teachers to use with students, provided that books form the classroom library or media center are available for all students to take home. Appendix B of the Teacher Manual provides some guidance for teachers on creating a classroom library.