4th Grade Writing Skills and Concepts

How Can I Help Improve My Child's Writing?

One of the most important ways that 4th graders can improve their writing is by becoming more independent writers. To do this, you could give your child frequent writing prompts at home. The more your child writes independently, the more confident he or she will become as a writer. You could also help your child assess on his or her own writing. Help your child identify strong features of the piece and what could be revised.

Writing Skills and Concepts for 4th Graders

Writing Pieces for a Variety of Purposes

At the 4th grade level, your child will be learning how to write narrative texts, explanatory texts and opinionated texts. For each of these writing purposes, your 4th grader must be able to clearly introduce the topic, provide details and facts to further develop the writing piece and conclude the text without leaving the reader hanging.

Establishing a Main Idea and Supporting Details

For every style of writing, it is important that your child can accurately establish a main idea and then support it with details and factual information. It is equally important that your child can attract the reader within the first paragraph and then keep the reader's attention throughout the piece. This will require your child to develop the topic adequately and use transitional words and phrases so the reader can follow his or her logic. Additionally, your child should use sensory details and concrete words, which allows the reader to fully visualize the topic.

Conducting Research

Before writing about a topic, your child will need to obtain information by using a variety of informational texts. You will want to make sure that your 4th grader can analyze the text and choose only the information that is relevant to the topic. Then, your child should organize the information so that it will appropriately fit into the writing piece. Your 4th grade student must also be able to cite the sources used to obtain information for the writing piece.

Writing for an Extended Period of Time

Your 4th grader's ultimate writing success will greatly depend on the frequency in which he or she writes. Daily writing practice will help your child learn the steps of the writing process and move through each step efficiently. You will want to provide your student the opportunity to write over extended time periods, so he or she can develop a stamina for writing about one topic, which will be expected in middle and high school.