4th grade is the first year of departmentalization at Janney.  Students transition from homeroom to math to reading to writing and back to their homeroom at the end of the day.   In 4th grade, students are expected to learn bigger concepts in math, reading, writing, social studies, and science.

In reading, students are expected to select and apply appropriate reading strategies to short stories, realistic fiction, informational texts, poetry, and drama.  Students begin to learn how to analyze texts, how to determine the theme or main idea of different texts, and how to support their thinking with relevant text details.  Students are taught to select appropriate books and engage in conversations with peers and teachers to share their thinking about the authors, characters, and themes of the books.

Our writing curriculum in 4th grade heavily supports the broad scope of the social studies curriculum as students learn about United States history from the Ice Age to the Age of Exploration to Colonial America, the American Revolution, and the forming of the New Nation.  Students are taught to write informational research reports, opinion essays with clear theses and support, narrative stories that incorporates historical facts, and personal narratives to convey experiences.

The math curriculum focuses on three critical areas as defined by the Common Core Standards: developing an understanding and fluency with multi-digit multiplication, and developing an understanding of dividing involving multi-digit dividends; developing an understanding of fraction equivalence, addition and subtraction of fractions with like denominators, and multiplication of fractions by whole numbers; understanding that geometric figures can be analyzed and classified based on their properties, such as having parallel sides, perpendicular sides, particular angle measures, and symmetry.