Gr 4 Report Card Family Guide

Overview 

SFUSD’s vision for learning calls for mastery of the core knowledge, critical thinking skills, and competencies outlined by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Standards-based knowledge and skills will remain the central pillars of every student’s learning, creating a deep foundation that enables further inquiry and exploration in a variety of fields and areas of interest. The SFUSD Report Cards are intended to communicate progress towards mastery of these skills and standards. 

All SFUSD students in grades TK-5 receive marks in the following areas: Social-Emotional Development, Language Arts, Mathematics,History/Social Studies, Science, Physical Education and Visual and Performing Arts. Students who are in Language Pathway Programs or are English Learners receive additional marks indicating their progress in learning English and/or the Pathway Language.

Students receive marks that show progress towards end-of-year expectations. Mastery of end-of-year expectations is indicated with a score of 3 or higher. Instead of letter grades, students receive marks that describe proficiency levels. All students receive proficiency level indicators for the standards at their grade level. 

Conferencing with your Child’s Teacher

Parent/Guardian/Teacher Conferences are an important opportunity to discuss your child’s progress. Here are some tips and suggestions.

Before the conference…

  • Make sure you have a scheduled conference time. If you need to cancel the scheduled time, contact the teacher to schedule a different time.
  • Review your child’s work.
  • Talk with your child about his or her progress in school.
  • Think about your child’s strengths and challenges beforehand. 
  • Make a list of questions about your child’s development and ways you and the teacher can help your child with some of his or her challenges. Examples: Is my child at the level where he/she should be at this point of the school year? In what areas is my child excelling? How is their attendance? What can I do to help my child with upcoming work?
  • Think about ways you would like to be involved in your child’s learning, so you can discuss them with the teacher.

At the conference…

  • Be prepared for a two-way conversation to learn about your child’s social and emotional and academic progress at school. This is also an opportunity for the teacher to learn about what your child is like at home. When you tell the teacher about your child’s skills, interests, needs, and dreams, the teacher can help your child more.
  • Ask to see data about your child’s attendance and progress at school.
  • Make a goal and a plan with your child's teacher to ensure your child's success.
  • Write down the things you and the teacher will do to support your child. 
  • Schedule another time to talk if you need to continue the conversation past the allotted amount of time. 
  • Ask your child's teacher how best to communicate with them.

After the conference…

  • Talk with your child about what you learned.
  • Follow up with the teacher about your child’s development and the plan that was created during the conference.

Social-Emotional Development

In SFUSD, we focus on four areas of Social-Emotional Skills: Social Awareness, Self-Management, Growth Mindset, and Self-Efficacy. 

How Are Social-Emotional Skills Developed? 

Social-emotional development is facilitated by strong, supportive and sustained relationships with adults and peers. Each child has their own unique strengths and develops social emotional skills over time with support from their family, peers, teacher, and community. 

Standards

What Can Families Do To Support Children?

Works/plays collaboratively with others 

(Social Awareness)

  • Use characters in books and TV shows to talk about how people can have different emotions, such as happy, sad, frustrated, excited, worried, etc.
  • Provide opportunities such as family gatherings for children to ask family or community members about their history. 
  • Provide opportunities for children to help in the community. For example, they could help a neighbor or family member.
  • Ask your child about their day: “Tell me about the best part and the hardest part of your day.”
  • Teach your child to state their needs: "Tell me what you need."

Regulates emotions and works with focus

(Self-Management) 

  • Help your child identify their emotions: “You look mad because I can see you have your fists clenched, but also I see that you are sad because you have your head down.”
  • Allow time to take a break from stress, and designate a safe place to practice calming strategies (deep breaths) and/or study.
  • Assign your child two or more chores around the house and work with them to develop a plan to complete them.

Approaches challenges as learning opportunities (Growth Mindset)

  • When your child is successful: “You studied hard for that test, and you didn't give up.” instead of, “You are so smart.”
  • When your child makes a mistake: “What strategy are you going to try next time?”
  • Model growth mindset. Share mistakes you made and what you did to fix them.
  • When talking about a problem or a challenge, explore with your child the different ways there are to approach the problem/challenge. “What are two ways you might be able to make a change?”

Accomplishes personal and academic goals (Self-Efficacy)

  • Encourage your child to set goals and create a plan: "What do you want to get good at?"
  • Model believing in yourself when you want to reach a goal. Show how you break down a large goal into smaller manageable steps.
  • Reinforce your child’s progress toward goals: “The steps you took really helped you to succeed,” or ask, “When will you practice this next?”
  • Name your child’s strengths and identify ways to build on those strengths.

Additional Resources for Families

Toolkits for parents for each age level can be found in English and Spanish at: parenttoolkit.com

Social-Emotional Learning information can be found at: casel.org/social-and-emotional-learning

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English Language Arts

In Grade 4, students will continue to build the connections of reading, writing and language. In reading they more deeply analyze text for theme, character development, point of view and structure.  They make inferences based on text evidence and compare and contrast firsthand and secondhand accounts.  Fourth graders use paragraphs to produce well developed and organized informative and opinion pieces with an introduction, body and conclusion, along with narratives (stories) that have more complex characters. They will deliver presentations with a theme.

Fourth Graders will:

Reading

  • Make inferences and analyze theme, characters and text structure.
  • Determine the main idea and tell what information was learned and why something happened. 
  • Determine the meaning of academic vocabulary.
  • Integrate knowledge learned from two pieces of text to speak to or write to it.

Writing

  • Write organizedmulti-paragraph informational and opinion pieces supported by evidence and write narratives (stories) that have a plot and develop characters and setting with sensory details.  
  • Analyze literature in written pieces.
  • Note take and paraphrase.
  • Use grade level writing conventions such as appropriate capitalization, correct use of commas and quotation marks in dialogue and apply learned spelling patterns.  
  • Use technology for research and writing.

Speaking & Listening

  • Deliver presentations with a theme supported by facts and details.

Language

  • Apply strategies for understanding vocabulary and decoding new words.  Strategies include using context, learning about idioms, similes, metaphors, etc.

Throughout the year, learners in Language Arts in Grades PreK-12 are immersed in following genres/topics throughout the year:

Narrative

Informative/Explanatory

Opinion

Research

What Can Families Do To Support Children?

  • Read with your child or have them read independently for at least 30 minutes each day. Ask your child to retell a story in their own words or say what they learned from reading.
  • Start a book club at home!  Read the same book together and discuss as a group.
  • Take trips to the library and get involved in library events.
  • Write daily! Journal daily or find interesting magazine pictures and make up a story to go with it.
  • Find new words in a book and discuss the meaning.
  • Provide time and space for your child that is distraction-free to read independently.
  • Use technology to help build your child’s interest in reading. There are several websites where students can read books or articles online or research topics that interest them.       

Additional Resources for Families

Visit sfusdela.org/families--community and the San Francisco Public Library website sfpl.org for more ideas and resources.

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Mathematics

Being prepared for the 21st-century workforce requires being able to do more than simply compute or carry out procedures. Children need conceptual understanding as well as procedural fluency, and they need to know how, why, and when to apply this knowledge to answer questions and solve problems. They need to be able to reason mathematically and communicate their reasoning effectively to others. Therefore, the way your child learns about math may look different from the way math has been taught previously. The Common Core State Standards provide a framework for broadening what it means to do and learn math.

Grade 4 math focuses most heavily on three critical content areas: 

  1. Developing understanding and fluency with multi-digit multiplication, and developing understanding of dividing to find quotients involving multi-digit dividends.
    1. Using the four operations with whole numbers to solve problems. 
    2. Using place value understanding and properties of operations to perform multi-digit arithmetic. 
    3. Gaining familiarity with factors and multiples. 
  2. Developing an understanding of fraction equivalence, addition and subtraction of fractions with like denominators, and multiplication of fractions by whole numbers. 
    1. Extending understanding of fraction equivalence and ordering. 
    2. Building fractions from unit fractions.
  3. 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. 
    1. Drawing and identifying lines and angles and classifying shapes by properties of their lines and angles.

What Can Families Do To Support Children?
 

General Math Support

  • Ask questions to support your child with their homework:
    • What do you already know about this problem?
    • Can you draw a picture of what is happening?
    • Does this remind you of a problem you have seen before?
  • Show that you have a growth mindset about math: Even if you struggle with math, you can show your child that you are excited to learn about what they are doing.

Grade 4 Math Support

  • Each time your child begins a new Math Unit, read the Grade 4 Family Letter for that unit to become familiar with the math concepts being introduced and what you can do to help. Letters are in your child’s homework and can also be found in multiple languages at sfusdmath.org/family-letters
  • Make math fun and engaging for your child. For example, involve your child in family situations that use fractions and decimals, such as recipes, grocery prices, and bills.

Additional Resources for Families
 

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History/Social Studies

In fourth grade, students learn social studies through the lens of California. Students analyze how the landscape of California has provided different resources to different people at different times, from the earliest era to the present. Students develop their chronological thinking by creating and utilizing timelines that document events and developments that changed the course of California history and subsequent economic development.   

Fourth graders will:

  • Use maps to identify and describe different regions and the natural resources found in them
  • Investigate how humans rely on both renewable and non-renewable natural resources, the impacts of this use and how
  • Learn about California Indian history and their continued impact today
  • Use timelines to sequence California history through many perspectives
  • Evaluate the impact of European settlement on different groups of people and the land
  • Describe how freedom and independence were/are different for different groups throughout U.S. and California history 
  • Identify California’s industries over time and how location and natural resources have helped to shape them
  • Describe economic activity that has shaped California throughout its history
  • Understand how price, advertising and other things influence both personal and community spending choices
  • Describe how individual spending choices affect the community

What Can Families Do To Support Children?

  • Look around your home and identify items that come from both renewable and non-renewable sources.
  • Talk about an event or shared family memory and discuss how each person remembers things differently and has a different perspective.. 
  • Discuss what freedom and independence mean to your family and how they are different
  • Think and discuss how California might be different if certain events never happened (European settlement and colonization, the Gold Rush, Statehood…etc) 

Additional Resources for Families

For information on the standards framework: https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/hs/cf/documents/hssframeworkwhole.pdf

For events and information about National Parks: nps.gov

For events and information about the California State Parks: parks.ca.gov

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Science

This is an exciting time in science education as we transition to the new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)! One of the changes that comes with the NGSS is a greater focus on Science and Engineering Practices: what real scientists and engineers do as a part of their work. Emphasis on practices, rather than solely on memorizing scientific facts, better prepares students for future opportunities within the fields of science and engineering, and allows all students to become more scientifically literate citizens who can think critically about issues that matter, from healthcare to the environment.  

The four practices included on the report card are: Asking Questions, Developing and Using Models, Planning and Conducting Investigations, and Designing Solutions. In fourth grade, students are expected to:

  • Ask questions about what would happen if a variable is changed and identify scientific (testable) and non-scientific (non-testable) questions
  • Develop a scientific model to describe a scientific principle or predict phenomena
  • Plan and conduct investigations collaboratively, using fair tests, producing data to serve as evidence, and evaluating methods of data collection
  • Generate and compare multiple solutions to a problem based on how well they meet the criteria and constraints of a design challenge

What Can Families Do To Support Children?

  • Check with your child's teacher about volunteering for hands-on science in the classroom or science related field trips.
  • Get outside together, taking time to notice, appreciate, and wonder about surroundings.
  • Engage in science practices at home:
    • Ask open-ended questions: Take time to encourage thoughtful answers. “Tell me about what you built, made, created.” “What do you think caused it to change?” “Can you think of a different way to do it?” “Can you describe what happened?”
    • Observe Carefully: Notice small details. “What shapes do you see in that spider web?” “Does this bread feel different from that one?”
    • Predict and Test: Experiment with ideas about how the world works. “How long will an ice cube last sitting on the counter?” “Will it melt faster on another surface?”
    • Investigate: Encourage your child to take things apart! Flowers, old toys, clocks, and household appliances are great lessons— and don’t worry about putting them back together!
    • Explain and Model: Encourage students to model their understanding of the way things work through drawings, writing, and conversation.  Don’t worry about if they are right or wrong, it’s the process of explaining that’s important!

Additional Resources for Families

Additional Resources for Families

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Physical Education

Physical Education is a content area in which your student will participate in a variety of activities focusing on Motor Skills, Movement Patterns, Physical Fitness, Goal Setting, Healthy Lifestyle Choices, as well as Positive Social Interactions.  Students will be graded on Motor Skills/Movement Patterns based on CA State Physical Education Content Standards.  Physical Education is a comprehensive instructional program, which differs from recess, free play, recreational sports, and athletics.  PE Specialists and Classroom Teachers work in collaboration to provide high quality instruction and meet the mandated minutes required by California State law.   Kindergarten through 5th grade will receive no less than 100 minutes of Physical Education class time every week.  Ultimately, our vision is students become confident, active, and healthy lifelong movers. 

What Can Parents/Guardians Do To Support Children?

“As an adult, you make a big difference in what children think and do. Children look up to you as a role model. If you eat right and are physically active, you have a good chance of helping children make those choices, too.” 

— National Institutes of Health

Make family time physical activity time. 

Focus on activities the whole family can do together, and keep the activities fun rather than competitive: 

 

  • Biking
  • Dancing 
  • Playing Frisbee in the park

Lead an active lifestyle and encourage children to join you. 

Show your children how much you enjoy physical activity!

  • Try new activities, yourself
  • Laugh
  • Smile

Walk whenever you can. 

Walking decreases health risks. Walk with your children to school or local parks as much as possible. 

  • Walk to do errands 
  • Park further away from your destination 
  • Use the stairs

Train as a family for a charity walk or run.

There’s nothing like having a shared goal.  

Sign up for the: 

  • Hot Chocolate Run in Golden Gate Park
  • Chinatown YMCA New Year Run
  • SF Giants Fun Run

Additional Resources for Families

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Visual and Performing Arts

As Ruth Asawa, San Francisco artist and pioneer arts educator said, “just as athletes need to exercise every day, children need to make art every day.” The SFUSD's Arts Equity Plan is the blueprint for integrating the arts into each student’s daily curriculum. Parents are welcome to review the entire plan at sfusd.edu/arts for details about the shared responsibility of classroom teachers, VAPA teachers, and school communities, so arts are an integral part of the academic day. The VAPA Department is guided by the principle that all students must have both access and equity in arts education. 

What is my child learning? 

Students in all grades are taught according to the Visual and Performing Arts Standards for California Public Schools adopted by the California State Board of Education. These standards are grouped according to:

  1. Artistic Perception: how do students process, analyze, and respond through use of language and skills to dance, music, theater, and visual art
  2. Creative Expression: students create and apply skills to their own art 
  3. Historical/Cultural Context: students learn and respond to cultural and human diversity
  4. Aesthetic Valuing: students apply processes and skills to analyze art forms
  5. Connections and Relationships: students connect and apply what is learned to other academic subjects and real life 

What can Families do to support children?

  • Encourage your child to sing, play music, dance, draw, paint, and play imaginary games with friends, siblings, or by themselves
  • Take your children to art exhibits at school, in museums, online, and more
  • Talk to your children about visual and performing arts they experience and give them plenty of silent time to ponder:

What’s going on in this picture? 

What’s going on in this performance?

What do you see that makes you say that?

What more can we/you find? 

(Source: Visual Thinking Strategies)

  • Make sure your children participate in performances and arts-related programs.
  • Join your school’s ARTS committee and provide support with field trips and other arts-related activities
  • Talk to your child’s regular classroom teacher and share what their interests are at home.

Additional Resources for Families: 

The San Francisco community includes a large number of arts opportunities including many with arts providers for children. Visit sfusd.edu/arts for an extensive list of these arts providers with links to their program descriptions. 

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English Language Development

The English Language Development (ELD) Section on the report card is only completed for students who are English Learners (ELs). The ELD section includes statements from the California English Language Development Standards, which describe key skills and knowledge needed by students learning English.

The California ELD Standards describe a continuum of increasing language proficiency. Emerging students typically progress quickly, and are learning English for their immediate needs. At the Expanding level, students are challenged to increase their English skills in more contexts, and apply their language skills to more sophisticated settings. The highest level, Bridging, describes students who read, comprehend and write texts in English. The “bridge” describes the transition to full engagement in grade-level academic tasks and activities.

What Can Families Do to Support Children?

  • Take children on outings, such as programs at public libraries and rec centers, where they can interact with English-speaking children 
  • Actively encourage children’s friendships with English-speaking children
  • Borrow books from local public library SFPL Location

Additional Resources for Families

Free online resources: textproject.org/classroom-materials/students

Summative English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC)

What is reported on the Report Card? 

There are four performance levels that a student can achieve on the Summative ELPAC. These levels are 1, 2, 3, or 4, with four being the highest. The report of results for each student gives the oral language score (a combination of listening and speaking scores), and the written language score (a combination of reading and writing) and the overall score (a combination of the oral and written scores). 

What is Summative ELPAC? 

California law requires that school districts administer an English proficiency test annually to students who are English learners. This test is called the English Language Proficiency Assessments for California (ELPAC). The Summative ELPAC is taken each spring. 

What is the purpose of the Summative ELPAC?

  • Assess English Language Development in English learners in transitional kindergarten through grade twelve
  • Check their progress in learning English each year

What does the Summative ELPAC cover? 

The Summative ELPAC covers listening, speaking, reading, and writing for all grades tested. The Summative ELPAC is based on California English language development standards, adopted by the State Board of Education.

When do families receive the results? 

For the spring administration of the Summative ELPAC, results are mailed to families each Fall. As a result, report cards display Summative ELPAC scores from the previous school year. 

For students new to California, Initial ELPAC is administered in fall to initially place students into English Language Development (ELD) classes. The initial results are given to parents in fall and these students will also be assessed in spring with the Summative ELPAC.

Additional Resources for Families

More information can be found on the CA Department of Education ELPAC Resource page at cde.ca.gov/ta/tg/ep 

For information about reclassification, go to sfusd.edu/learning/english-language-learners/reclassification 

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This page was last updated on September 9, 2024