It is amazing the on-going debate on how to make sure our kids learn to read, and have the education they need. If they hit junior high without a good working knowledge, it can spell disaster to their integration into teen-hood and their academic years in high school. Luckily, there are resources to insure our students are on the right track prior to this.
So, let’s start in the fourth grade. In fact, let me recommend a very good book to you on this very topic, one which I actually own in my own library. The book is;
“What Your 4 TH Grader Needs to Know – Fundamentals of a Good Fourth-Grade Education” (part of The Core Knowledge Series), Edited by E.D. Hirsh Jr., published by Delta Trade Paperbacks a division of Double Day Dell and Bantam Books, (1992), pp. 395, ISBN: 0-385-31260-1.
The editor is well-known in education circles and previously wrote “Cultural Literacy” which has been widely used. This book is so very easy to use and starts out with a section; “How to Use This Book – for Parents and Teachers. This completely helps for anyone who is a Homeschooling Parent, or any new teacher at the fourth grade level. I read through the entire book and felt right at home and even learned some interesting things myself, probably re-learned it from back in the fourth grade.
Okay so, what sorts of topics are in this book anyway, well, I am certainly glad you asked me. This book has chapters on Poetry, Short Stories, Language, and Speech in the first section. In the second section are Geography, Civilizations, History.
The third section is about Fine Arts, Visual Arts, Sketching, Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, and Digital Arts. The Fourth section is about Mathematics – addition, subtraction, division, linear charts, shapes, Roman numerals, decimals, multiplication, fractions, and points on a grid.
The fifth section is all about natural sciences, life sciences, earth sciences, continental drift, volcanoes, earthquakes, forests, and the ocean. If you have this book and are teaching a fourth grade level student you will never be lost. But perhaps more importantly your student won’t be either, and you will be giving them the knowledge they need to move forward. It’s truly amazing how we’ve fallen down in the USA with our education.
It is truly books like this which guarantee our next generation’s progress and education – and we are only as good as our educational system and work in teaching 20-years the prior. Please consider all this.