This volume of Ready-to-Use Writing Proficiency Lessons & Activities gives classroom teachers and language arts specialists a powerful and effective tool for addressing the curriculum standards and competencies at the fourth-grade level. Writing Proficiency Lessons & Activities are also available from the publisher at the Eighth Grade Level and the Tenth Grade Level. Included are a variety of easy-to-use, reproducible activity sheets at the Fourth Grade Level are printed in a big 8-1/4" x 11" spiral-bound format that folds flat for photocopying. The activities are organized into 10 sections. Following is just a sample of the activities you?ll find in Sections 1-5:
CHOOSING THE RIGHT WORD: synonyms, antonyms, homonyms, action verbs, main verbs and helping verbs, adjectives, words often confused, sensory words, similes, and metaphors
MAKING MECHANICS AND USAGE WORK FOR YOU: capitalization, abbreviations, compound words, prefixes, suffixes, end marks, commas, punctuation of titles, irregular plurals, and spelling
WRITING SENTENCES: subjects and predicates, simple and compound sentences, complex sentences, combining sentences, sentence fragments, run-on sentences, and sentence types
WRITING PARAGRAPHS: writing a topic sentence, writing a concluding sentence, developing the topic, using tense consistently, using transitional words, and staying on the topic
ESSAY-WRITING TECHNIQUES: brainstorming, clustering, outlining; stating the topic; writing an introductory paragraphs with a question, with a surprising statement, or with an anecdote; developing the topic by using examples; avoiding unrelated details; writing a concluding paragraph
The activities in Section 6-10 take the students through the steps in the writing process to develop from eight to ten writing samples on various age-appropriate topics in each of the following genres required on state tests:

• WRITING INFORMATIVE ESSAYS
• WRITING PERSUASIVE ESSAYS
• WRITING NARRATIVE/DESCRIPTIVE ESSAYS
• WRITING LETTERS
• WRITING STORIES

Each section is followed by sample test items focusing on the concepts and skills covered in the section plus answer keys and scoring guides with student writing samples. These practice tests will help students prepare for the types of questions they will be asked on the actual test.
All three grade level volumes ? Fourth Grade, Eight Grade, and Tenth Grade ? provide a wealth of useful and practical lessons to help students master the basic language skills and prepare to demonstrate their knowledge of effective writing at a particular level.