Online tutoring for Year 4: maths, English and the OC test, one-to-one

Year 4 maths: the year of tables and fractions

The single most important maths fact about Year 4 is this: the Australian Curriculum expects a child to know all multiplication facts to 10 × 10, and the division facts that go with them, by the end of the year. Almost everything in Years 5 and 6 — long multiplication, equivalent fractions, factors, area — assumes those facts are instant. Beyond tables, the year covers:

• Number. Numbers into the tens of thousands; odd and even; multiplying a two- or three-digit number by a one-digit number with a written method; dividing using the known facts; adding and subtracting larger numbers with confidence.
• Fractions and decimals. Equivalent fractions (one half is two quarters is four eighths); counting by quarters and thirds past one whole; fractions on a number line; and the first decimals — tenths and hundredths — linked to money and to the metric system.
• Measurement. Reading scales properly; perimeter and area of simple shapes; am and pm and converting between units of time; comparing angles with a right angle; lines of symmetry.
• Statistics and probability. Picture graphs where one symbol stands for several things, column graphs with a scale, and ordering events from least to most likely.

If your child is still working tables out by counting up, the maths teacher treats that as the first job of the term: facts are rebuilt in families (the fours from the twos, the sixes from the threes) and practised for a few minutes a day in the parent portal until they are automatic.

Year 4 English: reading longer, writing with a plan

By Year 4 the question is no longer whether a child can read but whether they understand. Texts get longer — chapter books, information reports with headings and diagrams — and questions ask for things that are not written down: why a character acted as she did, what the author wants the reader to feel, which sentence tells you the setting. In writing, the year adds structure. A narrative needs a complication and a resolution; a persuasive piece needs reasons in a sensible order; an information text needs headings and a topic sentence for each paragraph. Grammar now includes speech marks for dialogue, adverbs, and conjunctions that join ideas for a reason (because, although, so). Spelling moves to prefixes and suffixes and to the homophones that mark a careless writer.

In a one-to-one English lesson, your child reads with the teacher one week and writes with the teacher the next. Writing is marked on screen, structure first, then sentences, then spelling, with one or two things to fix next time rather than a page of red.

The Opportunity Class test

In New South Wales, the Opportunity Class Placement Test is sat in Year 4 for entry to an OC class in Year 5. It has three parts — Reading, Mathematical Reasoning and Thinking Skills — and the questions sit above ordinary Year 4 work: multi-step number problems, passages with inference questions, and logic puzzles of a kind not usually met at school. The date and the application window are set by the NSW Department of Education each year; check its website for the current year's dates rather than relying on anything second-hand.

How we prepare a Year 4 child, in order:

1. Content first. A child cannot reason mathematically with facts that are not automatic, so tables, fractions and place value are secured before any test paper is opened.
2. Question types. Each of the three sections is taught as a set of question types with a method for each — for Thinking Skills, for example, what a "must be true" question is asking and how to test each option.
3. Timed practice. Only once the methods work do we add the clock, using our free OC practice papers and the OC practice tests set in the portal, each marked with the working.

Our OC exam preparation page describes the test in more detail, and the OC and Selective maths guide and reading and writing guide have worked examples. Families outside NSW, or not sitting the test, simply skip this part of the plan.

Common Year 4 difficulties

• "He knows his tables but not in a sum." The facts are stored as a sequence (six, twelve, eighteen) rather than as facts (3 × 6 = 18). The teacher asks facts out of order, backwards and as division, until each one is retrieved rather than counted to.
• Fractions as pictures only. A child can shade three quarters of a circle but cannot place ¾ on a number line or see that it is less than one. Number-line work, every lesson, for a few weeks.
• Comprehension answers that are one word long. The child has not learnt that an answer needs the evidence. The teacher's standard question — "and which part of the text tells you?" — becomes the child's own habit.
• Writing that starts well and collapses. There was no plan. Two minutes of planning on the whiteboard before every piece, without exception.
• Rushing. Often a sign of a capable child who has never had to check. The teacher builds a short checking routine into every question: does the answer make sense, are the units there, did I answer what was asked?

What the first month looks like

The demo class is an assessment lesson: tables under gentle time pressure, a few fraction and place-value questions, a short passage with inference questions and a paragraph of writing. For an OC family, a handful of reasoning questions are added. You then receive, on WhatsApp, a short note on what the teacher saw and a suggested plan: subjects, topics in order, and classes per week. Classes run at the same time each week in your own time zone, with a WhatsApp reminder before each one. Homework is set in the parent portal with a due date and comes back marked; a short message after each class tells you what was covered. By the end of the month, you can see in the portal which tables are now automatic and which question types still need work.

Try the level first: free Year 4 maths worksheets, marked online, and the free OC practice papers for families sitting the test.

Neighbouring years: Year 3 · Year 5. All subjects and years: online tutoring index. Parent guides: /learn/.

Questions parents ask