Teach your fourth grade students about the writing process in the writing center. Give each student step-by-step directions for completing the assignment and a folder to keep her work in. Begin with pre-writing activities like free writing, brainstorming and clustering. Next, show students how to create first drafts of their work, to be followed by independent editing and second drafts. Next, encourage students to engage in peer editing before creating their final drafts. If possible, allow students to type their final drafts on a computer and print them out.
Encourage students to read and discuss literature with book clubs. Divide your class into several small groups; the number of students in each group will depend upon the size of your class and the number of books available for each student. Make time for each group to meet during class once a week. Create a list of questions for students to talk about during group meetings, but provide flexibility so that students can come up with their own topics of discussion. Ask one student from each group to act as group leader and write a short report of what was discussed in the group each week. At the end of each week, ask group leaders to present their reports to the class.
Find new ways to make reading fun for your reluctant readers. Encourage students to read books in pairs. Ask students to take turns reading paragraphs or pages to one another. Provide audio equipment so that students can listen to texts as they read along. E-readers are a fun way to encourage reading for your technology-savvy students.
Let students express their creativity with art inspired by their reading. Ask students to create illustrations and book covers for the books they read in the reading center. Equip the writing center with paper, markers, crayons, paints and other art supplies. Ask students to include a book summary and short review as part of the assignment. As an alternative, encourage students to create a poster advertisement of the book. Ask students to present their work to the class.