4th grade prep

[Anonymous]

My son will be joining AAP for 4th grade. He missed the NNAT cutoff for third grade since we moved to the county after. Are there any resources I can use this summer so he feels prepared to join a year behind most of the kids? He is strong in math, but less so in language arts, particularly looking for resources for language comprehension. Would Jacob’s ladder 4th grade book be a good one to work on (camp has built in work time daily)? Any other recommendations? Thank you

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t worry too much about the Language Arts curriculum. In FCPS, the curriculum is the same for both AAP and general education students. AAP students may have a few additional book clubs or extension activities, but the core content remains the same.

Math, on the other hand, is where there can be a bigger difference. Some schools—like ours—begin advanced math in third grade, which means students cover not only the third-grade curriculum but also about half of the fourth-grade material. If that’s the case at your school, I’d recommend getting a fourth-grade math workbook and comparing it to the FCPS fourth-grade standards (available on their website) to ensure alignment with the topics being covered.

[Anonymous]

Just get a 4th grade math workbook and do a few pages per day over the summer. My son is good in math but it's not his natural strength, and this helped him so much for this year starting 3rd grade.