What the Grade 4 English schemes of work cover
Grade 4 marks the start of upper primary, and it is the point where English stops being a shared "language activity" and becomes a subject in its own right. The scheme of work is the bridge between the KICD curriculum design and the actual classroom week: it takes the design's strands and lays them out lesson by lesson across the year, so you always know what to teach next and what the learner is meant to walk away able to do.
Each week in the scheme carries its own specific learning outcomes, suggested learning experiences, key inquiry question, learning resources and assessment. The files are editable Word documents, which means the weeks, dates and sample activities are yours to reshape around your own timetable and class, and they stay in step with the current school calendar and the latest KICD curriculum design.
How Grade 4 English is organised
At upper primary, English is built around four language skills that recur through the year rather than a long list of separate topics. The scheme threads these through every term:
- Listening and Speaking – pronunciation, oral fluency, listening comprehension and the confidence to speak in front of others.
- Reading – reading aloud and silently, comprehension, and the growth of vocabulary and reading stamina.
- Grammar in Use – the parts of speech, sentence patterns and the language structures a Grade 4 learner is expected to control, always taught in context rather than as isolated rules.
- Writing – handwriting, spelling, guided composition and the early habits of organising ideas on the page.
These four run in parallel: a single week will usually touch speaking, reading, a grammar focus and a short piece of writing, because the design treats them as one connected competence rather than four subjects.
What learners are working toward
The curriculum design frames English at this level as the foundation for a learner who can communicate clearly, read for both information and pleasure, and use language accurately and creatively. By the end of Grade 4, a learner should be reading with growing independence, listening and responding appropriately, writing short organised texts, and applying grammar correctly in their own speech and writing. English also does a second job here — it is the medium most other upper-primary subjects are taught in, so progress in English carries directly into Science, Social Studies and the rest.
How the schemes map across the three terms
The year's work is spread deliberately across Term 1, Term 2 and Term 3, with each week tied back to outcomes from the design so your teaching and your assessment point the same direction. Language skills are revisited and deepened term on term rather than finished and dropped, and assessment and revision are built into the sequence. For the exact weekly order in the term you are planning, open the term file from the catalogue below.
How Grade 4 English is assessed
Assessment blends the practical and the written: oral and listening tasks, reading aloud, comprehension exercises, short compositions and dictation, alongside the observation the design encourages. Results are reported against performance levels — from below expectation up to exceeding expectation — for each skill, so you can see whether a learner needs more support in, say, reading comprehension rather than reducing a whole term of language work to one figure.
Looking for another Grade 4 learning area?
This page covers English only. For the full set of Grade 4 learning areas — Mathematics, Kiswahili, Science and Technology, Agriculture and Nutrition, Social Studies, Creative Arts and Religious Education — start from our Grade 4 Schemes of Work hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this scheme aligned to the current KICD Grade 4 English design? Yes. Every Grade 4 English scheme in our catalogue is built from the current KICD curriculum design for the subject and checked against it before publication, then kept in step with the current school calendar.
Does Grade 4 English start naming grammar explicitly, unlike the lower grades? Yes, and the scheme reflects that shift. Grades 1–3 build grammar implicitly through exposure; Grade 4 is where the design begins teaching grammar in use as a named strand, so the weekly plan introduces grammatical structures directly rather than leaving them entirely implicit.
My learners use English to study other subjects too — does that matter here? It does, and it is one reason the scheme gives reading and writing real weight. At upper primary, English is the language most other learning areas are taught and assessed in, so the comprehension and writing work in this scheme supports a learner's progress in Science, Social Studies and beyond, not just in English lessons.
Can I get a version matched to my school's coursebook? Some of the schemes in our catalogue are written against a specific KICD-approved coursebook, alongside the general CBC-aligned version. Open the full Grade 4 English set and read the file titles — where a scheme is tied to a particular book, the publisher or title shows in the file name.
I'm fetching this for a teacher — how do I know it's the right file? Match the grade, subject and term on this page against what you were asked for, and check the file name before you download. Grade 4 English schemes are published per term, so if you are unsure which term or version is needed, confirm with the teacher or school first.
Download the schemes of work (Editable Word)
The complete Grade 4 English schemes of work — Term 1, Term 2 and Term 3 — sit in our catalogue as editable Word files, aligned to the current KICD Grade 4 English design and kept in line with the school calendar. Some sets are written to specific KICD-approved coursebooks and others are the general CBC-aligned version; both live under the same catalogue link, so open it and check the file titles to pick the one that matches your school's books. Use the link below for the full set.