Fourth Grade · Reading · week 18

Checkpoint: Name and Interpret Devices

Independently identify simile, metaphor, personification, and hyperbole in an unfamiliar passage and explain how each one works.

This is a checkpoint week for the whole unit -- no new device to learn. You will read a brand new passage and find and explain the figurative language hiding inside it.

Read this passage: "The old oak tree stood like a giant guarding the yard. Its branches groaned in the wind, reaching out as if to grab the passing clouds. I was as nervous as a cat exploring a new house when I finally climbed to the top branch, my heart pounding a drumbeat in my chest. From up there, the whole neighborhood looked like a patchwork quilt spread out below me."

📋 For the teacher
Teach it (10–15 min):
  • Let your child annotate this passage independently first, marking each device before you discuss it together.
  • If they misname a device, ask them to reread the exact wording and check for "like/as" before correcting them.
  • Use this checkpoint to look back across the whole unit -- can they still explain the difference between all five devices without a reminder?
  • Celebrate real growth: compare what they can now spot in ten seconds to how unfamiliar these words were nine weeks ago.
Talk about it:
  • Which device took you the longest to learn to spot this unit? Which came easiest?
  • How does noticing figurative language change how you read a story?
  • If you wrote one more sentence to add to this passage, what device would you use?

Mastery looks like: They can independently identify simile, metaphor, personification, and hyperbole in an unfamiliar passage and explain how each one works.

Common stumbles: Mixing up simile and metaphor by not checking carefully for "like" or "as"; naming a device correctly but not explaining what it actually compares or does.

See it visually

Interactive, spoken-aloud tools that show this idea in motion.

Figurative LanguageFlip between the literal picture and the real meaning of a simile, metaphor, or idiom.try →
Homework for this lessonType it, write it with a stylus, or print it for pencil & paper.open →
Records attendance + 15 min of Reading for this learner.
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