The map arrives twice
茨城 栃木 埼玉 新潟 岐阜 愛媛 鹿児島 沖縄
Prefectures a fourth grader learns to write.
Fourth-grade social studies asks children to know the names and positions of all 47 prefectures, 47都道府県の名称と位置. Until the current curriculum, many of those names could not be written with the kanji taught in elementary school. 茨, 栃, 埼, 潟, 媛 and others were simply not on the list.
The 2017 national curriculum, in full use from 2020, added 20 kanji used in prefecture names, all of them to grade 4: 茨 媛 岡 潟 岐 熊 香 佐 埼 崎 滋 鹿 縄 井 沖 栃 奈 梨 阪 阜. Five more prefecture kanji moved down into grade 4 from later years: 賀, 群, 徳 and 富 from grade 5, and 城 from grade 6. The official commentary gives the reason as children's daily life, their future life in society and the needs of other subjects. A 2016 education ministry working paper is more direct: the names are taught in social studies, so teach the kanji alongside.
We checked it against the lists: every kanji in all 47 prefecture names is now taught by the end of grade 4, and 28 of the 47 names need at least one grade 4 kanji.
A swap, not just an addition
Grade 4 went from 200 kanji to 202, not 225. To make room, 23 moved out: 21 to grade 5, among them 史, 象 and 貯, and two, 胃 and 腸, to grade 6. The elementary total rose from 1,006 to 1,026.
The clip ends on the map
The first 182 kanji come in order of how often they appear. The last 20 are the new prefecture kanji, from 茨城 in the north to 沖縄 in the south, each with its prefecture as the example word. 岐 and 阜 arrive one after the other, and so do 沖 and 縄, so each example still uses only kanji already shown. Field note 001 explains the four endings, 都, 道, 府 and 県; a fourth grader can write all four.
Same rules as third grade
Grades 3 and 4 share one band of the curriculum. Children read every kanji taught so far, write the ones from earlier grades, and learn to write the new year's kanji gradually. The same band teaches how to use a kanji dictionary and how kanji are built from parts such as へん on the left and つくり on the right. Brush writing continues at about 30 class hours a year.
How to use the clip
Each character appears alone for two beats; say it before the voice does. The readings shown and spoken are the official ones from the 2010 常用漢字表, and every example word uses only characters from grades 1 to 4. Nine of the prefecture kanji have no official on reading, so the clip shows a dash.
642 down, 1,494 to go.