Class 4 maths tuition: regrouping, remainders and perimeter

NCERT's Maths Mela for Class 4 covers numbers up to 9999, the written column method for addition and subtraction known as regrouping, multiplication of 3-digit by 2-digit numbers, division that brings in remainders for the first time, multiples but not factors, perimeter, the units cm, g and ml, and a first pictograph.

Primary maths starts to resemble the subject most parents remember from their own schooldays in NCERT's current Class 4 book, Maths Mela, published March 2025.

• Numbers to 9999. Full 4-digit place value - thousands, hundreds, tens and units - read, written and compared.
• The formal column method. A written column now carries addition and subtraction, and NCERT's notes call for “regrouping” rather than “carrying” or “borrowing”.
• Multiplication to 3-digit × 2-digit. A written method handles products too large for tables alone.
• Division with remainders. 3-digit ÷ 2-digit sums can leave something over, for the first time.
• Multiples, not yet factors. Factors wait until Class 5.
• Perimeter, cm, g, ml, and a pictograph. The first measurement idea beyond simple comparison, and the first chapter on handling data.

Class 4 does not include area - that arrives the following year, taught by a method different from what most parents expect.

NCERT's guidance for Class 4 teachers favours the word regrouping, because it names what actually happens during addition - ten ones traded for a ten, or ten tens traded for a hundred - rather than making the operation sound like a mechanical trick on its own. Current primary textbooks do not use the words carrying or borrowing in a mathematical sense.

Open NCERT's Class 4 teacher's notes along with the instruction is specific: useregrouping, never “carrying” or “borrowing”. Across every current primary maths book, those older words are never used mathematically at all.

This occurs because about what actually happens in the sum. “Carrying” describes moving a digit from one column to another as a separate step. “Regrouping” describes what is really happening underneath: ten units exchanged for one ten, or one hundred for ten tens. value does not move - it is repackaged, connecting directly to the place-value blocks a child has handled since Class 3.

For a parent, the point is not to correct your child's vocabulary. If she says “regroup” along with you say “carry”, you are describing the same working. What matters is that the method - exchanging ten of one place value for one of the next - is secure, whichever word sits on top.

Nothing before Class 4 ever left a remainder - Class 3's book had seven division questions in total, and every one of the seven divided out exactly with nothing left over. That changes in Class 4: division sums now go up to 3-digit ÷ 2-digit, wide enough that a remainder turns up naturally and has to be written down.

Until Class 4, every division sum a child has met came out exactly. Class 3's book checked out at seven division questions, and every one landed on a whole number with nothing left over. Class 4 changes that: a division can now leave a remainder.

This is a genuinely new idea, not a harder version of an old one. A child has to understand that the leftover is too small to make another whole group, and that it still needs writing down, rather than dropped. Sums now run to 3-digit ÷ 2-digit, wide enough that remainders come up naturally.

The mistake to watch for is not miscalculating the division, but forgetting the remainder exists at all - writing 47 ÷ 5 = 9 and stopping there, rather than 9 remainder 2. That habit comes from a full year of Class 3 division where stopping at the quotient was always correct.

Regrouping is rehearsed using base-ten blocks in conjunction with columnar notation, making the term reference concrete learner activity. Division drills incorporate explicitly sums producing remainders, whilst perimeter and units of cm, g and ml are presented using tangible items - a metre stick, a weighing scale - not merely in writing.

Class 4 is the year we spend the most time on written method, since the method itself is new. Addition and subtraction are practised with base-ten blocks alongside the column algorithm, so “regrouping” is something a child can physically do before it is something she writes.

Multiplication builds to 3-digit by 2-digit gradually, checked against tables the child already has. Division practice is built specifically to include sums that leave a remainder, because a year of exact division in Class 3 means many children need to be taught, deliberately, that a leftover is normal.

We introduce perimeter and the smaller units - centimetres, grams, millilitres - with real objects: a metre stick, a kitchen scale. Pictographs are read and drawn using data the child collects herself, matched to your child's own school and board. Classes run with a matched teacher, with a short note home after each class naming what was practised.