Class 4 maths tuition: regrouping, remainders and perimeter

Class 4 maths, from NCERT's Maths Mela, covers numbers to 9999, the formal column method for addition and subtraction taught as regrouping, multiplication to 3-digit by 2-digit, division that now introduces remainders, multiples (not yet factors), perimeter, the units cm, g and ml, and a first pictograph.

NCERT's current Class 4 book, Maths Mela, published March 2025, is where primary maths starts to look like the subject most parents remember from their own school years.

• Numbers to 9999. Full 4-digit place value - thousands, hundreds, tens and units, read, written and compared.
• The formal column method. Addition and subtraction use a written column, with NCERT's notes asking for “regrouping” rather than “carrying” or “borrowing”.
• Multiplication to 3-digit × 2-digit. A written method for products beyond what tables alone can hold.
• Division with remainders. 3-digit ÷ 2-digit sums that can leave something over, for the first time.
• Multiples, not yet factors. Factors are held back for Class 5.
• Perimeter, cm, g, ml, and a pictograph. The first measurement idea beyond comparison, and the first data-handling chapter.

Area is not part of Class 4 - it arrives next year, by a different method to what most parents expect.

NCERT's Class 4 teacher's notes ask for the word regrouping, because it describes what is actually happening in the sum - ten units exchanged for one ten, or one hundred for ten tens - rather than treating the step as a separate trick. The words carrying and borrowing are never used mathematically in the current primary books.

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

The reason is 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. The 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” and 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.

Every division sum before Class 4 came out exactly - Class 3's book checked out at seven division questions, and all seven divided with nothing left over. Class 4 changes this: division sums now run to 3-digit ÷ 2-digit, wide enough that a remainder comes 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.

We practise regrouping with base-ten blocks alongside the written column, so the word describes something a child has physically done. Division practice is built specifically to include sums that leave a remainder, and perimeter, cm, g and ml are introduced with real objects - a metre stick, a kitchen scale - rather than only on paper.

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.