Is 'drive slow' actually wrong?

Slow is one of the flat adverbs English allows in signs and speech. In formal writing, slowly is the safer choice, and knowing both registers is the real lesson.

What error should we hunt in real writing?

The -ly dropped after action verbs: ran quick, worked careful. One highlighter pass over a draft usually finds one, and fixing it in the wild beats ten worksheet reps.

4th grade adjective or adverb?

4th grade adjective or adverb? worksheets

Fourth graders choose automatically in both directions and edit the common speech habits (ran quick, did good) into writing that holds up on paper.

Free printable PDF worksheet, aligned to Common Core L.4.1.

Each print is a different sheet with its own answer key. You don't need to sign up.

The kind of sentences you'll fix

Decide what the word describes, choose from the parentheses, and write it.

The creek looks (clear / clearly) after a week without rain.
Fixed: The creek looks clear after a week without rain.
The sky looked (strange / strangely) before the hail started.
She solved the puzzle (easily / easy) once she flipped it over.

Every print pulls a new set of sentences at this level, so a make-up test or a second sibling gets a different mix.

What's on a 4th grade sheet

4th grade sheets draw from 40 sentences, 8 to a page. 2nd to 4th grade print from the same 40 sentences. The teaching notes below are written for this grade.

A few of the sentences, as the answer key corrects them:

The old dog barked hoarsely at the delivery truck.
The owls call regularly just after full dark.
The bus arrived late because of the parade.

Fix it. Decide what the word describes, choose from the parentheses, and write it. 8 sentences to fix per page.

Every version prints on US Letter or A4, with its answer key on the last page.

How to teach this

Hunt the speech-to-paper errors: ran quick, played good, real slow. They pass in conversation and fail in essays, and knowing the register difference is the fourth-grade version of this skill.

Watch for: Linking verbs are the trap: after is, seems, smells, and tastes, the describing word points back at the NOUN, so it stays an adjective. The soup smells wonderful, not wonderfully. Not every adverb wears -ly (fast, late, hard) and not every -ly word is an adverb (friendly, lonely). The what-is-it-describing question outranks the suffix.

Common questions about 4th grade adjective or adverb

Is 'drive slow' actually wrong?: Slow is one of the flat adverbs English allows in signs and speech. In formal writing, slowly is the safer choice, and knowing both registers is the real lesson.
What error should we hunt in real writing?: The -ly dropped after action verbs: ran quick, worked careful. One highlighter pass over a draft usually finds one, and fixing it in the wild beats ten worksheet reps.

Related worksheets

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Aligned to Common Core L.4.1. Reviewed by the One more sheet team. Content version 241, updated October 2026.

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