In many engineering fields nowadays functionally graded materials (FGM) are used for structural applications.Functionally graded materials normally consist of two phases namely the metal phase and the ceramic phase.The ceramic phase can resist the severe thermal loading and the metal phase prevents fracture caused by stresses due to high temperature.Moreover,due to the special manufacturing process,these novel materials are macroscopically homogeneous in spite of being microscopically inhomogeneous.As a result,dynamic behavior of structural members with FGMs is of considerable importance in both research and industrial fields.For studying the dynamic response of FGM structures,determination of natural frequencies and associated mode shapes is the most important step.Exact 3D elasticity solutions or 2D analytical solutions for free vibration analysis of FGM structures under thermal environment are not available for complicated boundary conditions.Thus one has to use the numerical techniques.Finite element method is widely used numerical technique but 3D models are not practicable hence 2D models based on 2D theories are used for the analysis.In this work the four node quadrilateral element developed earlier by the second author and his coworkers is modified for free vibration analysis of functionally graded plates under thermal environment.The present element has seven degrees of freedom per node and is based on Reddys third order theory.The C1 continuity problem posed by Reddys third order theory is circumvented by using the improved interpolation functions developed by Jeychandrabose et al.