Embedded Files
grade 5 reading
grade 5 reading
These reading units guide fifth graders toward intellectual independence. In Unit 1 students practice close reading, noting how authors develop themes in fictional works. Unit 2 deals with higher-level nonfiction and emphasizes strong foundational skills, such as fluency and word solving. Unit 3 involves students reading complex nonfiction under the umbrella of argument and advocacy. In the final unit, Unit 4, students will explore fantasy bookclubs.
Unit 1
Unit 1
Interpretation Book Clubs: Analyzing Themes
Students discover what it means to read literature and how this is a time for intellectual independence. In the first part of the unit, students learn strategies to lift the level of their writing about reading. They will draw on a repertoire of ways for reading closely, alert to how story elements interact and details that seem to represent big ideas. Students read through the lens of tentative ideas and questions to help them develop evidenced-based theories.
Then, each reading club will work with a novel that has nuanced characters and multiple subplots. They will ask, “What might this book really be about?” After students name the most important thing a text teaches, they will extend their thinking, considering more than one overarching theme and weighing which details best support each theme and which theme is most important in a story. Students will learn to read analytically and notice how different authors develop the same theme and to compare and contrast texts that develop a similar theme. When students step back from a text and think, “How does this part contribute to the whole text?” or “Why might the author have done this?” the payoff is immense, both in reading and in their own writing.
Unit 2
Unit 2
Tackling Complexity: Moving up levels of nonfiction
This unit teaches students to embrace the complexities of their high-interest nonfiction texts. Students will investigate the ways nonfiction texts are becoming more complex, and they’ll learn strategies to tackle these new challenges, such as expecting to encounter multiple main ideas, some taught implicitly. Instruction emphasizes the strong foundational skills, such as fluency, orienting to texts, and word solving, that are required to read complex nonfiction. Students will pursue independent inquiry projects, drawing on all their skills to tackle complex texts.
Students will extend the learning from Unit 1 on writing about fiction reading, to write about their nonfiction reading in ways that are similarly engaging and productive. Reading analytically is critical for fifth-graders. Students will analyze differences in perspective across texts, particularly differences that tie into the author’s craft or structure decisions. You’ll also support skills such as cross-text synthesis.
Fifth-graders will make their own connections and spark their own ideas as they think deeply about a text, so they can contribute their own thinking to conversations on their topics. Across this unit, students will follow their interests and their choice matters.
Unit 3
Unit 3
Argument and Advocacy: Researching Debatable Issues
This unit helps students understand more difficult informational texts with greater agency and independence. The unit begins with a one-day intensive learning session on analyzing arguments. Students work in research groups to study a debatable issue, first learning about both sides of the issue, then choosing a position to research in greater depth, and finally debating the issue and reflecting on their learning to develop new questions and insights.
Next, students raise the level of their research to develop deeper questions and ideas and engage in more complicated conversations. Students will read more difficult texts with a critical eye, considering perspective and craft while evaluating arguments. A debate highlights students’ growth and knowledge, and builds momentum for the final part of the unit.
Later, students select a new issue to study. They’ll think about patterns and connections across issues they have studied and consider larger issues of power. By the end of this unit, students will have learned how to compare the ideas and perspectives of many authors and how to formulate their own evidence-based, ethical positions on issues.
Unit 4
Unit 4
Fantasy Book Clubs: The Magic of Themes and Symbols
In this unit, students will work in clubs to become deeply immersed in the fantasy genre and further develop higher-level thinking skills to study how authors develop characters and themes over time. Students read analytically as they consider how authors begin a book by establishing the setting as both a physical and a psychological place.
Students begin to think metaphorically as well as analytically to explore the quests and themes within and across their novels. Students engage more deeply by considering the implications of conflicts, themes, and lessons learned.
Later in the unit, students focus on dealing with the challenges that harder novels pose. Kids will work on their habits as readers—going outside the book to build knowledge, or studying how authors introduce hard words and using strategies to learn new vocabulary as they read. In addition, readers investigate fantasy as a literary tradition and study how the thinking developed through reading fantasy novels will apply to other genres.
reading-skills-strategies.pdfreading strategies
reading strategies
Apply these skills when reading to improve comprehension and enjoyment when reading. You will see significant improvements in all of your subjects when you engage with your texts.
literature-genres.pdfLiterature genres
Literature genres
Understand the differences between different genres. Explore various texts to learn more about the world and to also help to improve your own writing. Learn more about what you enjoy reading.
U.S. Common core
U.S. Common core
Grade 5 Reading Standards
Grade 5 Reading Standards
Reading Literature
Key Ideas and Details:
Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.
Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact).
Craft and Structure:
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative language such as metaphors and similes.
Explain how a series of chapters, scenes, or stanzas fits together to provide the overall structure of a particular story, drama, or poem.
Describe how a narrator's or speaker's point of view influences how events are described.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas:
Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of a text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, poem).
(RL.5.8 not applicable to literature)
Compare and contrast stories in the same genre (e.g., mysteries and adventure stories) on their approaches to similar themes and topics.
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity:
By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the grades 4-5 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Reading Informational Texts
Key Ideas and Details:
Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
Determine two or more main ideas of a text and explain how they are supported by key details; summarize the text.
Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.
Craft and Structure:
Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 5 topic or subject area.
Compare and contrast the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in two or more texts.
Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the point of view they represent.
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas:
Draw on information from multiple print or digital sources, demonstrating the ability to locate an answer to a question quickly or to solve a problem efficiently.
Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text, identifying which reasons and evidence support which point(s).
Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.
Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity:
By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, at the high end of the grades 4-5 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Reading - Foundational Skills
Phonics and Word Recognition:
Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
Use combined knowledge of all letter-sound correspondences, syllabication patterns, and morphology (e.g., roots and affixes) to read accurately unfamiliar multisyllabic words in context and out of context.
Fluency:
Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
Read grade-level text with purpose and understanding.
Read grade-level prose and poetry orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings.
Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.
Page updated
Report abuse