By the end of FIFTH GRADE

Reading

Students will:

•Read independently every day in class

•Analyze the characteristics of fiction and nonfiction; distinguish between fact and opinion

•Interpret, analyze, and summarize a variety of reading materials

•Recognize how character, plot, and setting are developed

•Recognize and discuss themes in stories

•Identify and evaluate the author's purpose, the main ideas and the concepts presented in texts

•Understand the text using: compare and contrast, cause and effect, prior knowledge, inferences and chronological order

•Figure out the meaning of an unknown word by how it fits in the sentence

•Identify and use common antonyms, synonyms, and homographs

•Describe the use and effect of literary devices (e.g., imagery, metaphor and symbolism)

Speaking and Listening

Students will:

•Demonstrate good manners

•Organize and express ideas clearly

•Participate in group discussions by being a cooperative listener and active contributor

•Identify, analyze and evaluate persuasive techniques

Writing

Students will:

•Write daily for 30 minutes

•Writing Domains: Evaluation, Report of Information, Autobiographical Incident, Story, Problem Solution

•Write in response to an assigned topic (quick write)

•Write in a variety of forms i.e., from a character's perspective, mathematical word problems, letters, poetry

•Use correct capitalization

•Use correct punctuation: Use a colon to separate hours from minutes and to introduce a list; use quotation marks around the exact words of a speaker and some titles (e.g., poems, songs, short stories)

•Use correct grammar: Identify and use verbs that are often misused (e.g., lie/lay, sit/set, rise/raise), modifiers and pronouns, prepositional phrases, appositives, independent and dependent clauses

•Spell high frequency words correctly

•Spell roots, suffixes, prefixes and contractions correctly