Fifth Grade

Children pass through a range of social, academic and developmental stages, each at their own pace. Below are rough guidelines of what to look forward to in the year ahead.

In fifth grade, your child will build on the skills they developed in fourth grade and study many of the same subjects at a higher level.

They will read many types of literature and informational material, think critically about what they read, and discuss it with the teacher and other students. They will write for many different purposes and learn new writing techniques, including making effective transitions, using dialogue to advance the plot and creating a mood, such as suspense. In math, they will work with fractions, decimals, negative numbers and very large numbers (in the billions). They will also focus on multiplying and dividing multi-digit numbers.

This is a great time to get involved in community service activities to help foster character development, a sense of giving and responsibility.

Physical and social skills you can expect of your fifth grader:

• Develop increasing independence
• Improve problem-solving skills
• Acquire more advanced listening and responding skills
• Need for more sleep

Academic skills you can expect of your fifth grader:

• Enjoy organizing and classifying objects and ideas
• Be able to read and concentrate for long periods of time
• Read complex text fluently and with good comprehension
• Research a topic using a variety of sources and use the features of books (e.g., index, glossary, appendix) to find information
• Identify the conflict, climax and resolution in a story
• Write an organized, multi-paragraph composition in sequential order with a central idea
• Use problem-solving strategies to solve real-world math problems
• Add and subtract fractions and decimals
• Identify and describe three-dimensional shapes, and find their volumes and surface areas
• Use long division to divide large numbers by multi-digit divisors (86,554 / 392)