Did your fifth grader learn the skills they need to be ready for next year? Here are some of the most important academic and social skills that kids acquire in fifth grade. If your child is not proficient in some of these areas, don’t worry. No two kids are alike, especially when it comes to hitting developmental benchmarks. Choose a few to practice this summer, but keep things low-key — both for you and for your child. The most important outcomes of at-home learning are that your child enjoy learning and taking on new challenges.
By the end of 5th grade, kids should be able to:
- Read and concentrate for periods of up to 30 minutes at a time. (Here’s help getting your fifth grader to choose reading over screens.)
- Read grade-level books and articles fluently and with good comprehension (get reading comprehension practice here, find 5th grade books here, watch examples of showing understanding and reading smoothly with expression).
- Research a topic using a variety of sources, and use the features of a book (for example, the index, glossary, and appendix) to find information.
- Identify the conflict, climax, and resolution in a story.
- Understand that writing involves several steps: planning, revising, editing, rewriting and, sometimes, trying a new approach.
- Type two or more pages.
- Collaborate with peers on group projects.
- Participate in a group discussion by listening to others and either adding to or responding to what others have said
- Use problem-solving strategies to solve real-world math problems (get practice with word problems here).
- Add and subtract fractions and decimals (get practice working with decimals here).
- Identify and describe three-dimensional shapes, and find their volumes and surface areas (get practice finding volume here).
- Use long division to divide large numbers by multi-digit numbers (get division practice here).
Find out more about your fifth grader and reading, writing, math, science, social studies, the arts, and physical education.
