A primary aim of fifth grade English is for students to explore and enjoy reading, writing and communicating by way of class novels and skills work in spelling, grammar, creative writing and reading comprehension.  The summer reading novel, Out of My Mind, initiates a study of the senses that involves the development of observation skills, descriptive writing skills and basic parts of speech usage. The second class novel, Esperanza Rising, introduces students to the reading skills captured in the acronym T.U.M.O.:  chapter titling (main idea), underlining (setting, plot, character, connection-making, questioning, predicting), making margin notes (on underlined text), and circling unfamiliar vocabulary (with predicted meaning in margin notes).

Study of the novel Journey to the River Sea reinforces T.U.M.O. skills and introduces new strategies for following complex plot details and twists. Students defend title choices; craft meaningful questions and answers for themselves based upon key ideas in chapters; and write strong point-of-view responses. Study of the final class novel, Tuck Everlasting, becomes increasingly more writing-intensive and focuses primarily on character change and theme. Students meaningfully discuss and write about character traits and change, as they first did with Esperanza Rising. Students articulate understanding of key textual elements and theme through formal, well-structured paragraphs. Finally, students independently apply the comprehension strategies learned over the course of the year. In addition to novel work, comprehension strategies are developed through supplementary reading materials. Basic parts of speech, sentence structure, spelling, and vocabulary receive ongoing instruction and practice.