By the end of 5th grade, students are expected to be within the Proficient level of development. At the Proficient level, students will be able to:
Reading

• Use a variety of strategies to construct meaning, self monitor, and identify unknown words.

• Recognize grade level words in text or in isolation.

• Determine the meaning of words and phrases in context using strategies and resources.

• Read, retell and summarize a variety of grade level narrative and informational grade level texts.

• Identify the form and purpose of narrative genres such as historical fiction, tall tales, science fiction, fantasy, and mystery.

• Explain how authors use literary devices such as exaggeration and metaphors to develop characters, themes, plot, and functions of heroes, villains and narrators.

• Explain how authors use time lines, graphs, charts, diagrams, table of contents, introductions, summaries and conclusions to enhance understanding.

• Identify forms, features and purpose of informational text such as advertising, experiments, editorials, and atlases.

• Confirm or revise inferences based on further reading.

• Make meaningful predictions and synthesize information.

• Reads a variety of literary forms such as short stories, biographies, and poems from a variety of time periods and cultures for enjoyment and information.

Writing

• Write organized narratives with relevant details.

• Write organized informational pieces with supporting details.

• Write organized opinion pieces using supporting evidence.

• Write constructed responses across subject areas.

• Use conventions to edit (grammar, mechanics, spelling).

• Consistently apply spelling patterns.

• Plan, evaluate, and revise writing.

• Use technology to produce and publish writing with support

Speaking & Listening

• Listen, interact and contribute in discussions by expressing more complex ideas.

• Know that spoken language differs from early American history to current day America.

• Respond to multiple text types by discussing, illustrating, and/or writing to reflect, clarify meaning, make connections and inferences, take a position, and show deep understanding.

• Ask focused questions and respond to questions by providing elaborate details.

• Listen and view critically for the purpose of gaining knowledge.

The Mathematical Strands are the end of year goals for 5th grade children. Although it is understood that children develop at different rates, the goal is that students will be able to demonstrate competency in these areas: 

Operations and Algebraic Thinking 

• Write and interpret numerical expressions.  

• Use parentheses, brackets, or basics. 

• Analyze patterns and relationships.  

• Generate and compare 2 numerical patterns.  

• Use coordinate pairs to construct line graphs. 

Number and Operations in Base Ten 

• Understand whole numbers, decimal place value system and powers of 10 as it relates to place value (including expanded form, standard and exponential notation).  

• Explain patterns when multiplying and dividing numbers by powers of 10.  

• Read, write, and compare decimals to thousandths. 

• Use place value to round decimals. 

• Perform operations with multi-digit whole numbers and with decimals to hundredths. 

• Fluently multiply multi-digit whole numbers using the standard algorithm.  

• Find quotients of whole numbers with up to four-digit dividends and two-digit divisors.  

• Add, subtract, multiply, and divide decimals to hundredths. 

Number and Operations – Fractions 

• Use equivalent fractions as a strategy to add and subtract fractions.  

• Add and subtract fractions and mixed numbers with unlike denominators.  

• Solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions. 

• Apply and extend previous understanding of multiplication and division to multiply and divide fractions.  

• Interpret fractions as division.  

• Multiply a fraction by a whole number.  

• Multiply a fraction by a fraction.  

• Explain the relationship between the factor and a product. 

• Solve real world problems using fractions and mixed numbers.  

• Interpret division of a unit fraction by a whole number. 

• Interpret division of a whole number by a unit fraction. 

Measurement and Data 

• Convert like measurement units within a given measurement system. 

• Represent and interpret data, including fractions, using a line plot. 

• Geometric measurement: understand concepts of volume and retake volume to multiplication and to addition.  

• Understand concepts of volume measurement.  

• Use the appropriate units for measurement of volume. 

• Find the volume of geometric solids using multiplication and addition. 

•Use formulas to find volume of a solid. 

• Graph points on a coordinate plane to solve real-world and mathematical problems.  

• Plot ordered pairs. 

• Understand attributes of two-dimensional figures and classify two- dimensional figures into categories based on their properties.

Students will learn about the following science strands:

Process Skills

• Use the process skills of observing, questioning, and measuring.
• Communicate findings of observations.
• Demonstrate scientific concepts through illustrations, performances, models, exhibits.

Matter and Energy in Organisms and Ecosystems

• Use models to describe that energy in animals’ food (used for body repair, growth, motion, and to maintain body warmth) was once energy from the sun.
• Support an argument that plants get the materials they need for growth chiefly from air and water.
• Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.

Earth’s Systems

• Develop a model using an example to describe ways the geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, and/or atmosphere interact.
• Describe and graph the amounts and percentages of water and fresh water in various reservoirs to provide evidence about the distribution of water on Earth.
• Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.

Structure and Properties of Matter

• Determine that all matter is made up of particles that are too small to be seen.
• Discover that particles can be rearranged to create new substances.
• Determine that some properties can be used to help identify matter.
• Determine the cause-and-effect relationship between temperature and phase change.

Building upon the geography, civics and government, and economics concepts of the United States mastered in 4th grade and historical inquiry from earlier grades, 5th graders participate in a more discipline-centered approach concentrating on the early history of the United States. In each of the following areas,

Beginnings to 1620

• Describe the life of peoples living in North America before European exploration.
• Identify the causes and consequences of European exploration and colonization.
• Describe the lives of peoples living in western Africa prior to the 16th century.
• Describe the environmental, political, and cultural consequences of the interactions among European, African, and American Indian peoples in the late 15th through the 17th century.

European Struggle for Control of North America

• Compare the regional settlement patterns and describe significant developments in Southern, New England, and the mid-Atlantic colonies.
• Analyze the development of the slave system in the Americas and its impact upon the lives of Africans.
• Distinguish among and explain the reasons for regional differences in colonial America.

Causes of the American Revolution

• Identify the major political, economic, and ideological reasons for the American Revolution.
• Explain the multi-faceted nature of the American Revolution and its consequences.
• Explain some of the challenges faced by the new nation under the Articles of Confederation, and analyze the development of the Constitution as a new plan for governing.

Public Discourse/Decision Making/Citizen Involvement

• Identify contemporary public policy issues facing citizens in the United States.
• Use graphic data and other sources to analyze information about a contemporary public policy issue in the United States and compose a short essay justifying the position with a reasoned argument.
• Participate in projects to help or inform others.