5th Grade Grammar Test Practice

How Should My Child Prepare for a 5th Grade Grammar Test?

During 5th grade grammar lessons, children typically learn about parts of speech. Your child probably already knows about nouns and verbs, which he or she will review along with adjectives and adverbs. Additionally, students may be asked to identify the parts of a sentence, including the verb, subject and object.

To prepare for a grammar test, your 5th grader can complete exercises that include repetitive practice. Find out the topic of the exam, and then create a worksheet that tests these skills. Get started with the activities below.

Three 5th Grade Grammar Exercises

Subject, Object and Verb Review

If your child will be required to identify the subject and object of a sentence, create a worksheet of several simple sentences. Then, ask your child to underline the subject, circle the object and put a box around the verb. Consider the example below.

The dog ate the bone.

In this example, the dog is the subject, the bone is the object and 'ate' is the verb. For an alternative way to play this review game, you can do the reverse by providing the parts of speech and having your child construct the sentences himself.

Comma Placement

Comma usage becomes more difficult as students progress in school. In 5th grade, students should be able to use commas to properly separate introductions, questions and direct addresses from the rest of a sentence. Test this skill with a worksheet that includes a variety of sentences with no punctuation. Ask your child to place the commas where they belong. For example, a sentence might be, 'The test is on Friday isn't it?' In this case, your 5th grader should add a comma after 'Friday.'

Context Clues

Context clues are helpful for new readers who have a small vocabulary. Context clues can also be used by older students who are learning new vocabulary or words with multiple meanings. Although vocabulary may be tested separately from grammar, context clues are sometimes necessary to identify the part of speech.

To test this skill, write out several sentences with difficult terms, and ask your child to write a definition in her own words. You could also write sentences with blank sections and have your child determine which homophone is correct for the sentence. (A homophone is a word that sounds the same as another word but has a different meaning or spelling. Examples include ate and eight, or I and eye, and rose the flower vs. rose the past tense of raise.)