5th Grade Reading Exercises: Questions and Activities at the 5th-Grade Level

In addition to reading and discussing novels, 5th graders can benefit from reading exercises that involve higher-order thinking, comprehension and analytical skills. If you feel your child may need additional reading practice outside of the classroom, try these activities in your spare time at home.

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Where Can I Find Reading Exercises for 5th Graders?

There are several free resources available for different types of 5th grade reading exercises. Typically, one of the easiest places to find reading comprehension questions, worksheets and interactive games is online. Your child may participate in language arts games that focus on spelling, homophones, conjugation and more. Other websites provide reading tools and worksheets by grade level that your son or daughter can use to enhance his or her understanding of texts.

Three Reading Exercises

Comprehension Questions

Comprehension questions are a common way for students to practice reading and understanding different types of texts. By the 5th grade, your son or daughter will likely have completed fiction and non-fiction stories, articles, biographies and poems in class. To provide your child with additional practice at home, try finding reading passages online that will appeal to him or her.

For example, if your son is interested in sports, find a text that covers the history of baseball. If your daughter enjoys drawing, use a biography piece about a specific artist. Not only will your child be practicing reading and comprehension, he or she may also learn something new in the process.

Title and Headline Matching

This exercise is a fairly simple way to get your child reading while establishing a connection between the story and the title. You may choose to use newspaper articles, but they will likely be too dense for your 5th grader. Instead, you may opt for kid-friendly magazines, such as Weekly Reader or Zoobooks.

Use several articles each time you set up the exercise, and cut off the headlines or titles of each. Create two separate piles and have your son or daughter read through the articles. Then, match the articles to the proper headlines. This activity can help your child determine the main idea.

Context Clues

While there are free worksheets about context clues online, you can create on your own as well. Because context clues help students learn more advanced vocabulary, this activity can be beneficial at all levels. The simplest way to give your child practice is to provide a multiple-choice worksheet with several sentences. Highlight the vocabulary word in question and ask your child to select the correct definition. Review the answers to ensure that your son or daughter has a firm grasp on the vocabulary words before moving on.

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