Fifth Grade Reading Lesson Plans for Parents and Teachers

Reading Lessons for Fifth Graders

What Fifth Graders Need to Know

Although what a fifth grader is expected to know by the end of the school year varies from school to school, there are general similarities. Most fifth graders will be required to read texts fluently and have strong comprehension skills. They'll also be required to differentiate between literary genres, such as poetry, short stories, novels, essays and plays.

Determining What Children Need

Different fifth graders have different learning needs as readers. It can helpful to determine what kind of reader a child is before creating lessons. There are three primary kinds of students when it comes to reading. There are those who never read, those who only read when it's required and those who read for fun. Different kinds of children will need different kinds of lessons and levels of support.

Creating Reading Groups

One of the biggest challenges for teachers is to differentiate instruction. If you have 25 students in your class, then you're teaching 25 individuals with different needs and learning abilities. Although you probably won't be able to customize reading lesson plans for every single student, you can still differentiate your lessons in order to reach students of different ability levels.

Divide your students into reading groups so you can provide appropriate instruction to each group. Even if all students are reading the same novel, you can shift the focus with different groups of students. A lower-level group may need to focus on fluency and vocabulary questions. A mid-level group will probably study comprehension and locate specific details in a text, while an advanced group might discuss themes, tone and symbolism.

Students sometimes feel discouraged when they're in a lower-level reading group, but you may be able to prevent this by making the reading groups flexible. Switch up the groups once in a while by grouping students according to interests rather than abilities. This practice will help your fifth graders maintain a positive attitude towards reading.

Focusing on Comprehension and Fluency

Two of the main skills that are typically required of fifth graders are reading fluency and comprehension. Fluency is the smoothness and fluidity with which a child's able to read. One of the most important aspects of becoming a fluent reader is the memorization of sight words, such as 'the', 'as' and 'it'. A lesson you can do with a class or a single child is to write sight words on flash cards and set a timer. Go through the cards and have the child or children read them as quickly as possible in order to beat previous records.

Reading comprehension is a child's ability to interpret and understand texts. A common way to teach a comprehension lesson is simply by discussing a text. Ask your child or class questions that require them to think critically about what they've read. For example, have them express opinions about characters, or try to predict what might happen next.