Grade 5 Writing: goals and how we get there
A grade 5 writing student at Learn To Be does three things:
- Works through the Sentence Mastery Grade 5 course.
- Writes about what they read.
- Practices a little every day (at home!).
The goal and what success looks like
By the end of grade 5, a student writes their first real essay. It has:
- an introduction,
- body paragraphs, and each one has a clear job,
- a conclusion.
The student writes the essay from their own outline. Give them any topic they know. In five minutes, they can turn it into a plan.
Capital letters, punctuation, spelling, topic sentences, and transitions from earlier grades stay correct.
Typing goal: the student types 30 words per minute.
The course
Sentence Mastery Grade 5 has 55 lessons. It covers sentences with paired joining words like either/or, neither/nor, and not only/but also.
- Find the start. Try the first few lessons. If they are easy, skip ahead to where the student starts making mistakes.
- Do not skip lessons after that. A student moves on only after they master a lesson.
This course builds the sentences that an essay needs. When the student finishes it, the next step is Paragraph Mastery Grade 6.
If the course is too hard, go down to Sentence Mastery Grade 4.
What they write about
Kids cannot write about nothing. They write about what they read. The topics come from this grade's reading program. The 5th Grade Reading course also has short science and history passages that give them things to write about.
- The Maya, Aztec, and Inca
- The Age of Exploration
- The Renaissance
- Shakespeare: A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Don Quixote
- Native Americans: Cultures and Histories
- Oceans
- Poetry
- Chemistry: Matter and Its Changes
A typical session
- Warm-up, about 10 minutes. Quick sentence practice. Make a short sentence longer. Join two sentences into one. Finish a sentence that starts with "because", "but", or "so".
- Course lessons. This is the main part of the session. Do one or two lessons together.
- Write about what they read. The student writes a short piece about something from their reading. The reading gives them something to say.
Between sessions (at home)
Daily practice happens at home, not in your session. A little every day works better than a lot once a week.
Tell the parent:
"Every day, have your child sign in at learntobe.org and do a lesson in their writing course. A little every day helps most."
Show the parent and the student how to sign in and find the course during your first session.
Other resources
- IXL. If your student has an IXL account through our pilot, its diagnostic shows the grade level your student works at in each part of English language arts. Use it as an extra check, not instead of the course. See How should tutors use IXL?