Grade 5

National Reading Vocabulary

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Introduction

The following vocabulary list contains the new reading words students should master by the end of Grade 5.  Students who achieve this goal (and who have mastered their previous vocabulary lists for Grades 1-4) will be reading somewhat above 6.0 grade level and typically score in the top 10% on 5^th Grade national reading tests (such as the CTBS and Stanford Achievement Test).

A total of 700 new words are introduced in the Grade 5 Vocabulary List (20 words per week for 35 weeks).  The first week reviews a cross sample of 50 Grade 4 words that represent the main phonics and reading rule categories.  Each subsequent week introduces 20 new vocabulary words.

Word of the Day – “WD”

In nearly each of the weekly lists of 20 words, you will encounter one word next to the letters “WD.”   This stands for “Word of the Day” and is listed in this manner because it is a deviation from the daily phonics or reading rule category and typically requires extra attention for memorization.  For example, in the Week 5 Lesson, the WD word is “source.”   Since the “ou” in source does not make its typical sound (as in loud), it is listed here as the Word of the Day.

Grade 5 Vocabulary – Significantly Increased Difficulty

While our reading vocabulary lists for Grades 3 and 4 introduce a greater number of words per week than the Grade 5 list (28 vs. 20), it is important to decrease the number of weekly words introduced in the Grade 5 list.  This is done since the words are considerably more complex and used far less often in normal everyday conversation.  Because of this decreased frequency in conversation – books – etc., the words are not as “familiar” to students, and therefore, require considerably more mental energy for learning since word definitions now must also be memorized along with just basic word reading.  By lowering the number of words introduced each week from 28 to 20, we are able to keep the amount of new information introduced within the learning ability of an average 5^th grade student, while also insuring students maintain excellent vocabulary progress for remaining at (or above) Grade level throughout the year.

Selection of Grade 5 Vocabulary Words

The Grade 5 vocabulary list words were selected from the Houghton Mifflin 5^th Grade Literature book (which covers a wide sample of literature topics) along with the most frequently used vocabulary from Houghton Mifflin’s 5^th Grade Social Studies program.  Additional key vocabulary used in national standardized reading tests
(i.e. the Stanford Achievement Test) have also been added to the Grade 5 list.

Selection of the Grade 5 vocabulary was completed by using a specially developed Word Frequency Computer Program which ranks words in order from “most-common” to “least-common” – as they appeared in the Grade 5 textbooks.  We then used our special “delete” program that automatically removes all reading words that appeared in our Grades 1-4 vocabulary lists, thereby eliminating unplanned duplication.   This results in a highly effective list of new vocabulary words that occur with greatest frequency in Grade 5 textbooks and tests.

After identifying these priority words for Grade 5, we then organized words according to common vowel sound and reading-rule categories.  This strategy has proven itself as a vastly superior technique for achieving faster long-term “permanent” memorization of reading vocabulary content.

Are My Students Ready for Grade 5 Vocabulary?

If you are a 5^th Grade teacher in an average socioeconomic setting, then proceeding with this list is a logical strategy.   Even if not all students are reading at a 5.0 Reading Level, you can use our Grade 4 (or Grade 3) Student Reading Wall strategies for quickly improving reading ability in order to bring them up to a 5.0 level.  As a quick assessment, you can test students on the Grade 4 Review words listed for Week 1 in the Grade 5 list.  For example, if a student misses 25 of these 50 words, then he/she most likely will be unable to read 50% of all the approximately 800 Grade 4 words.   If the entire class had this difficulty then consideration should be given into reviewing the Grade 4 vocabulary materials as well.  Keep in mind that it is actually more important for students to have mastered the Grade 4 vocabulary because of their greater frequency of use in textbooks and tests.

Determining Student Readiness

The first week in the Grade 5 Vocabulary List is composed of a cross-section of our Grade 4 vocabulary organized along different phonics and reading rule categories.  This not only provides students with an excellent review and re-introduction of essential sounds and rules, but can also be used as an excellent testing tool to determine if students need to go back and study the Grade 4 vocabulary.   If a student makes more than 10 errors after reading all 50 words in the first week list, then review or testing of all Grade 4 vocabulary is definitely warranted.  If the student makes less than 5 errors then we can assume that the student most-likely knows approximately 90% of all the Grade 4 words.   However, mastery of even 90% of the Grade 4 vocabulary means there are still about 80 words from the Grade 4 list that the child doesn’t know.

The Role of the Classroom Teacher

The most important job of the classroom teacher is to insure students master the reading vocabulary essential for their grade level.  By accomplishing this, you basically eliminate the risk of students falling behind in subsequent years and greatly increase their chances for future academic success in not only Reading, but also Social Studies – Geography – Science – and even the proper reading of math word problems.   Unfortunately, because many school districts have yet to realize the benefits of teaching specific minimum grade level vocabulary, we are seeing far too many students passed on to higher grades who do not achieve at least a minimum of grade level vocabulary progress, and therefore, fall further behind with each passing school year.

The ReadingKey Vocabulary program is the first program developed that includes a special tool (called the Student Reading Wall Program) specifically designed to catch these “falling-behind” students and quickly bring them up to a proper reading level.  The only way any reading program can accomplish this is if its techniques are highly efficient, thereby resulting in rapid reading progress in a very short period of time.  This is exactly what our Student Reading Wall techniques accomplish.

Before beginning the 5^th Grade list, It is important that students have mastered vocabulary from all previous grade levels.  This is because earlier grade level vocabulary occurs in textbooks and standardized tests far more often than vocabulary in higher lists.  For example, the likelihood of encountering the words - “who” or “how” - are certainly far higher than encountering a 5^th Grade word such as “disregard.”   Even in our ReadingKey Grade 5 list, the words are introduced in a “most-common” to “least-common” sequence for greatest efficiency.  For example, the word “regions” occurs 61 times in the Houghton Mifflin 5^th Grade Social Studies Program while the word “unique” occurs 2 times.  Therefore, the word “regions” is introduced much earlier (in week 2) than the word “unique” (which is introduced in week 20).

Key Strategies for the First Month Of School
Individual Assessment

Since insuring that a student in Grade 5 has mastered previous grade level vocabulary is of absolute critical importance – what would be the best way to go about determining a student’s earlier grade level vocabulary mastery? 

Without question - the only effective way to determine student mastery of previous grade level vocabulary is by testing students on an individual (one-on-one) basis.  This does not require too much time (averaging about 30-45 minutes per student) and is well worth the effort considering the tremendous amount of valuable information gleaned from the assessment.  The following page outlines these steps in detail.

Procedures for Beginning School Year Individual Testing

1.    Print out enough copies of the Grade 4 vocabulary list as you have students in your 5^th Grade class.  Also have at least 4-5 copies of the Grade 3 list for lower level students). 

2.    Set up a table in a quiet area and have an aide or helper sit down next to the student and begin asking the student to read the word as you point to them.  Ask words in random order beginning with the easier lower levels and work your way up to the higher levels.  If the student is answering most words correctly and only making about one error per 20-30 words, then he/she is pretty much on grade level.  However, so you can identify some words for the student, you can ask the harder words (at the bottom of each level) to increase the chance of finding words that are not known.

3.    When a word is said incorrectly - put a small line (or mark) to the left of the word.  When a word is said properly (but the student pauses more than 2 seconds) put the letter “p” next to the word along with the number of seconds delay.
(P3 means the child paused 3 seconds).

4.    Continue asking and marking words as long as the student is at least answering 6 or 7 out of 10 words correctly.   If the child reaches the point that he or she is only averaging between 5 and 6 words correct per 10 words in at least 5 column “Levels”, then you can stop and the child should be given extra practice (during or after school) using the Student Reading Wall strategies.  In other words, if the student is making errors 40-50% of the time, we need to begin this student on the “Student Reading Wall” in order to rapidly improve their reading ability.   Also, student’s who are missing 40% or more of the Grade 4 words should also be tested on the Grade 3 words.

5.    Continue testing all students in class making sure to write the student’s name at the top of each list for future reference.

6.    When student testing is complete, the goal is to then achieve mastery with the specific words identified for that student.  One excellent strategy is to write their first 20-30 “error” words on a 3x5 or 4x6 card and tape it to the top of the child’s desk.  At random intervals during the day, you (or teacher aide) can ask the student to say the words to you.  Once the student has some idea of what the words are – he/she can be asked to put the words into sentences.  Another excellent activity is to make a copy of the words on a larger sheet of paper and have the child take the words home for practice with a parent.  In the very near future, we are going to have a section at our ReadingKey.com web site where students can “click” on any word in the vocabulary list and view a short video teaching segment for that word.  At the first parent/teacher conference be sure to give the parent a copy of the child’s error list and stress the importance of their mastery.  Parents are highly impressed by this detailed attention to their child and usually put in extra effort at home to insure word mastery.

7.    For highly efficient vocabulary teaching, test 5^th Grade students at mid-year using the same steps above on the words for weeks 1-18 and record all errors as in the above testing strategies.    This way you can make sure all students are progressing on schedule by identifying the precise words that particular student needs to practice.