Product Description

This completely revised and attractively redesigned edition of one of the most popular volumes in the bestselling Core Knowledge Series features up-to-date ideas and information based on input from parents and teachers across the country.

With sixteen pages of full-color illustrations, a bolder, easier-to-follow format, and a thoroughly updated curriculum, What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know, Revised Edition, reflects the Core Knowledge Foundation’s ongoing commitment to providing a solid educational foundation for today’s elementary school students.

What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know, Revised Edition, covers the basics of language arts, history and geography, visual arts, music, math, and science. A collection of American speeches, tales from around the world, math problems, and biographies of famous scientists add to the book’s usefulness and enhance the pleasure of both adult and child as they work together. Hundreds of thousands of children have benefited from the Core Knowledge Series. This revised edition gives a new generation of fifth graders the knowledge they need to make progress in school and establish an approach to learning that will last a lifetime.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10278 in Books
• Published on: 2006-06-27
• Released on: 2006-06-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780385337311
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
PRAISE FOR THE CORE KNOWLEDGE SERIES

“A new vision for the education of America is being tested in Florida—and it works.”
—Life magazine

“I wanted to take a moment and thank you for the knowledge I am able to give my children through your series. They absorb the information like sponges and can’t get enough of it. It is clear to me that children have the capability to learn so much more than is expected of them in most schools!”
—A parent, Florida

“Core Knowledge has increased the enthusiasm and commitment of our teachers, and our rising standardized test scores show that the program is effective.”
—Gina M. McKinnon, PDC K-6,
Mystic Valley Regional Charter School, Malden, Massachusetts

“We credit Core Knowledge for the improved achievement levels of our socioeconomically disadvantaged students.”
—Joan Jamieson, Principal, Santa Barbara Community Academy,
Santa Barbara, California

About the Author
E. D. HIRSCH, JR., is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and the author of The Schools We Need, The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, and the bestselling Cultural Literacy. He is chairman of the board at the Core Knowledge Foundation and lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction

This chapter presents poems, stories, and sayings, as well as brief discussions of language and literature.

The best way to introduce children to poetry is to read it to them and encourage them to speak it aloud so they can experience the music of the words. A child’s knowledge of poetry should come first from pleasure and only later from analysis. However, by fifth grade, children are ready to begin learning a few basic terms and concepts, such as metaphor and simile. Such concepts can help children talk about particular effects that enliven the poems they like best.

The stories in this book are excerpts, abridgments, and adaptations of longer works. If a child enjoys a story, he or she should be encouraged to read the larger work. Don Quixote and stories about Sherlock Holmes are available in child-friendly versions as part of the Foundation’s Core Classics series. You can draw children into stories by asking questions about them. For example, you might ask, “What do you think is going to happen next?” or “What might have happened if . . . ?” You might also ask the child to retell them. Don’t be bothered if the child changes events: that is in the best tradition of storytelling and explains why we have so many different versions of traditional stories!

The treatments of grammar and writing in this book are brief overviews. Experts say that our children already know more about grammar than we can ever teach them. But standard written language does have special characteristics that children need to learn. In the classroom, grammar instruction is an essential part, but only a part, of an effective language arts program. Fifth graders should also have frequent opportunities to write and revise their writing –with encouragement and guidance along the way.

For some children, the section on sayings and phrases may not be needed; they will have picked up these sayings by hearing them in everyday speech. But this section will be very useful for children from homes where American English is not spoken.

For additional resources to use in conjunction with this section, visit the Foundation’s Web site: www.coreknowledge.org.

POETRY

A Wise Old Owl
by Edward Hersey Richards

A wise old owl sat on an oak,
The more he saw the less he spoke;
The less he spoke the more he heard;
Why aren’t we like that wise old bird?


The Eagle
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.


From Opposites
by Richard Wilbur

What is the opposite of riot?
It’s lots of people keeping quiet.

. . .

What is the opposite of two?
A lonely me, a lonely you.

. . .

The opposite of doughnut? Wait
A minute while I meditate.
This isn’t easy. Ah, I’ve found it!
A cookie with a hole around it.

. . .

The opposite of a cloud could be
A white reflection in the sea,
Or a huge blueness in the air,
Caused by a cloud’s not being there.

. . .

The opposite of opposite?
That’s much too difficult. I quit.


The Road Not Taken
by Rober t Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


From the Hardcover edition.

Customer Reviews

You Need This Book If Your Child Is A Fifth Grader In a Core Knowledge School
I'm a big proponent of Core Knowledge schools since an organized curriculum that sequentially goes from grade to grade is sorely lacking in many public schools today. Too many elementary classrooms are guided simply by what a given teacher is interested in and there is often no consistency even within grade levels in a single school. Core Knowledge maps out a curriculum of what students should be taught during each elementary grade so they have the skills and knowledge educated people commonly possess. The What Your____________ Grader Needs To Know book series by E.D. Hirsch Jr. is the general outline for what is taught in each grade in Core Knowledge. The fifth grade book is very readable for a student of that age but also interesting enough for the parent to be genuinely engaged with the material. Poems and other samples from literature are included along with the math, science, social studies, art and language sections. This can be a useful supplemental book to a child following any curriculum but every parent whose child is in a core knowledge school will want to have access to this book.

the Social Studies part is great
I learned about this book from the reference list in Beestar Social Studies program (www.beestar.org). Due to the vast differences among schools and teachers in teaching Social Studies, students often received a rather unbalanced treatment of the subject. This book comes as a rescue of the situation. It tells you clearly what your child should know as a fifth grader. My child picked up several important chapters from this book that somehow were never taught by his teacher. And yes the knowledge has been very useful in state tests. I'm very glad that we had this book.

What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know, Revised Edition: Fundamentals of a Good Fifth-Grade Education (Core Knowledge Series)
I found this book to be very informative not only for young students, but also as a refresher for adults. As a future instructor, I find this book helpful not only for information, but also for "short and interesting" presentational information. It is short and to the point. I recommend the series (all grades) to everyone involved with students regardless of age. I have obtained four of the series for the age groups that I am working with currently.