Back to School ELA Review for 5th Grade | 20 Daily Lessons

Start the school year with a comprehensive 5th grade back to school ELA review designed to revisit essential Grade 4 reading, grammar, vocabulary, word study, and writing skills. With 20 daily lessons plus 16 print-and-play literacy games, this resource helps fifth graders refresh key skills, build confidence, and settle into a predictable beginning-of-year ELA routine.

Each lesson follows the same four-part rhythm—Read & Think, Language & Grammar, Word Work, and Write About It—with skills spiraling across 20 days from focused review into more complex reading, language, vocabulary, editing, and reflection. A full lesson is designed for approximately 15–25 minutes.

What’s Included

This 5th grade ELA review includes:

✅ 20 daily ELA review lessons

✅ 40 pages of daily student lessons

✅ Short fiction, nonfiction, and persuasive passages

✅ Four comprehension questions per daily passage

✅ Inference and text evidence practice

✅ Grammar and language review

✅ Vocabulary and word study

✅ Advanced prefixes and suffixes

✅ Greek and Latin roots practice

✅ Daily writing prompts

✅ 16 print-and-play literacy games and activities

✅ Partner and small-group activities

✅ Literacy center options

✅ Complete answer key for all 20 days

✅ Teacher Guide

✅ 20-day pacing overview

✅ Four-week planning guide

✅ Differentiation suggestions

✅ Game preparation directions

✅ Game-to-skill quick-reference map

✅ Class progress record sheet

✅ Family letter for home-school connection

✅ Student reflection

✅ Reading Star Award

The 70-page Student Workbook contains 20 daily lessons plus 16 print-and-play games for centers, partners, and small groups.

The separate Answer Key provides responses for all 20 daily lessons, organized by section for faster checking, with reasonable student wording accepted for open writing and reflection tasks.

How It Works in the Classroom

Use this 5th grade back to school ELA review for morning work, whole-group warm-ups, independent practice, literacy centers, small groups, intervention, homework, early finishers, or beginning-of-year formative assessment.

Each daily lesson follows a predictable structure:

📖 Read & Think — Students read a short fiction, nonfiction, or persuasive passage and answer four comprehension questions, including inference and text-evidence items

✏️ Language & Grammar — Students revisit a focused Grade 4 grammar or language skill

🔤 Word Work — Students practice advanced prefixes and suffixes, Greek and Latin roots, context clues, connotation, figurative language, shades of meaning, analogies, and academic vocabulary

📝 Write About It — Students complete a short writing task connected to the day’s passage and thinking

The Teacher Guide recommends previewing the genre, encouraging students to identify evidence behind answers, modeling the first grammar item, and then releasing students to independent or partner work.

The 20-Day Pacing at a Glance chart on page 6 of the Teacher Guide maps the full skill progression across reading, language, and word work. Students move from main idea and summary, theme, character analysis, setting and mood, and plot and conflict into inference, cause and effect, compare and contrast, author’s purpose and claim, point of view, text structure, claim and evidence, text features, summarizing, citing text evidence, drawing conclusions, making inferences, making connections, mixed review, and final reflection.

For a four-week routine, teachers can use daily workbook lessons Monday through Thursday and reserve Friday for a literacy game, center rotation, or catch-up.

Standards & Learning Goals

This Grade 4 skills review for 5th grade revisits key learning across five major ELA strands:

📚 Reading Comprehension — main idea and summary, theme, character analysis, setting and mood, plot and conflict, inference, cause and effect, compare and contrast, author’s purpose and claim, point of view, text structure, claim and evidence, text features, summarizing, citing text evidence, drawing conclusions, making inferences, and making connections

✏️ Grammar & Language — simple, compound, and complex sentences; fragments and run-ons; subject-verb agreement; perfect verb tenses; pronoun-antecedent agreement; prepositional phrases; conjunctions; commas in compound sentences and after introductory elements; appositives; dialogue punctuation; relative pronouns; apostrophes; misplaced modifiers; capitalizing titles; combining sentences; editing; consistent verb tense; and precise word choice

🔤 Word Study — advanced prefixes, suffixes, affix meanings, root review, and Greek and Latin roots

💬 Vocabulary — synonyms and nuance, context clues, homographs, homophones, personification, hyperbole, idioms, connotation, shades of meaning, analogies, academic vocabulary, and mixed vocabulary review

📝 Writing — summary writing, character sketches, sensory description, problem-solution writing, cause-and-effect explanation, compare-and-contrast writing, persuasive paragraphs, first-person narrative, informational explanation, claim-and-evidence writing, text-based responses, mystery writing, narrative continuation, personal connections, and reflection

The daily workbook intentionally pairs skills across strands. For example, Day 1 combines main idea and summary with simple, compound, and complex sentences plus prefixes; Day 8 combines compare and contrast with comma practice and homophones; Day 11 combines text structure with relative pronouns and roots such as therm, aqua, and chron; and Day 17 combines making inferences with consistent verb tense and academic vocabulary.

Why Teachers Love It

✨ Build a consistent first-month routine. The same four-part structure repeats across all 20 days, helping students know what to expect while building independence.

✨ Review multiple ELA strands in one resource. Reading comprehension, grammar, vocabulary, word study, and writing are integrated into manageable daily practice.

✨ Get 20 days of ready-to-use review. The pacing is already mapped, and the Teacher Guide includes a visual 20-day progression plus a suggested four-week schedule.

✨ Strengthen higher-level reading comprehension. Students practice theme, character analysis, mood, conflict, inference, author’s claim, point of view, text structure, evidence, drawing conclusions, and making connections.

✨ Revisit rigorous Grade 4 grammar skills. Practice includes sentence types, fragments and run-ons, agreement, perfect verb tenses, prepositional phrases, conjunctions, commas, appositives, dialogue punctuation, apostrophes, modifiers, editing, and consistent verb tense.

✨ Build stronger vocabulary and morphology skills. Students work with advanced prefixes and suffixes, Greek and Latin roots, context clues, homographs, homophones, connotation, nuance, figurative language, analogies, and academic vocabulary.

✨ Include meaningful writing every day. Students summarize, persuade, compare, explain, cite evidence, write from first-person point of view, create inference clues, describe settings with sensory details, continue narratives, and reflect on growth.

✨ Add hands-on practice with 16 literacy games and activities, including:

• Sentence Type Sort

• Root Word Match

• Synonym Match

• Roll-a-Root Word

• Academic Vocabulary BINGO

• Multisyllable Roll & Read

• Prefix Sort

• Antonym Match

• Reading Road Race

• Main Idea Baskets

• Connotation Sort

• Sentence Building Tiles

• Fix-It Cards

• Sequence Cards

• Homophone Match

• Figurative Language Sort

The Game → Skill Quick Map on page 9 of the Teacher Guide pairs each game with its target skill, making it easier to choose activities for centers, partner practice, small groups, or targeted review.

✨ Prep once and reuse the games. Print game pages on cardstock, laminate boards and cards, cut apart reusable pieces, and store each game in a labeled bag.

✨ Differentiate without creating separate lessons. The Teacher Guide includes support ideas for below-level students, on-level learners, above-level students, and multilingual learners.

✨ Use daily work as low-stakes formative assessment. The Class Record Sheet on page 10 of the Teacher Guide includes Week 1 through Week 4 tracking columns plus notes, helping teachers monitor progress and identify skills to revisit.

✨ Save time checking student work. The included Answer Key covers all 20 days and organizes answers by day and section.

✨ Support home-school communication. A ready-to-send family letter explains the daily ELA review and gives caregivers simple ideas for supporting literacy at home.

Give students a confident, structured start to fifth grade with this 5th grade back to school ELA review. Download it for 20 days of Grade 4 skills review, daily reading and writing practice, focused grammar and vocabulary work, plus 16 print-and-play literacy games that extend learning into centers, partner work, small groups, and early-finisher routines.

Perfect for teachers searching for 5th grade morning work, Grade 4 skills review, beginning-of-year ELA activities, fifth grade literacy centers, reading comprehension practice, grammar review, vocabulary activities, Greek and Latin roots practice, first month of school activities, formative assessment, or a complete back-to-school literacy review.