Back to School ELA Review for 6th Grade | 20 Daily Lessons

Start the school year with a rigorous yet manageable 6th grade back to school ELA review designed to revisit essential Grade 5 reading, grammar, vocabulary, word study, and writing skills. With 20 daily lessons plus 16 print-and-play literacy games, this resource helps sixth graders refresh key skills, build confidence, and transition into middle school ELA routines.

Each lesson follows a predictable four-part rhythm—Read & Think, Language & Grammar, Word Work, and Write About It—with a full lesson designed for approximately 15–25 minutes. Skills spiral across the 20 days, moving from focused review into more complex analysis, evidence, argument, editing, vocabulary, and reflection.

What’s Included

This 6th grade ELA review includes:

✅ 20 daily ELA review lessons

✅ 40 pages of daily student lessons

✅ Short fiction and nonfiction passages

✅ Reading comprehension questions

✅ Central idea and summary practice

✅ Theme and character development

✅ Inference and text evidence practice

✅ Claim and evidence activities

✅ Evaluating evidence practice

✅ Grammar and language review

✅ Vocabulary and word study

✅ Greek and Latin roots

✅ Advanced prefixes and suffixes

✅ Academic vocabulary

✅ 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

✅ Student reflection

✅ Reading Star Award

The 68-page Student Workbook contains 20 daily lessons plus 16 print-and-play games for centers, partners, small groups, and independent practice.

The separate Answer Key provides complete 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 6th grade back to school ELA review for morning work, bell ringers, whole-group warm-ups, independent practice, literacy centers, small groups, intervention, homework, early finishers, or beginning-of-year formative assessment.

Each daily lesson follows the same student-friendly 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 5 language skill

🔤 Word Work — Students practice Greek and Latin roots, advanced affixes, context clues, connotation and denotation, figurative language, analogies, shades of meaning, 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, asking students to identify evidence behind their answers, modeling the first grammar item, and then releasing students to work independently or with a partner.

The 20-Day Pacing at a Glance chart on page 6 of the Teacher Guide visually maps the full progression across reading, language, and word work. Students move from central idea and summary, theme development, character development, tone and mood, and plot and conflict into inference and evidence, cause and effect, compare and contrast, author’s purpose and perspective, point of view, text structure, claim and evidence, evaluating evidence, citing evidence, drawing conclusions, comparing across texts, mixed review, and final reflection.

For a four-week routine, teachers can assign workbook lessons Monday through Thursday and use Friday for a game, literacy center rotation, or catch-up. The suggested planning guide pairs each week with targeted games based on the skills being reviewed.

Standards & Learning Goals

This Grade 5 skills review for 6th grade revisits key learning across five major ELA strands:

📚 Reading Comprehension — central idea and summary, theme development, character development, tone and mood, plot and conflict, inference and evidence, cause and effect, compare and contrast, author’s purpose and perspective, point of view, text structure, claim and evidence, evaluating evidence, citing evidence, drawing conclusions, making inferences, comparing across texts, and mixed reading review

✏️ Grammar & Language — independent and dependent clauses, simple/compound/complex sentences, pronoun case, active and passive voice, subject-verb agreement, phrases and clauses, commas and semicolons, colons and lists, punctuating titles and dialogue, apostrophes and possessives, parallel structure, misplaced modifiers, capitalization, consistent tense and voice, transitions, comprehensive editing, commonly confused words, concise language, and mixed grammar review

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

💬 Vocabulary — context clues, connotation and denotation, homographs, homophones, figurative language, idioms, analogies, shades of meaning, academic vocabulary, word relationships, and mixed vocabulary review

📝 Writing — summary writing, argument writing, claim and evidence, character analysis, mood and setting description, cause-and-effect explanation, compare-and-contrast writing, persuasive writing, problem-solution writing, text-based responses, concise language, inference-based writing, narrative continuation, and reflection

The daily workbook intentionally pairs skills across strands. For example, Day 1 combines central idea and summary with independent and dependent clauses plus roots and affixes; Day 8 combines compare and contrast with colons and lists plus homophones; Day 12 combines claim and evidence with misplaced modifiers and connotation; and Day 18 combines comparing across texts with concise language and root review.

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 visual chart on page 6 of the Teacher Guide shows exactly how reading, language, and word-work skills spiral across the month.

✨ Strengthen middle school reading readiness. Students practice central idea, theme development, tone and mood, inference, evidence, author’s perspective, point of view, text structure, argument, evaluating evidence, citing evidence, drawing conclusions, and comparing across texts.

✨ Revisit rigorous Grade 5 grammar skills. Practice includes clauses, sentence structure, pronoun case, active and passive voice, subject-verb agreement, semicolons, colons, parallel structure, modifiers, dialogue punctuation, apostrophes, transitions, concise language, and comprehensive editing.

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

✨ Include meaningful writing every day. Students summarize, argue, compare, explain, cite details, describe mood, evaluate claims, continue narratives, write inference-based scenes, and reflect on growth.

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

• Clause Sort

• Root Word Match

• Synonym Match

• Roll-a-Root Word

• Academic Vocabulary BINGO

• Multisyllable Roll & Read

• Prefix Sort

• Antonym Match

• Reading Road Race

• Central Idea Baskets

• Claim or Evidence 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 activity with its target skill, including independent and dependent clauses, Greek and Latin roots, academic vocabulary, reading fluency, advanced prefixes, central idea and details, claim versus evidence, compound-complex sentences, editing, text structure, commonly confused words, and figurative language.

✨ Prep once and reuse throughout the year. The Teacher Guide recommends printing game pages on cardstock, laminating boards and cards, cutting pieces apart, and storing each game in a labeled bag for repeated use.

✨ Differentiate without creating entirely 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 provides Week 1 through Week 4 tracking columns plus a notes section, making it easier to identify skills that may need reteaching.

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

✨ Support home-school communication. A ready-to-send family letter explains the daily ELA review routine and offers simple ideas for supporting reading and language practice at home.

Give students a confident, structured start to sixth grade with this 6th grade back to school ELA review. Download it for 20 days of Grade 5 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, bell ringers, and early-finisher routines.

Perfect for teachers searching for 6th grade morning work, sixth grade bell ringers, Grade 5 skills review, beginning-of-year ELA activities, middle school ELA review, sixth grade literacy centers, reading comprehension practice, grammar review, academic vocabulary, Greek and Latin roots, claim and evidence practice, first month of school activities, formative assessment, or a complete back-to-school literacy review.