In fifth grade, we have moved into our informational reading unit which is focused on moving up levels in nonfiction texts. One way that we move up levels is by focusing in on the vocabulary that our complex texts contain. We have spent some time learning about the importance of looking INSIDE the word/phrase, AROUND the word/phrase, and thinking BEYOND the word/phrase.
We also spent some time thinking about word gaps when it comes to descriptive and figurative language and multiple meaning words. The kids were able to identify some phrases in their texts that did not make sense to them because they did not know the multiple meanings of the given word.
One example of this was the phrase "the root of hatred." The child had only heard the word ROOT when talking about plants and trees, so seeing this word in this context did not make sense to him. We dissected the phrase, remembering the context of the text - September 11, and used what we knew about the word ROOT to help us think more FIGURATIVELY in terms of the phrase the author used. We came to the understanding that the "root of hatred" is referring to the amount of hate that was lying beneath the surface when the attacks took place. This is just one example of the amazing thinking that is happening in regards to vocabulary in our complex texts.
In order to completely understand the big shift that we have to make in our nonfiction reading, we analyzed the learning progressions from 4th-6th grade and had some great conversations about how the expectations change as we move up grades and levels of texts. We looked for the key words and important strategies that we are expected to use and noticed how they grew and changed across grade levels. Boy, we are expected to do a lot with multiple meaning words and figurative language in fifth grade and these kids are ROCKING IT!
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