Grade 5 English
Grade 5 English: three tenses, the texts of everyday life, and writing that is accurate on its own.
What Grade 5 covers
Grade 5 draws the primary years together. The four competencies are unchanged, but the texts become the ones children meet outside the classroom, and writing is expected to be accurate without help.
The four competencies in Grade 5
| Skill | What the syllabus asks for at this grade |
|---|---|
| Listening | Responding to questions on familiar topics, both information and confirmation questions, using Who, When, What and Where. Following announcements, dialogues, verbal messages and instructions. |
| Speaking | Pronouncing words, phrases and sentences properly, including the vowel rules — silent e as in cake, and two vowel letters making one sound. Using personal pronouns in sentences. |
| Reading | Reading the texts of daily life: notices, leaflets, train and bus timetables, brochures, restaurant menus, advertisements and recipes, as well as posters and labels. |
| Writing | Writing simple sentences on a given topic accurately, with correct spelling, spacing between words and punctuation. Copying addresses, lists of names and shopping lists. |
Tenses and text types
Grade 5 texts use three tenses: simple present, simple past and present continuous. The text types named are simple descriptions, informative texts, short stories, announcements, invitations, poems and dialogues.
Source: English Language Teachers' Guide, Grade 05, Department of English, National Institute of Education, Maharagama, first edition 2020.
Scholarship English is a separate thing
The Grade 5 Scholarship examination is not the ordinary Grade 5 English syllabus, and the two are never mixed here. The scholarship work has its own page: Grade 5 Scholarship.
Activities for this grade
Reading
Passages with questions, at the length expected by the end of primary.
Listening and speaking
Speaking and listening activities for a class or a single child.
Poems and rhymes
Poems to read, learn and talk about.
Games and practice
Self-marking practice across the primary skills.
Grade 5 Scholarship
The scholarship English work, kept apart from the ordinary syllabus.
Still being prepared for Grade 5
Practice on the three tenses, and reading work built on notices, timetables, menus and recipes, are being prepared against the Grade 5 Teacher's Guide.