What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know, Revised Edition: Fundamentals of a Good Fifth-Grade Education (The Core Knowledge Series)

Give your child the background on which the rest can be built.
Teach them the contents of the needs-to-know series, then the school text books will make sense.

This is one book from the set "What Your Xth Grader Needs to Know" (X = K through 6) edited by Hirsch Jr. I initially purchased the "Second Grader" one for my 7 year old daughter and recently purchased the complete set (since my son will start kindergarten soon). Each book contains American literature, stories/tales from other countries, American and world history, and other knowledge. My daughter enjoys reading from this set of books before her bed time, and I also learnd quite a bit. I highly recommend this set to parents and elementary school teachers.

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.

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.

This is a wonderful book, not only for your children, but for adults as well. I am currently going for my early childhood education degree and I will be taking the GACE exam and this book was recommended to me to help me study. I also have the 1st grade and 2nd grade version of this book...they are also wonderful!!