NYS ELA Grade 5 flashcards
NYS ELA Grade 5 · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Main idea
- The most important point a whole passage makes about its topic. It is broad enough to cover every paragraph, unlike a single supporting detail.
- Supporting detail
- A fact, example, reason, or statistic that explains or proves the main idea. Details answer who, what, when, where, or why within the text.
- Inference
- A conclusion drawn by combining text evidence with reasonable background knowledge. A valid inference must be supported by clues in the passage, never invented.
- Text structure
- The way an author organizes information, such as cause and effect, compare and contrast, problem and solution, chronological order, or description. Signal words reveal the pattern.
- Author's point of view
- In informational text, the author's attitude or position on the topic, revealed through word choice and which facts are emphasized rather than stated directly.
- Fact versus opinion
- A fact can be proven or checked. An opinion expresses a judgment or feeling and often uses words like best, should, worst, or amazing.
- Summarizing informational text
- Restating the main idea and the most important supporting details in your own words, leaving out minor examples and personal reactions.
- Graphic features
- Visual parts of informational text such as diagrams, captions, timelines, maps, and sidebars. Each one adds or clarifies information the words alone may not show.
- Theme
- The message or lesson about life that a story reveals through events and character change. It is written as a complete statement, not a single word.
- Plot structure
- The sequence of events: exposition introduces characters and setting, rising action builds conflict, climax is the turning point, falling action and resolution follow.
- Character trait
- A lasting quality of a character, such as honesty or stubbornness, inferred from what the character says, does, thinks, and how others respond.
- First-person point of view
- A narrator who uses I or we and takes part in the story. This narrator knows only his or her own thoughts and observations, not other characters' minds.
- Third-person omniscient
- A narrator outside the story who knows the thoughts and feelings of all characters and can report events happening in different places at once.
- Simile
- A comparison of two unlike things using like or as, such as the snow fell like feathers, used to create a vivid picture for the reader.
- Metaphor
- A comparison that states one thing is another without using like or as, such as the classroom was a zoo, suggesting shared qualities.
- Personification
- Giving human qualities to an animal, object, or idea, such as the wind whispered through the trees, to make description more vivid.
- Hyperbole
- Deliberate extreme exaggeration used for emphasis or humor, such as I have told you a million times, not meant to be taken literally.
- Context clues
- Words or phrases around an unknown word that suggest its meaning, including definition clues, example clues, contrast clues, and general sense of the sentence.
- Conflict
- The central struggle in a story, which may be character against character, character against nature, character against society, or character against self.
- Dialogue
- Conversation between characters, shown inside quotation marks with a new paragraph for each speaker. Dialogue reveals personality and moves the plot forward.
- Claim
- A clear statement of an opinion in a piece of writing that the rest of the piece supports with reasons and evidence.
- Topic sentence
- The sentence that states a paragraph's central idea, usually placed first. Every other sentence in the paragraph should connect back to it.
- Transition words
- Words and phrases that connect ideas and show relationships, such as however, therefore, in addition, first, and finally.
- Revising
- Changing a draft's ideas, organization, sentence structure, and word choice to improve clarity and strength before editing for conventions.
- Editing
- Correcting conventions in a draft: capitalization, punctuation, spelling, grammar, and sentence completeness. It happens after revising the content.
- Narrative writing
- Writing that tells a story with characters, setting, a sequence of events, a conflict, and a resolution, often using dialogue and descriptive detail.
- Concluding statement
- The final part of an essay that restates the main idea in fresh words and offers a closing thought without adding a new argument.
- Sensory details
- Descriptive words that appeal to sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, helping readers picture the scene instead of merely understanding it.
- Coordinating conjunctions
- The seven words for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so that join words, phrases, or complete sentences of equal grammatical importance.
- Subject-verb agreement
- A singular subject takes a singular verb and a plural subject takes a plural verb. Identify the true subject, ignoring phrases between it and the verb.
- Homophones
- Words that sound alike but have different spellings and meanings, such as their, there, and they're, or its and it's, which are often confused in writing.
- Pronoun case
- Choosing between subject pronouns like I, he, she, they and object pronouns like me, him, her, them depending on the pronoun's job in the sentence.