Grade 3

Language Strand

Narrative for the Language Strand:

As they move through formal schooling, students must gain control over the many conventions of standard English grammar, usage, and mechanics. They must also learn various ways to convey meaning effectively. Language standards include the rules of standard written and spoken English as well as the use of language as craft and informed choice among alternatives.  Third grade students gain control over proper use of pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and other parts of speech, produce simple, compound, and complex sentences, and demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

English grammar conventions, knowledge of language, and vocabulary extend across reading, writing, speaking, and listening and, in fact, are inseparable from these contexts. As students grow in their understanding of patterns of English grammar, they can use this knowledge to make more purposeful and effective choices in their writing and speaking and more accurate and rich interpretations in their speaking and listening.

How to help your child with the standards in the Language Strand:

• Engage your child in conversations every day. If possible, include new and interesting words in your conversation.
• When coming across unknown words, encourage your child to use diagrams, labels or reference materials (glossaries, dictionaries....) to find out what the definition is
• Encourage your child to read on his own. The more children read, the more words they encounter and learn.
• Encourage your child to "bump up" the vocabulary words they use in their writing.  Help them by finding synonyms for simple words (using enormous instead of the word big)

Resources

• Scholastic

Calculation Method for Strands

Strands are larger groups of related standards. The Strand Grade is a calculation of all the related standards. Click on the standard name below each strand to access the learning targets and proficiency scales for each strand's related standards.

Proficiency Scale

Sub-Standards:

Grade 3

Reading Foundations Strand

Narrative for the Reading Foundations Strand:

The foundational skill standards are directed toward fostering students’ understanding and working knowledge of concepts of print, the alphabetic principle, and other basic conventions of the English writing system. These foundational skills are not an end in and of themselves; rather, they are necessary and important components of an effective, comprehensive reading program designed to develop proficient readers with the capacity to comprehend texts across a range of types and disciplines.  

Phonics:  In third grade students work on developing strategies that enable them to decode multi-syllable words and irregularly spelled words. Third graders also learn to identify words with affixes (prefixes and suffixes) and learn that affixes have meanings and can change the meanings of words to which they are attached. Third grade students learn to recognize common prefixes and inflectional and derivational suffixes and can explain how these common prefixes and suffixes change the meaning of a word. For example, they can explain that the prefix –un means not in the word unhappy.

Fluency:  Fluency is defined as being able to read orally with a reasonable rate of speed, with a high degree of accuracy, and with the proper expression (prosody). Fluency is one of several critical factors necessary for reading comprehension. 

Fluency changes, depending on what readers are reading, their familiarity with the words, and the amount of their practice with reading text. Even very skilled readers may read in a slow, labored manner when reading texts with many unfamiliar words or topics. For example, readers who are usually fluent may not be able to read technical material fluently, such as a textbook about nuclear physics or an article in a medical journal. 

How to help my child at home with the Foundational Skill Standards:

• Help your child pick out words with prefixes and suffixes. Talk about how the prefix or suffix changed the meaning of the word.
• If your child comes to a word he or she does not know, encourage them to use strategies such as looking for word parts (prefixes, suffixes)
• Encourage your child to read many types of books.  Your child may also build fluency by reading the words to songs, poems, or speeches.
• By reading with your child each night you are helping build his or her fluency! In fact, reading the same passages (and even their own writing) repeatedly gives your child an opportunity to listen, practice, and improve fluency.

Resources

• Poetry
• Word Games
• Scholastic-Common Prefixes and Suffixes
• Roots and Affixes
• Scholastic-Multisyllabic Words

Calculation Method for Strands

Strands are larger groups of related standards. The Strand Grade is a calculation of all the related standards. Click on the standard name below each strand to access the learning targets and proficiency scales for each strand's related standards.

Proficiency Scale

Sub-Standards:

Proficiency Scale

Sub-Standards:

Grade 3

Reading Informational/Nonfiction Strand

Narrative for Informational Reading Strand:

Informational text is designed to communicate factual information rather than to tell a narrative. Much of our daily reading is linked with this genre. Common examples of informational text include: diaries, cookbooks, websites, informational picture storybooks, field guides, and how-to books. 

Informational texts enable children to experience both language and content simultaneously, i.e., “read to learn.” The organization, graphic features, and writing styles found in informational texts are often content-specific. For example, the style of a biology textbook is quite different from a vacation guide. 

An important reading comprehension skill is the ability to determine the relative importance and precise meanings of words, sentences, paragraphs, sections, and chapters. Readers must be able to make sense of the meanings of words within sentences and of sentences within paragraphs. When readers grasp the main ideas, they better understand the purpose of the details—which, in turn, further strengthens their understanding of those main ideas. Readers, then, link their understanding of individual paragraphs to comprehend sections and chapters.

To feel successful across content areas students must read widely and deeply from among a broad range of high-quality, increasingly challenging informational texts. Through extensive reading of biographies and autobiographies; books about history, social studies, science, and the arts; technical texts, including directions, forms, and information displayed in graphs, charts, or maps; and digital sources on a range of topics students gain knowledge in various informational areas as well as familiarity with various text structures and elements. 

Continued work on reading comprehension standards will heighten student abilities to read more complex informational (nonfiction) text.  Teachers use assessment and observation to determine if students are ready to progress to more challenging reading selections.  Each child is unique, so be flexible, and trust your judgment as you assist your child.  Together teachers and parents can help students make better choices when selecting books to read.  Not all selections children read must be in the level suggested by assessment, these levels serve as a guideline.  Sometimes high interest in a topic allows success in a more difficult text, and sometimes simple text is more inviting to our children, balance is important.  Increasing the frequency of reading is the highest predictor of success at any grade level. Building a child’s confidence, through successful experiences with reading, will encourage that desire to read more. Developing successful, life-long readers is our ultimate goal.

How to Help Your Child At Home with the Informational Text Strand:

• Ask questions about the topic being read (What does this book tell us about the solar system?)
  
• Help your child dtermine the main idea of what they are reading, along with the details that support the main idea he/she stated
• Have your child retell the information on the topic they read about
• Re-read favorite books to build fluency, comprehension and confidence
• Discuss the informational topics you read about
• Bring attention to bold words, captions and  glossaries that will help locate key facts or information in a text
• Discuss the text features in informational text (graphics, charts, diagrams)
• Read magazines and newspapers for information and entertainment - the pictures and current event topics offer a high-interest way for readers to attemp more difficult reading than they may in a book
• Read directions on packages, forms, games and recipes - this helps children see that we read many things to gain information
• Make regular visits to a public library to select informational (non-fiction) reading material

Resources

• Read Write Think
• Scholastic
• How to Read Non Fiction
• Comprehension Questions for Non Fiction
• Non Fiction Magazine Ideas 
• National Geographic

Calculation Method for Strands

Strands are larger groups of related standards. The Strand Grade is a calculation of all the related standards. Click on the standard name below each strand to access the learning targets and proficiency scales for each strand's related standards.

Proficiency Scale

Proficiency Scale

Grade 3

Reading Literature/Fiction Strand

Narrative for Literature Strand:

Reading literature (fiction) allows students to learn about other lives and times that relate to their own personal experiences. In this strand, students will ask and answer questions about key details (characters, setting, plot), along with retelling what they have read.  Literature (fiction) helps readers learn important life lessons through the lives of the characters, comparing their own experiences with the experiences of the characters they read about. Reading literature (fiction) allows us to learn to appreciate the beauty of the language, and to be articulate speakers and writers.  

Before gaining deeper meanings, such as making logical inferences or drawing conclusions, readers must grasp the central details, characters, events, and ideas from the text.  importance of analyzing details and content that may be presented in a variety of formats. By drawing on the central details and facts of the text, skilled readers draw logical inferences and conclusions, or extend the themes of the present text to other literary settings. 

Third grade students must read widely and deeply from among a broad range of high-quality, increasingly literary texts. Through extensive reading of stories, dramas, poems, and myths from diverse cultures and different time periods, students gain literary and cultural knowledge as well as familiarity with various text structures and elements.

Continued work on reading comprehension standards will heighten student abilities to read more complex literature (fiction) text.  Teachers use assessment and observation to determine if students are ready to progress to more challenging reading selections.  Each child is unique, so be flexible, and trust your judgment as you assist your child.  Together teachers and parents can help students make better choices when selecting books to read.  Not all selections children read must be in the level suggested by assessment, these levels serve as a guideline.  Sometimes high interest in a topic allows success in a more difficult text, and sometimes simple text is more inviting to our children, balance is important.  Increasing the frequency of reading is the highest predictor of success at any grade level. Building a child’s confidence, through successful experiences with reading, will encourage that desire to read more. Developing successful, life-long readers is our ultimate goal.

How to Help Your Child At Home with the Literature Strand:

• Read to your child often, and let him/her read books to you
• Ask questions about what is being read  
• Go beyond just naming the character and setting, have your child describe the characters and settings with details (ex. "What character traits did the characters have?" (kind, mean, creative, patient, messy)? How do you know?)
• Have your child retell a story they have read with the beginning, middle and end
• Allow your child to re-read favorite books to build fluency, comprehension and confidence
• Discuss favorite stories together and talk about the characters and messages the author is trying to teach or lessons the characters learned in the story 
• Don't forget - poetry can be a great read aloud
• Make regular visits to a public library to select literature (fiction) reading material

Resources:

• Read Write Think
• Scholastic
• Reading Tips for Parents of 3rd Graders
• Poetry Resources 
• Comprehension Questions for Fiction 
• Into the Book

Calculation Method for Strands

Strands are larger groups of related standards. The Strand Grade is a calculation of all the related standards. Click on the standard name below each strand to access the learning targets and proficiency scales for each strand's related standards.

Proficiency Scale

Proficiency Scale

Grade 3

Speaking and Listening Strand

Narrative for the Speaking and Listening Strand

Speaking and listening standards require students to develop a range of oral communication and interpersonal skills that facilitate various types of discussion and oral exchange. Students must learn to work together, express and listen carefully to ideas, and integrate information from various sources, (e.g., oral, visual, quantitative, and media). Students must also gain skills in evaluating what they hear, use various sources to support what they are communicating, and adapt their speech to the content and the task at hand. 

Speaking and listening skills are necessary prerequisites for reading and writing. Oral language development precedes and is the foundation for writing. A student’s listening and speaking vocabulary sets boundaries on what that student can read and understand no matter how well they decode. In addition, new technologies have expanded the role speaking and listening play in acquiring and sharing ideas, tightening their link with other forms of communication.

How to help your child with the Speaking and Listening Standards:

• At dinner time or in the car, have conversations with your child to allow him/her to practice the art of conversing with others
• Respond to your child in sentences to model for him/her the correct way to talk
• Ask for details about books, movies, and television shows you are viewing with your child
• Ask your child to tell you in his/her own words about what he/she hears and sees
• Encourage your child to describe his/her feelings and ideas in phrases and sentences that are more descriptive than just one word
• Use complete sentences when you talk to your child and encourage him/her to speak in the same way

Resources

• National Geographic
• Top 10 Vocabulary Resources

Calculation Method for Strands

Strands are larger groups of related standards. The Strand Grade is a calculation of all the related standards. Click on the standard name below each strand to access the learning targets and proficiency scales for each strand's related standards.

Proficiency Scale

Grade 3

Writing Strand

Narrative for the Writing Strand:

The Writing standards outline three primary types of text that students are expected to produce: opinion, informational, and narrative texts.  Students are expected to produce each of these text types and to understand the purpose for each. When writing production is tightly integrated with purpose,  the differentiation between text types will be increasingly evident. Similarly, as students’ sophistication and maturity with language, vocabulary, and syntax grow, they will be better equipped to write for a specific purpose.The writing standards focus on instruction that enables students to gain adequate mastery of a range of writing skills and applications. As students progress through the grade levels they should demonstrate increasing sophistication in all aspects of writing, from vocabulary and syntax to the development and organization of ideas. The content and source students address are of an increasingly demanding nature. As they advance through the grade levels, students are expected to meet each year’s grade-specific standards and retain or further develop skills and understandings mastered during the preceding grades. 

Students continue to learn and apply the rules of standard written English and to strengthen and expand their vocabulary, use of language, and organization of ideas.  You will find the standards for these skills in the Language Strand.  

How can I help my child at home with the writing strand standards?

• Establish a place to leave messages for each other such as a wipe-off or cork board.  
• Talk with your child about their opinion about a topic or book by stating the opinion and giving a reason for his/her thinking. “I think chocolate ice cream is the best ice cream because...... " Model this by giving your own opinions about topics or books. 
• Help your child see that order is important in writing about a story or happening, using a proper sequence of events.
• Help your child to use the computer or writing tools to produce and publish what he/she has written.  Have them read aloud what they have written.
• Do simple research about a given topic together – and have your child write and organize the facts you both find.
• Help your child to recall information about his/her own experiences, or what he/she has read or researched, to answer questions.

Resources

• National Writing Project
• Writing Samples
• Learn Zillion

Calculation Method for Strands

Strands are larger groups of related standards. The Strand Grade is a calculation of all the related standards. Click on the standard name below each strand to access the learning targets and proficiency scales for each strand's related standards.

Proficiency Scale

Sub-Standards:

Proficiency Scale

Sub-Standards:

Proficiency Scale

Sub-Standards: