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READING:
Third grade is utilizing the Fishtank Learning Curriculum as well as novels and author studies.
**Students will use the RACE Strategy when answering some open-ended Questions:
RESTATE the important words from the question in your topic sentence.
ANSWER all parts of the question.
CITE evidence from the text.
(Use examples and evidence from the text to support your answer.)EXPLAIN your details and how the EVIDENCE supports your answer.
Family Letter Fishtank Unit 1
Take a Peek
*This is a glance into our reading units throughout the year.
Comprehension Skills:
Story Structure
Analyze Illustrations
Conclusions
Author’s Word Choice
Understanding Characters
Story Message/Theme
Compare and Contrast
Cause and Effect
Literal and Nonliteral Meanings
Text and Graphic Features
Sequence of Events
Domain-Specific Vocabulary
Main Idea and Details
Point of View
Author’s Purpose
Formal and Informal Language
Helpful Comprehension Prompts : To help support your child at home, we have provided question prompts that could be asked to your child to assist them with the comprehension skills. These questions could be used with a book, article, or story of your choice.
Story Structure
Where does MOST of the story take place?
What happens at the beginning of the story? What happens at the end of the story?
What happened AFTER _____ (event from the story)?
Analyze Illustrations
Look at the illustration on page, __. What does the illustration tell you about the feelings/mood of the passage?
What does the illustration on page __ show you?
Conclusions
Conclusion is a smart guess a reader makes about something the author does not say directly. What conclusion can you draw about why _______ (character) did ______ (event from the story)?
Author’s Word Choice
On page _, find words that the author used to show that ____ (character) felt _____ (feeling)?
Why does the author use ________ (word or phrase) in the story?
Understanding Characters
What characters say and do are clues to their feelings, traits, and motivations. Can you describe a character from the story using those ideas? Understanding characters’ traits, feelings, and motivations helps readers to better explain how characters’ actions contribute to the sequence of events.
Find a sentence or two that describes _____ (character).
Why do you think ____ (character) does ______ (event from the story)?
How does ____ (character) feel when ____ (event form the story)? How can you tell?
Story Message
What was the problem? What was the solution? What did I learn about real life by reading about how characters solved the problem?
What was the message/lesson of this story?
Theme
A theme is a lesson about life. What is the theme or message, of the story?
What is the theme of the author is trying to teach? Use details.
Compare and Contrast
How are ____ (character) and ____ (character) ALIKE?
How are ____ (character) and ____ (character) DIFFERENT?
Cause and Effect
A cause is the reason something happens and an effect is what happens as a result. Can you find a cause and effect in this story?
Why did ______ (character) do ______ (event from the story)?
Literal and Nonliteral Meanings
What does the author mean when he/she writes _____ (phrase)? Is that a literal (exact) or nonliteral meaning?
What does the phrase ____ most likely mean?
Formal and Informal Language
Authors tend to use formal language to describe characters and events and informal language for characters’ dialogue. Remember, quotation marks signal dialogue.
Which parts of the story sound informal? Why do other words or phrases sound more formal?
Text and Graphic Features: (informational text)
How do the images help the reader understand ________ (topic)?
Why did the author use the image on page __ ?
Which section (subheading) would a reader use to learn more about ____ (topic)?
Sequence of Events:
Talk about the most important events. Write a brief summary.
Label the order of the story. The first event will be labeled 1 , and the last event will be labeled 4.
According to the story, what happened first?
What sequence of events does this selection tell about?
Domain-Specific Vocabulary:
What is the meaning of the word _________ ?
What word on page _ are you likely to find in a _____ (resource; ex: Science textbook, medical document, brochure, etc.) What does the word mean?
Point of View
Authors choose a point of view for their stories.
What is the author’s point of view about ____ (topic)? Do you share his/her point of view? Why or why not?
Author’s Purpose
How has the author organized information? How does it support his/her purpose for writing?
Vocabulary Strategies:
➯ Context Clues
➯ Dictionary/Glossary
➯ Synonyms/Antonyms
➯Shades of Meaning
➯ Word Families
➯ Prefix/Suffix/Root
➯ Homophones and Homographs
➯ Idioms
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