ELA

Third grade is all about reading to understand. Sitting down each evening and reading with your child is a wonderful opportunity to better your child's reading skills as well as is a great bonding experience. Below are some common reading strategies that we will be focusing on to help them better understand the text as they read. Encourage making "movies" in their mind as they read. Students are also encouraged to expand their genre choice of book to more than just fiction! Try to help children read through non-fiction text using some of the strategies below. Most of all, make reading an enjoyable time for your child!

Students will be using the Wonders curriculum to explore these strategies.

“The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” - Dr. Seuss, "I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!"

Common Third Grade Reading Strategies

  • Author's Purpose: is the author writing to Persuade, Inform, or Entertain (PIE)

  • Cause and Effect: the CAUSE is why it happens, and the EFFECT is what happens

  • Compare & Contrast: o COMPARE is to find out how they are the same, to CONTRAST is to tell how they are different

  • Evaluate: to determine author's purpose for writing

  • Main Idea: what is the main idea of the story or text?

  • Fact & Opinion: a FACT is a statement that can be proven true, an OPINION is a judgment based on what someone believes

  • Making Generalizations: a statement that is true about most of the group

  • Making Inferences: using clues within text and prior knowledge to draw a conclusion about something in the text

  • Make Connections: to connect what you read to your life

  • Predicting: using clues in stories along with prior knowledge to tell what might happen next

  • Question: using questions to figure out parts of text you did not understand

  • Sequence: using words within text like, beginning, middle, end, etc., to place events in order

  • Story Structure: plan of the story, including things like character, setting, and plot

  • Summarize: to explain in own words what happened in the story from beginning to end

  • Visualize: using sensory images to create a "movie" in mind to better understand the story