Grade 3
Word Study
Word Work
Word Work is a part of small group reading instruction. During word work, students practice and apply phonics skills that they are learning. The focus of word work is to develop students' skills in letter-sound knowledge, blending sounds together to read words, as well as breaking longer words into parts and syllables to read them.
Some examples of word work include:
making words with letter tiles or dice
word sorts
word study
-learning how to break words into parts or syllables
-learning about prefixes and suffixes and their meanings
Words Their Way
Words Their Way is the word study program that I will use with students to give them an opportunity to apply what they are learning in word work when reading whole words.
By completing word sorts in the Words Their Way program, students will learn to notice words that belong in word families, words that follow the week's spelling patterns, and irregular words that do not follow the spelling rules. As a result of noticing spelling patterns, students will be better able to break unknown words into parts when they are reading.
Syllables
As students read more challenging books, they will encounter longer words with 2 or more syllables. Throughout this year, I will teach students about the six syllables and how to identify these syllables in longer words that they read. Therefore, students will learn how to break longer words into syllables to read them. Click on the handout to the left to read This Reading Mama's blog post about syllables and to print out your own copy of this syllable poster.
Comprehension Strategies
Reading comprehension becomes very important for students in third grade and beyond. Now that students are in third grade, there is a shift in expectations of them from learning to read to reading to learn. This means that students read more independently across the subject areas and are reading to gain knowledge and understanding of many topics and different genres. Throughout this year, I will be teaching students how and when to use the 6 strategies below to develop and deepen their comprehension of what they read.
Comprehension Topics
Main Idea
The main idea is the most important idea in the book. It is what the book is mostly about. Being able to identify the main idea of a nonfiction text is an important skill for third graders to learn. During reading groups, I will guide students in learning how to identify the main idea by using the handout to the left. Students follow the steps listed on this handout to help them determine the main idea.
Author's Purpose
Being aware of the author's purpose is a good comprehension skill to have because it deepens your understanding of what you read. The author's purpose is the reason why the author wrote the book. The acronym P.I.E. helps students remember the three main author's purposes.
The acronym P.I.E. stands for...
Persuade
Inform
Entertain
Refer to the handout to the left when talking about the author's purpose with your child at home.
Text Structure
Text structure is how the author organizes the information found in a nonfiction, or informational, book. Examples of text structure include problem and solution, compare and contrast, cause and effect, description, and sequence. When reading informational books, I teach students how to recognize the different types of text structure and how to use graphic organizers to show these text structures found in the books that they read.