Third grade literacy instruction seeks to deepen students’ understanding and use of comprehension strategies like making connections and inferences, identifying important information, summarizing, and synthesizing what they read. In writing, they move beyond writing about themselves and begin to write in multiple genres, with a variety of audiences, for varied purposes. Teachers and students in third grade work to grow students’ vocabulary and other language arts skills through focused reading experiences, meaningful writing activities, and opportunities to enrich and explain their thinking through listening and speaking. Every day, teachers and students engage in differentiated guided reading opportunities, and shared reading and writing activities connected by essential questions to content area topics.