Third Grade Reading
Reading is a meaning-making process that requires the synthesis of skills to effectively communicate. Students are immersed in daily opportunities to explore, inquire, practice and apply reading strategies and skills in a variety of genres to advance toward grade level reading in addition to becoming self-motivated readers. They will learn how to effectively use before, during, and after-reading strategies, build vocabulary, improve fluency, and select their own independent reading texts in order to become more informed citizens. Students will independently use their learning to grapple with increasingly complex texts from a variety of genres and time periods to gain a reservoir of literary and cultural knowledge.
The third-grade units are written to support the crucial transition children make from learning to read to reading to learn. The opening unit, Building a Reading Life, launches students’ lives as upper elementary school readers. Children ramp up their reading skills by immersing themselves in within-reach fiction books while working on word solving, vocabulary development, and more. The second unit, Reading to Learn: Grasping Main Ideas and Text Structures, addresses essential skills for reading expository nonfiction, such as ascertaining main ideas, recognizing text infrastructure, comparing texts, and thinking critically, as well as the skills for reading narrative nonfiction, such as determining importance by using knowledge of story structure. The third unit, Character Studies, lures children into fiction books, teaching them to closely observe characters and sharpen their skills in interpretation. The final unit, Research Clubs: Elephants, Penguins, and Frogs, Oh My!, shows youngsters how to turn to texts as their teachers. Children work in clubs to gather, synthesize, and organize information about animals, and then use this information to seek solutions to real-world problems.
Grade Level(s): Third Grade
- How do I know when I am stuck?
- How do I figure out why I am stuck?
- How do I purposefully apply effective strategies to help comprehend?
- How do I motivate myself to read complex text?
- Why am I reading? For what purpose?
- How has my thinking changed?
- How can I transfer the strategies to real life experiences?
Enduring Understandings/Big Ideas
Students will understand that:
- Reading is a meaning making process that requires application of self-monitoring strategies to deepen the level of comprehension.
- Self-directed reading leads to character and knowledge development.
- Reading helps a reader extend and deepen their knowledge.
- Reading develops critical thinking skills to evaluate reasoning.
- Reading provides insights into the human condition.
Course-Level Scope & Sequence (Units &/or Skills)
- Unit 1: Building a Reading Life
- Unit 2: Reading to Learn
- Unit 3: Character Studies
- Unit 4: Teaching for Transfer & Research Clubs
* The above adjustments to scope and sequence are pending Board approval on August 22, 2022.
Course Resources & Materials
- Units of Study for Teaching Reading: A Workshop Curriculum
- Sonday System Essentials
- Heggerty Phonemic Awareness
Date Last Revised/Approved: 2014