3rd Grade English & Reading

Phonological awareness instruction includes lessons about manipulating sounds through isolating, segmenting, adding, deleting, substituting, and blending sounds.

Systematic and explicit phonics instruction occurs in both whole group and small group lessons. Students participate in multisensory instruction to build upon their knowledge of patterns and syllable types with a focus on reading and spelling multisyllabic words.

Vocabulary instruction is embedded across the curriculum, focusing on both spoken and written language. Instruction involves the intentional use and teaching of increasingly complex language and content specific vocabulary.  

Fluency instruction also occurs in a variety of settings throughout the school day, including whole group and small group lessons. Instruction incorporates read-alouds, partner reading and independent reading. Students work toward building accuracy, stamina, and automaticity.

Comprehension Instruction involves engagement with high interest text grounded in a variety of genres, cultures and perspectives. Additionally, it involves explicit teaching of important reading strategies and behaviors, teacher modeling, guided practice, and opportunities to apply new learning independently and in collaboration with peers.

Writing instruction in third grade involves direct, systematic instruction in responding to text and writing across a variety of genres. As writing in response to text becomes more complex, writing instruction emphasizes the incorporation of evidence to support a claim.  Third grade writers begin to use evidence from their readings to add detail and support their ideas across their writing.