What Your Third Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Third-Grade Education

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Language and Literature

Reading, Writing, and Your Third Grader

The best way to nurture your child’s reading and writing abilities is to provide rich literary experiences and find frequent and varied opportunities to work and play with language.

By the end of second grade, children have developed a reading vocabulary of familiar words and can decode the letter-sound patterns of many unfamiliar one- and two-syllable words. During third grade, as they increase their knowledge about words (including the concepts of syllables, prefixes, and suffixes), they put that knowledge to work, decoding unfamiliar multisyllabic words. If a child has not mastered the skill of decoding simple words, that practice should continue.

By third grade, the mental process of turning letters into sounds should be nearly automatic. This year, children focus more on meaning as they read. Their reading vocabulary expands tremendously, as does their ability to read longer and more complex literature. They read for information and begin to use nonfiction reference books like children’s dictionaries and encyclopedias. They learn the distinction between fiction and nonfiction, and they read and enjoy longer and more complicated “chapter books.”

In third grade, children continue to learn about language as they write it: identifying parts of speech, properly using punctuation, and recognizing sentence types. They begin to shape their own writing, understanding how paragraphs relate in a larger whole and exerting more control over vocabulary and structure.

Parents can do many things to help their children reach these new levels of understanding language:

·Read aloud to your child. While third graders are beginning to read on their own, they also still enjoy listening. Continue reading aloud, both fiction and nonfiction, even as your child becomes an independent reader.

·Have your child read aloud to you. Build your child’s ability to read independently by encouraging her to read poems and stories aloud. Encourage your child to change the inflection in her voice to mimic natural speaking patterns in dialogue or to emphasize a character’s emotions. 

·Visit the library with your child. Not only will visiting the library open up your child to a variety of books about different cultures and subjects, but it will also teach your child responsibility. Your child will learn to treat books with care and return them on time. 

·Encourage your child to write letters or keep a journal. Get your child excited about writing by challenging him to write letters to characters he has read about. After reading about Alice’s adventures, he might write a letter to Caterpillar about Caterpillar’s first impressions of Alice. Encourage your child to sound out words as he writes.

·Play word games with your child. Scrabble, Hangman, Boggle, and other popular games that involve spelling, word recognition, and vocabulary development combine fun with language facility.

·Find language wherever you go. Use road signs, advertising, magazines—the written word all around you—to keep your child thinking and talking about language.

·Support your child’s interests through reading. When your child shows an interest in something special—insects or baseball, Davy Crockett or ballet—go together to the library to find more to read on that subject or download e-books about those topics with your child and read the stories together.

The more a child reads and writes, the more fluent in language that child becomes. By using these strategies, you communicate the enjoyment of reading and writing and help build the foundation for learning that will last a lifetime. 

Suggested Resources

The American Heritage First Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin). Simple words, clear definitions, and ample visuals provide a helpful introduction to how a dictionary works.

E. D. Hirsch, Jr., A First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (Houghton Mifflin). Some entries may be difficult for a third grader, but this book can serve as a single-volume encyclopedia of American culture.

Macmillan Dictionary for Children (Simon & Schuster). This dictionary offers 35,000 expanded entries with easy-to-read pronunciations, synonym lists, and color illustrations.

The World Book Student Discovery Encyclopedia (World Book Inc.). This multivolume reference is structured like a standard encyclopedia but designed and written so third graders can look things up and read entries easily.

Amplify Education is the source for purchase of the Core Knowledge Language Arts program.

The Core Knowledge Language Arts program for grade 3 is available for free download from www.coreknowledge.org/ckia-files. These materials are designed to teach basic phonics, spelling, vocabulary development, reading comprehension, grammar, and composition skills. Visit http://eps.schoolspecialty.com.

Literature

Introduction

This selection of poetry, stories, and myths can be read aloud or, in many cases, read independently by third graders. We hope you’ll take it as a starting point in your search for more literature for your child to read and enjoy.

We have included both traditional and modern poetry. Poems can be silly, written for the sheer enjoyment of rhythm and rhyme, or they can be serious. Rhythm and rhyme make poetry the perfect literature for a third grader to memorize.

The stories selected here include classic folktales from many cultures and excerpts from great works of children’s literature. Some of them have been chosen as literary links to topics elsewhere in the book. In the case of book-length works, we can provide only short excerpts, hoping that you and your child will read the rest on your own.

This book continues the effort, begun in previous books, to share the wealth of classical mythology. Because third graders learn about ancient Rome, several myths were chosen to convey a sense of Roman history. Likewise, we offer some Norse mythology. Parents can coordinate readings about literature and history. Age-old myths also give parents the opportunity to discuss traditional virtues such as friendship, courage, and honesty.