3rd Grade English/Language Arts

Our 3rd graders continue their literacy development through a balanced integration of reading, writing, word study, listening and speaking. Reading instruction shifts the focus from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” The language arts program encourages and empowers each student to discover themselves as readers and writers.

Both in whole-class and small-group activities, concepts, skills and strategies are modeled for students to practice in their own reading. Strategies and skills include:

• Building reading stamina
• Decoding and using context clues to understand familiar words
• Reading with fluency and expression
• Asking open-ended questions
• Making predictions, inferences, and connections
• Synthesizing information collected from nonfiction texts

In writing, students work through the writing process to brainstorm, plan, draft, revise, edit, and publish their work. Writer’s Workshop projects include personal narratives, persuasive essays, reviews, poetry, fiction, and research writing, journal entries, letters, and responses to literature. Word study builds spelling skills, vocabulary, and ability to decode multisyllabic words. Decoding includes identifying and using spelling patterns in the English language and distinguishing the meanings of words and their parts (e.g., bi-cycle).