Third Grade Resources

Word Part Detectives

Encourage your child to be a word detective by examining words in a text that have a prefix and/or a suffix added. Ask your child to write the word down and draw a square around the prefix, while chatting about what it means. Circle the suffix and discuss its meaning. How does the meaning of the word change when you remove the prefix or suffix?

Guess My Word

Before your child begins reading a text, choose several words that have more than one syllable. Write each syllable on index cards. Have your child read each syllable card and combine the syllables to make a multi-syllable word.

Example: fantastic

• Blazer Fresh: Word Wizards
• ABCYA: Submarine Spelling
• Scholastic: Short Circuits Affix Game

• Teaching Vocabulary through Conversations
• IES Recommendation 3: Blending Letters, Recognizing and Reading Words

Ask your child to read aloud. Make notes about your child’s ability to read words correctly. If your child reads multiple words incorrectly, focus on specific word reading strategies. Also, think about how your child’s reading sounds. Does it sound conversational?

Provide tips and reminders.

• I can stop at periods.

• I can pause at commas.

• I can change my voice when I read conversation and dialogue.

• I can use expression as I read.

• I can read in longer phrases.

• ABCYA: Out of Sight Words
• Blazer Fresh: Don't Read Like a Robot

• Home Reading Helper: Figuring Out New Words in Third Grade
• Home Reading Helpe: Coaching Fluency
• Understood: What Reading Fluency Looks Like in Third Grade
• IES: Practice Reading Out Loud Bookmark

Encourage your child to read at least 20 minutes in addition to school assignments. Read to and with your child. Make note of how your child responds when an unknown word is encountered. Remind your child to use strategies such as using context clues and dictionaries. Remind your child to use what is known about prefixes, suffixes, roots, and base words to figure out the meaning of unknown words.

Read picture books with your child and help your child to identify the various types of figurative language categories such as metaphors, similes, personification, hyperbole, and symbolism.

• The Bazillions: Prefix or Suffix
• Robo-Bee: Synonyms and Antonyms
• Room Recess: Context Clues

• Teaching Vocabulary through Conversations
• FCRR: Words in Context
• Read Write Think: Morpheme Match

Before Reading: Before reading, ask your child: What do you think this book will be about? Why do you think that? What characters do you think might be in this story?

During Reading: Who is the main character? What do you think will happen next? How do you think the character will handle this situation?

After Reading: In your own words, tell me the most important things you read today in order of how they happened.

Encourage your child to be word aware while reading. Have your child create an interactive vocabulary notebook while reading. He or she can add unknown words and words that help him or her understand the text. Ask your child to use reference tools to find the meaning of unknown words.

Provide and encourage your child to read books by the same author. These may be books in a series like the Cam Jansen series by David Adler. Help your child determine how the books characters, themes, settings, and plots are similar and how they are different.

* How are the versions the same?

* How did the theme/setting/plot of the different stories stay the same? What is different?

• WPSU: Question Cube
• Starfall: Folktales, Myths, and Fables
• How to Retell a Story
• Room Recess: Vocab Vik
• How to Retell a Story

• Comprehension of Fiction
• Reading Rockets: Read Alouds for Third Grade
• FCRR: Story Elements Web
• Understood: Building Vocabulary for Kids
• IES: Monitoring for Understanding Bookmark
• FCRR: Compare a Story

Ask your child what they would like to explore. Utilize the public library. Ask the librarian to help find books on the topic(s) of interest to your child.

Create-a-Quiz

Ask your child to read an informational text aloud. Have your child create a list of quiz questions to ask classmates if they read the same book.

Main Idea Bubble 

Ask what one word was repeated throughout the text to determine the topic. Make a main idea and detail bubble web. Use words or pictures to fill in the bubbles.

While engaging with nonfiction text, encourage your child to notice how text features such as the table of contents, headings, maps, and photographs aid in understanding the text. Ask your child to notice features that help in locating information quickly, such as key words, sidebars and hyperlinks. Ask your child to read two texts on a topic of interest. While reading, ask your child to notice how the texts are alike and how they are different. You may ask your child to complete a thinking map to show similarities and differences.

• WPSU: Main Idea Hamburger Game
• Nat Geo Kids: eBooks

• How Third Graders Show They're Learning from What They Read
• IES: Summarizing Bookmark
• Comprehension of Informational Text
• How Third Graders Figure Out the Meaning of New Words
• Reading Rockets: Comparison Text Structure
• Reading Rockets: Comparison Poster
• FCRR: Compare and Contrast

Remind your child that good conversations include the following:

• Listening and taking turns

• Speaking clearly

• Speaking in complete sentences

• Interacting person to person and not interrupting

Read a book to your child or have your child read a book to you. Talk with your child about the book.

• Tell me about the book.

• Tell me about your favorite part of the book and why.

• Tell me about your favorite character and why

• PBS Kids Shows Conversation Cards
• Scholastic: School Day Conversation Cards
• IES: Summarize a Story
• IES Recommendation 1: Developing Language
• Strategies for Supporting Speech and Language

Here are some suggestions that engage your child in the writing process:

• Have your child write instructions for taking care of the family pet. These will be useful as you plan your vacations!

• Write a letter or thank you note to a relative. Talk through what your child wants to say before writing begins.

• Make a shopping list before going to the grocery store.

• Write an online review of a book or an item you recently purchased (www.amazon.com) or a recipe you tried (www.allrecipes.com).

• Talk about the presidential election and write a description of the kind of president you want.

• Find a picture in the newspaper and write an article to accompany it.

• Helping Your Child with Writing
• Understood: What Third Grade Writing Looks Like
• Scholastic: Story Starters
• PBS Learning Media: Family Stories