3rd Grade ELA (Iowa Core)

Reading: Literature (RL)

• RL.3.1 Ask and answer questions to show understanding, pointing to the text as evidence.
• RL.3.2 Identify the central message or lesson of fables, folktales and myths from many cultures and explain how key details show it.
• RL.3.3 Describe characters' traits, motives and feelings and explain how their actions move the plot along.
• RL.3.4 Work out what words and phrases mean, telling literal from nonliteral language.
• RL.3.5 Use terms such as chapter, scene and stanza and explain how each part builds on earlier ones.
• RL.3.6 Compare one's own point of view with the narrator's or a character's.
• RL.3.7 Explain how illustrations add to the words of a story, e.g. by creating mood or stressing characters or settings.
• RL.3.9 Compare settings, plots and themes of stories by one author about the same or similar characters.
• RL.3.10 By the end of the year, read stories, drama and poetry at the top of the grades 2–3 range independently and proficiently.

Reading: Informational Text (RI)

• RI.3.1 Ask and answer questions, referring directly to the text for support.
• RI.3.2 Identify the main idea, recount key details and explain how they support it.
• RI.3.3 Describe how historical events, scientific ideas or technical steps relate, using language of time, sequence and cause and effect.
• RI.3.4 Work out the meaning of general academic and subject-specific words for a grade 3 topic.
• RI.3.5 Use text features and search tools such as keywords, sidebars and hyperlinks to find information quickly.
• RI.3.6 Compare one's own point of view with the author's.
• RI.3.7 Use information from pictures such as maps and photos and from words to show where, when, why and how key events happen.
• RI.3.8 Describe the logical links between sentences and paragraphs, such as comparison, cause and effect or sequence.
• RI.3.9 Compare the most important points and key details of two texts on the same topic.
• RI.3.10 By the end of the year, read informational texts at the top of the grades 2–3 range independently and proficiently.

Reading: Foundational Skills (RF)

• RF.3.3 Use grade-level phonics and word analysis to decode and spell words.
  • a. Know what the most common prefixes and derivational suffixes mean.
  • b. Decode and spell words with common Latin suffixes.
  • c. Decode and spell words of several syllables.
  • d. Read grade-level words with irregular spellings accurately and automatically.
• RF.3.4 Read accurately and fluently enough to support understanding.
  • a. Read texts at grade level with a clear purpose and real understanding.
  • b. Use decoding to self-correct, rereading when needed.
  • c. Read grade-level prose and poetry aloud accurately, at a suitable pace and with expression over repeated readings.

Writing Foundations (WF)

• WF.3.1 Write legibly for a range of tasks and purposes.
  • a. Form all capital and lowercase cursive letters efficiently and in proportion.
  • b. Produce cursive writing accurately and automatically.

Writing (W)

• W.3.1 Write opinion pieces that support a point of view with reasons.
  • a. Introduce the topic, state an opinion and organize the reasons.
  • b. Give reasons that support the opinion.
  • c. Use linking words to connect the opinion and reasons.
  • d. End with a concluding statement.
• W.3.2 Write informative pieces that explain a topic clearly.
  • a. Introduce the topic, group related information and add pictures when useful.
  • b. Build the topic with facts, definitions and details.
  • c. Use linking words to connect ideas within categories.
  • d. End with a concluding statement.
• W.3.3 Write narratives with effective technique, describing details and a clear order of events.
  • a. Set up a situation, introduce a narrator or characters and order events naturally.
  • b. Use dialogue and describe what characters do, think and feel.
  • c. Use time words to signal the order of events.
  • d. Give a sense of closure.
• W.3.4 With guidance, produce writing whose development and organization suit the task and purpose.
• W.3.5 With scaffolding, develop and strengthen writing by planning, revising and editing, using grade 3 conventions.
• W.3.6 With guidance, use keyboarding and technology to produce and publish writing and work with others.
• W.3.7 Do short research projects that grow knowledge of a topic.
• W.3.8 Recall or collect information from print and digital sources, take short notes and sort evidence into groups.
• W.3.10 Write regularly over short and extended time frames for a range of subject-specific tasks, purposes and audiences.

Speaking and Listening (SL)

• SL.3.1 Join group discussions about grade 3 topics and texts well, adding to what others say.
  • a. Come prepared, drawing on required reading and other knowledge.
  • b. Follow agreed rules, such as speaking one at a time and listening with care.
  • c. Ask relevant questions and link their comments to others' remarks.
  • d. Explain their own ideas in light of the discussion.
• SL.3.2 Pick out the key ideas and the details backing them in a read-aloud or media presentation.
• SL.3.3 Ask and answer questions about a speaker's information, adding elaboration and detail.
• SL.3.4 Report on a topic or tell a story or experience with facts and descriptive details, at a pace listeners can follow.
• SL.3.5 Make engaging audio recordings of stories or poems read fluently, adding visuals when useful.
• SL.3.6 Speak audibly in complete sentences, e.g. in dramatic readings or presentations.

Language (L)

• L.3.1 Show control of standard English grammar and usage in speech and writing.
  • a. Explain what nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs do, generally and in given sentences.
  • b. Form and use regular and irregular plurals.
  • c. Use abstract nouns.
  • d. Form and use regular and irregular verbs.
  • e. Form and use simple verb tenses.
  • f. Make subjects agree with verbs and pronouns with antecedents.
  • g. Form comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs and pick the right one.
  • h. Use coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.
  • i. Write simple, compound and complex sentences.
• L.3.2 Show control of capital letters, punctuation and spelling in writing.
  • a. Capitalize the right words in titles.
  • b. Use commas in addresses.
  • c. Punctuate dialogue with commas and quotation marks.
  • d. Form and use possessives.
  • e. Spell high-frequency and studied words correctly, including when adding suffixes.
  • f. Apply spelling patterns and rules, such as word families and syllable patterns, when writing.
  • g. Check spellings in simple dictionaries and other references.
• L.3.3 Use knowledge of language and conventions when writing, speaking, reading or listening.
  • a. Choose words and phrases for effect.
  • b. Notice and follow differences between spoken and written English.
• L.3.4 Figure out new and multiple-meaning words met in grade 3 reading and content, using several strategies.
  • a. Use the sentence as a clue to a word's meaning.
  • b. Find the meaning of a known word with a known affix added.
  • c. Use a known root as a clue to a new word with the same root.
  • d. Use glossaries or simple dictionaries to pin down key word meanings.
• L.3.5 Show understanding of how words relate and differ slightly in meaning.
  • a. Tell literal from nonliteral meanings in context.
  • b. Connect words to real life, e.g. describing friendly or helpful people.
  • c. Tell apart related words for states of mind or degrees of certainty.
• L.3.6 Learn and correctly use grade-level everyday, academic and subject words, including words for place and time.