Concepts and Skills: What Students Need to Know and Be able to Do
Reading
Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
Recount stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determine the central message, lesson, or moral and explain how it is conveyed through key details in the text.
Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events
Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language.
Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text, using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections.
Distinguish their own point of view from that of the narrator or those of the characters.
Explain how specific aspects of a text's illustrations contribute to what is conveyed by the words in a story (e.g., create mood, emphasize aspects of a character or setting).
Compare and contrast the themes, settings, and plots of stories written by the same author about the same or similar characters (e.g., in books from a series).
Comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poetry, at the high end of the grades 2–3 text complexity band independently and proficiently.
Writing Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
Speaking/Listening
Report on a topic, or text, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.
Language
Capitalize appropriate words and titles
Use commas in addresses
Consult reference materials including beginning dictionaries as needed to check and correct spellings
Use conventional spelling for high frequency and other studied words and for adding suffixes to base words
Use sentence level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase
Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word
Use glossaries or beginning dictionaries to determine or clarify the precise meaning of key words and phrases
Foundational Skills
Decode words with common Latin suffixes
Read grade appropriate irregularly spelled words
Read on level text with purpose and understanding
Read on level prose and poetry orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings
Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary