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.
Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea.
Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.
Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-‐specific words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 3 topics or subject area.
Distinguish their own point of view from that of the authors of a text.
Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how key events occur).
Compare and contrast the most important points and key details presented in two texts on the same topic.
By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, 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 informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.
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.
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (come prepared, follow agreed upon rules, ask questions, explain thinking)
Determine the main ideas and supporting details of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, includes visually, quantitatively and orally
Speak in complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation in order to provide requested detail and clarification
Language
Form and use comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified
Use coordinating and subordinating conjunctions
Produce simple, compound and complex sentences
Use commas and quotation marks in dialogs
Use conventional spelling for high frequency and other studied words for adding suffixes to base words
Ensure subject-verb and pronoun- antecedent agreement
Distinguish the literal and nonliteral meanings of words and phrases in context
Identify real life connections between words and their use
Distinguish shades of meaning among related words that describe states of mind or degrees of certainty
Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate conversational, general academic, and domain specific words and phrases, including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships.