Grade 3 Reading: goals and how we get there

A grade 3 reading student at Learn To Be does three things:

1. Reads fast and easily.
2. Works through the 3rd Grade Reading course, and reads real books about real things.
3. Reads a little every day (at home!).

The goals

By the end of grade 3, a student:

• Reads 133 words per minute out loud.
• Reads true books about real things and good stories every week.
• Still knows the 52 letters and the 300 common words from earlier grades instantly.
• Knows common word parts: prefixes like un-, re-, and pre-, suffixes like -tion, and root words. This is new this year. Word parts help a child read thousands of new words.

Grade 3 is the year kids stop learning to read and start reading to learn.

We are building flashcard decks for letters, common words, and vocabulary. Until then, practice them by reading out loud.

Reading speed

Reading speed is how many words a student reads correctly in 1 minute, out loud.

To check it: pick a book at your student's level. Time them reading out loud for 1 minute. Count the words they read correctly. Check at the start of the year, and again every few weeks.

The grade 3 target is 133. If your student is far below the target for their grade, find the grade they are ready for in this table and use that page.

The courses

3rd Grade Reading has 24 lessons. Each lesson is a short science or history passage to read and talk about together. This is the "read to learn" part.

• Do one or two lessons each session. Read the passage together, then talk about it.
• If the passages are too hard, use 2nd Grade Reading first.

If your student guesses at words or reads slowly, start with the Early Reading Program first, no matter the grade. It has 1,745 lessons and teaches phonics: how to sound out words. There is no placement test. To find where to start, skim forward through the lessons until your student stumbles. Start there. Its Tutor Toolkit, a card on the course page, has guidance for tutors.

The reading list

True topics

Read books and articles about these topics, and talk about them together. This is also your student's science and history.

• Classic Tales
• Animal Classification
• The Human Body: Systems and Senses
• Ancient Rome
• Light and Sound
• The Viking Age
• Astronomy
• Native Americans: Regions and Cultures
• Early Explorations of North America
• Colonial America
• Ecology

Stories to read aloud

The tutor mostly reads these out loud to the student. They help a child get used to the sound of good language.

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
• The BFG by Roald Dahl
• Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
• The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
• Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
• The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden
• The Trumpet of the Swan by E. B. White
• The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
• Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary
• Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume
• Freckle Juice by Judy Blume
• The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman

A typical session

1. Warm-up read-aloud, about 10 minutes. The student re-reads something familiar out loud. This builds speed and confidence.
2. Course lessons. This is the main part of the session. Do one or two 3rd Grade Reading lessons together. If your student is on the Early Reading Program, do those lessons instead. Do not move on until the student masters the lesson.
3. Real reading together. Read a book from the reading list. Read it together and talk about it.

Between sessions (at home)

Daily practice happens at home, not in your session. A little every day works better than a lot once a week.

Tell the parent:

"Every day, have your child sign in at learntobe.org and do their reading lessons. Then have them read out loud to you for 10 minutes from a book they can read easily. This is the one thing that helps most."

Show the parent and the student how to sign in and find the course during your first session.

Other resources

• IXL. If your student has an IXL account through our pilot, its diagnostic shows the grade level your student works at in English language arts. Use it as an extra check, not instead of the course. See How should tutors use IXL?

Related

• All grade goals