Literacy concepts assessed in Third Grade include:

Reading Literature and Informational texts

Students demonstrate the ability to think about reading by

• Asking and answering questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.
• Recounting stories, including fables, folktales, and myths from diverse cultures; determining the central message, lesson, or moral and explaining how it is conveyed through key details in the text; determining the main idea of a text and recounting the key details and explaining how they support the main idea.
• Describing characters in a story and explaining how their actions contribute to the sequence of events; describing 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.
• Distinguishing their own point of view from that of the narrator, those of the characters, or of the author.
• Comparing and contrasting the themes, settings, and plots of stories written by the same author about the same or similar characters; comparing and contrasting the most important points and key details presented in two texts on the same topic.

Reading Foundational

Students demonstrate the mechanical skills of reading by

• Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
• Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension; accurately read grade-level text with purpose and understanding, using appropriate rate and expression.

Writing

Students compose ideas in the following genres

• Opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons.
• Informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.
• Narratives and other creative texts to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details and clear event sequences. 

Speak, Listen, Language

Students can

• Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions with diverse partners on grade 3 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.
• Ask and answer questions about information from a speaker, offering appropriate elaboration and detail.
• Report on a topic or text and avoid plagiarism by identifying sources, tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.
• Demonstrate command of grade-appropriate conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.
• Demonstrate command of grade-appropriate conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation and spelling when writing.
• Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on third grade reading and content.