Grade 3 English Language Arts: how to help at home
What your child learns in Grade 3 english language arts in the Newfoundland and Labrador Curriculum, and simple things to try at home.
The Big Ideas this year
- Speaking and listening: explore and reflect. Students will speak and listen to explore, extend, clarify, and reflect on their thoughts, ideas, feelings, and experiences.
- Speaking and listening: communicate. Students will be able to communicate information and ideas effectively and clearly, and to respond personally and critically.
- Speaking and listening: interact with respect. Students will be able to interact with sensitivity and respect, considering the situation, audience, and purpose.
- Reading and viewing: select and read. Students will be able to select, read, and view with understanding a range of literature, information, media, and visual texts.
- Reading and viewing: interpret and combine information. Students will be able to interpret, select, and combine information using a variety of strategies, resources, and technologies.
- Reading and viewing: respond personally. Students will be able to respond personally to a range of texts.
- Reading and viewing: respond critically. Students will be able to respond critically to a range of texts, applying their understanding of language, form, and genre.
- Writing and representing: explore and reflect. Students will be able to use writing and other ways of representing to explore, clarify, and reflect on their thoughts, feelings, experiences, and learning; and to use their imagination.
- Writing and representing: create texts. Students will be able to create texts collaboratively and independently, using a variety of forms for a range of audiences and purposes.
- Writing and representing: strategies. Students will be able to use a range of strategies to develop effective writing and other ways of representing and to enhance their clarity, precision, and effectiveness.
Easy ways to practise english language arts at home
- Take turns reading a page aloud, and chat about what happened and why.
- Keep a short journal, with one or two sentences a day to start.
- Hunt for a new word a day and use it at dinner.
- Ask for a prediction before turning the page: “What do you think happens next?”
What each unit covers
Read and Think
Reading short original stories and non-fiction passages, then finding the main idea, details and order of events, making inferences and working out word meanings from context.
Story Elements
Naming the characters, setting, problem and solution of a story, describing how characters feel and what they are like, and finding a story's lesson.
Word Jobs
Finding nouns (naming words), verbs (action words), adjectives (describing words) and adverbs (words that tell how) in sentences.
Punctuation Power
Choosing end marks, using commas in lists and dates, writing contractions and possessives with apostrophes, and putting quotation marks around speech.
Spelling Patterns
Spelling long vowel sounds with vowel teams (ai, ay, ee, ea, oa, ow, igh, ie) and adding -ed and -ing by doubling a letter, dropping a silent e or just adding the ending.
Prefixes & Suffixes
Learning what prefixes (un-, re-, pre-, dis-) and suffixes (-ful, -less, -er, -ly) mean, finding base words and using new words in sentences.
Word Pairs
Synonyms (words that mean the same), antonyms (opposites) and homophones (words that sound alike but are spelled differently, like their, there and they're).
Sentence Smarts
Telling statements, questions, exclamations and commands apart, spotting incomplete sentences and joining ideas with so, but, or and because.
Fact or Opinion?
Telling facts (which can be checked) from opinions (what someone thinks), and spotting opinion words like best and cutest.
ABC Order & Dictionary
Putting words in alphabetical order to the first, second and third letter, and using dictionary guide words to find the right page.
Reading Patterns
Spotting cause and effect and order of importance, deciding who is telling a story, making inferences from clues, and using an index.
Speaking & Listening
How a speaker's eyes, posture, gestures and movements help communicate, and what good listening looks like. Some families show respect in other ways, such as looking down, and the questions note this.
What the report card levels look like at home
- Not Yet Achieving
- Just getting started with this idea. Short, regular practice with lots of support helps most.
- Approaching
- Understands parts of it and is building confidence. Keep practising the tricky parts.
- Good
- Has it! Mixed review now and then keeps it strong.
- Excellent
- Applies it confidently, even in new or harder situations. Try challenge mode and real-life problems.
Your child’s teacher decides the level on the report card. Read the Newfoundland and Labrador report card guide.
Common questions
Take turns reading a page aloud, and chat about what happened and why. Keep a short journal, with one or two sentences a day to start. Keep sessions short, about 10 to 15 minutes, and stop on a success.
The Newfoundland and Labrador Curriculum Grade 3 english language arts units include read and think, story elements, word jobs, punctuation power, spelling patterns, prefixes & suffixes.
Free printable Grade 3 english language arts practice sheet
Questions from every unit, with an answer key.