Language Arts is a very important focus of the third grade curriculum. Now that students can read, this is the year that we focus on “reading to learn.” We will spend a lot of time in the beginning of the year developing study skills in all areas: reading, spelling, math, science and social studies. Some of the most important strategies that we will be learning include the following:
Strategy 1: Making Connections
This strategy help students connect new information that they are reading about to what they already know about the topic. This can involve three things:
A. vocabulary necessary to understand the text
B. text structure – how the writing is organized
C. prior knowledge of the subject matter or topic
Strategy 2: Preview and Predict
Like making connections, this strategy helps students connect what they already know with what they are going to learn. It can also help propel their reading forward.
Strategy 3: Questioning
Like predicting, this helps students have a purpose for reading. You can read to answer teacher-given questions, student-produced questions about the text, or to verify predictions. Many times the best questions for encouraging the student to read further is an “I wonder…” question based on what they see in the pictures or what they have read so far.
Strategy 4: Visualizing
This strategy can be a powerful tool to help students understand and remember what they read, but they must be taught how to do it. I usually explain it as painting a picture on the big, blank movie screen in your mind. It requires the student to take what they know and put it together with what they are reading.
Strategy 5: Making Inferences
This is a little more difficult for students because they have to take what they know and what they have read and tell what they can conclude.
For example: Sally runs into her house after school crying. She has a hole in the knee of her jeans and her hands are all muddy. Her brother follows her into the house yelling, “It was an accident!” What probably happened? How do you know? How do Sally and her brother both feel? What might happen next?
Strategy 6: Determining Important Ideas
This strategy is rather difficult as well because it involves judging which events or information are important and which are not.
To support students in this:
1. Supporting readers in this area requires a lot of talking aloud about what is important and what is not really and explaining why. Use outlines, questions at the end of the chapter, etc. to help.
2. Taking notes on post-its is a good way for students to remember was important.
Strategy 7: Synthesize
This strategy is probably the most challenging because the student has to put all of the information together and make a judgment about it.
To support a student in this:
1. Talk together about what they can learn about life or the world after reading this. What was the theme? Help them to evaluate what the author says.
Strategy 8: Repair Understanding
This is the most important strategy of all. The goal of reading is to understand what you are reading and you need to know when this breaks down. Then you need to know what to do to repair it.
To support a student in doing this:
1. After each page or section, have the student tell back what they have read or ask them a question based on what they have read. If they are unable to do this, explain to them that the goal of reading is to make sense of the material and understand it.
2. Have the student try: rereading the material, reading on to see if it makes sense, stop and think, visualize, or point out the part he doesn’t understand and ask for help. The goal is to have them monitor this on their own and automatically try these strategies if understanding breaks down.
