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3rd Grade SMARTS in Language Arts
Home Education Edition
Program OverviewProgram OverviewProgram OverviewProgram Overview
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Please Note: for the ease of written instructions the home educator will be referred to as the teacher and the student will be referred to using the pronouns he or him.
Novel studies are a great way to develop the love of reading in your child and to help him
develop comprehension and fluency skills. In a novel, a child can explore other people’s
experiences and with support learn to uncover the themes.
This program contains three novel studies. Lessons are usually taught once every five days.
Novel Studies • Jigsaw Jones Mystery #1: The Case of Hermie the Missing Hamster by James Preller
Reading level is Grade 3.2
• Louis Braille by Margaret Davidson Reading level is Grade 4.2
• The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman Reading level is Grade 4.0
• Reading Levels can be checked through the Scholastic Book Wizard on the internet.
Reading Skills Taught in Novel Study Lessons: • Motive (what a character wants or needs.)
• Linking character motives to their actions
• Predicting outcomes and drawing conclusions
• Inferencing emotions
• Noticing details
Novel Study Suggestions: • If your child has already studied these novels OR you would like to make different
choices, simply select your own novel and replace the weekly novel study questions
with your own novel study lessons.
1. Fictional
Reading Instruction
Overview of 3rd Grade SMARTS in Language Arts
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One out of every five lessons is set aside for silent reading. The objectives for this time are:
• To give your child a regular opportunity of reading at their own levels for enjoyment and
interest.
• To provide opportunity for your child to develop and practice the skills of self-monitoring vo-
cabulary, comprehension and identifying character motives.
• To provide time for the teacher to listen to his child read aloud privately and to interview him
about the content of his books. Watch to see that your child does not select books that are
either too difficult or too easy. Check reading levels on Scholastic Book Wizard.
Self-Monitoring • Good readers ask themselves questions about anything that doesn’t make sense to them.
• Developing better understanding (comprehension) means taking note of new words, ideas, con-
cepts and finding out what they mean.
• Sometimes context can be used to figure out these meanings. Other times your child will
need to ask an adult.
• Self-monitoring involves persisting until things makes sense. Many times a child brings a com-
prehension question to the teacher’s attention that is vague such as, “I don’t understand.”
In order to teach the child to self-monitor, ask him to be specific by phrasing his question
using one of the selections below. This requires the child to take responsibility for his under-
standing.
Self-Monitoring Questions include: 1. Who? *asks for animal/person
2. Why? *asks for a reason
3. How? *asks for method/instruction/order/steps
4. Where? *asks for a place
5. When? *asks for time/season/time period
6. What? *object *size *colour *number *shape *age
*description *unfamiliar vocabulary
7. What happened? *story action
Verbs and Comprehension A wide verb vocabulary is important for comprehending story action, following instructions, under-
standing methods and grasping persuasive arguments.
2. Silent Reading
Novel Interview
Questions: • Who are the most
important characters?
• What do they want or
need?
• How do they try to get
it and do they suc-
ceed?
• What tries to prevent
them from getting
what they want or
need?
Novel summaries are avail-
able through many sources
on the web. If you aren’t
sure about a child’s explana-
tions, find a book summary
online to verify his answers.
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Magazines are a great way to engage your child in learning about the world around him
while simultaneously teaching him how to navigate non-fiction texts. Did you know that
from kindergarten through 3rd grade children read approximately eighty percent fiction
and twenty percent non-fiction? Then, from 4th grade on, children read about eighty per-
cent non-fiction and only twenty percent fiction. Close to one out of every five lessons is
set aside for non-fiction reading instruction.
Non-fiction Content: • Vocabulary is dense with unfamiliar terms which require explicit definitions in order
to comprehend the rest of the text.
• Discussions explaining new terms are a necessary part of scaffolding a child’s ability
to understand non-fiction text.
• Teaching through magazine articles is a great way to introduce your child to the
wide variety of article formats which exist while tapping into his interests. Magazine Text Organization • Magazine text organization is complex when compared to the organization of a novel.
Navigation requires knowing how a magazine is organized and where to find each
part. The lessons in this book provide an opportunity for your child to distinguish be-
tween articles and advertising. Your child will learn how to locate the beginning and
end of articles which have been split into parts. Being able to navigate magazines will
make it easier to later read and understand factual content found on websites and in
textbooks.
3. Non-Fiction
Reading Instruction
Exploring Magazines
Magazine Text Organization
1. Cover
2. Table of Contents
3. Letter from the Editor
4. Editorial Team
5. Body of the Magazine
5. Back Page Advertising
Types of Articles
1. Persuasive Articles
2. Recipes
3. Ask the Experts
4. Anecdotal Articles
5. Do It Yourself Projects (DIY)
6. Informational Articles
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Your child will learn how non-fiction text books are organized through the process of
reading and answering questions from a mini-textbook called The Fantastic World of
Frogs. This textbook will also be used for writing a research report on frogs.
Non-fiction Textbooks: • Vocabulary is dense with unfamiliar terms which require explicit definitions in
order to comprehend the rest of the text.
• Discussions explaining new terms are a necessary part of scaffolding a child’s
ability to understand non-fiction text.
Textbook Organization:
4. Non-Fiction
Reading Instruction
The Fantastic World of Frogs
1. Cover (picture, title, author)
2. Title Page
3. Copyright Page
4. Table of Contents
5. Index
6. Headings
7. Subheadings
8. Sketches
9. Diagrams (show steps
10. Photographs with Text
13. Bold Print
14. Key Words
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Between two and three times a week, five minutes is set aside for
you to read a novel aloud to your child. This activity develops the
joy of reading in your child and builds his comprehension. It is a
wonderful way to connect with your child and broaden his reading
interests.
Twice a week there is a short handwriting lesson. The first purpose of this is to teach
your child how to handwrite individual upper and lower case letters. The second purpose
is to teach students how to read handwriting.
There are five different types of spelling activities.
• Sight Words
Sight words are the most commonly used words in English and make up between
sixty and seventy percent of most written texts. It stands to reason then that sight
words also make up between sixty and seventy percent of the words children write.
Often sight words do not follow phonetic rules and cannot be sounded out. Memo-
rizing them correctly takes time, but is well worth it. Your child will practice sight
words through finding them in a word search and employing them in a sentence
afterwards.
• Homonyms
Homonyms are words which sound alike but are spelled differently and have differ-
ent meanings. Your child will match homonyms to their meanings.
• Compound Words
Compound words are two words joined together to form a new word with a new
meaning. Your child will match two words correctly and then write the new word
5. Read-aloud
Novel Time
• Develops love of
reading
• Builds vocabulary
• Increase child’s
understanding
6. Handwriting
7. Spelling Practice
• Spelling activities are
not a test. Your child
will practice what he is
learning. In this way
he can master skills
without pressure.
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• Suffixes
A suffix is added to the end of a word which can change it from singular to plural
(city to cities) . Sometimes it changes adjectives to adverbs (happy to happily) and
sometimes it slightly alters a word’s meaning (politics to politician).
In this activity your child will match prefixes to roots in order to create new words,
Next, he will read their definitions. This activity builds both spelling and vocabulary
which in turn is a tool for developing stronger comprehension skills.
• Phonetic Spelling
Short vowels, long vowels with silent e and long vowels with two vowels together are
reviewed in word analysis exercises. Word key exercises (two letters which work
together to form a new or single sound) review the rest of the digraphs and
diphthongs. Your child will apply phonetic spelling rules by locating the errors in a
list of spelling words made by the teacher and fixing them. Being able to apply
phonetic rules helps lay the foundation for a proper written vocabulary which will
save your child time in all his writing lessons.
Punctuating and capitalizing written work correctly requires mastering and applying cer-
tain rules. Learning them makes the writing process in all subject areas simpler. There
are two types of exercises in the lessons.
• Punctuation and Capitalization Practice
In these short single sentence or short paragraph exercises, your child add in
missing punctuation and capital letters.
• Quotation Marks and Capital Letters Practice
In these exercises, your child will apply quotation marks before and after a speaker.
The speaker makes a statement which tells, asks or exclaims. This gives the student
practice in the complex punctuation of quotation marks together with commas,
periods, question marks and exclamation marks. Additionally, your child will learn to
capitalize names, months and days of the week.
Spelling continued
8. Punctuation &
Capitalization
Practice
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• Learning to use a dictionary is a complex challenge. Simple dictionary exercises will
help your student practice alphabetizing words and understand guide words.
• Grammar exercises help solidify student’s understanding of sentence structure and
subject/verb agreement.
Locating books in a library for pleasure or for research requires knowing how a library is
organized. This year your child will learn how to find fiction books for silent reading.
• The Dewey Decimal System for fiction
There is a vast spectrum of writing forms children are expected to master ranging from
poetry to research reports. Solid written skills are necessary in most subjects, because
the further children progress in school, the more they are expected to write. Learning
to enjoy writing and to do it well is a lifetime journey. These writing lessons have been
scaffolded to make them easy for the teacher to implement and the child to succeed.
Inspiring a child to write well is necessary for the development of creativity and versatil-
ity.
Poetry is a great way to explore the beauty of language. It draws attention to different
forms and focuses on vocabulary and sensory imagery.
Your student will explore and write the following types of poems:
• five sense poem
• acrostic poem
• three rhyming poems (aabb, abab formats)
• poem with similes
• cinquain poem with alliteration
9. Dictionary Skills
and Grammar
10. Library Skills
11. Writing
a. Poetry
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Five sentence descriptive paragraphs are a powerful way to transform your child’s writing.
These paragraphs focus on teaching a child how to vary his sentence starters, broaden his
verb vocabularies and incorporate sensory imagery. Teacher modelling, along with sentence
by sentence vocabulary support, makes these lessons fun to teach and write. The sentence
starters are based on the question words. They are as follows:
What *number *size *shape *colour *description
When *words or phrases showing passage of time such as “All of a sudden”
How *ly words (adverbs like slowly) *ing verbs (participles like skipping) Where *prepositions
Who *titles *names *synonyms (e.g. the eight-legged insect instead of spider)
Your child will write an animal report on frogs.
Skills developed through the research report are: • Learning that outlines are useful for organizing ideas.
• Using the table of contents from the non-fiction book The Fantastic World of Frogs
to locate facts.
• Taking notes from a non-fiction source (The Fantastic World of Frogs).
• Writing a report which includes: cover, table of contents, introduction, tadpoles,
metamorphosis, habitat, locomotion diet, enemies, defense, frogs’ life cycle, conclu-
sion and bibliography.
• Assembling and editing report.
IMPORTANT: The reproducible book called The Fantastic World of Frogs is located at
the end of the student binder behind one of the tabs. Photocopy the book single-sided,
cut in half and staple in order.
b. Descriptive
Paragraphs
c. Research Report
on Frogs
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Skills developed through writing the fractured folk tale are: • Learning strategies authors use to retell folk and fairy tales such as:
changing the setting or time period, changing the characters to animals,
flipping the hero and villain’s roles, or switching the gender of the main character.
• Creating a fractured folk tale story map of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”.
• Following instructions.
• Applying author language from vocabulary dictionaries.
• Writing a story which retells “The Emperor’s New Clothes” using a new setting with
different characters.
• Compiling and editing completed story.
Skills developed through writing the copycat story project are: • Creating a copycat story map.
• Following instructions.
• Developing written fluency.
• Applying quotation marks to dialogue.
• Writing a story which includes: setting, two main characters, motives, an encounter,
one disaster and an ending in which one of the main characters learns to stop copy-
ing and be himself.
• Applying author language by using “showing”, sensory imagery and onomatopoeia.
• Compiling and editing completed story.
d. Fractured Folk
Tale Writing
The Emperor’s New Clothes
e. Copycat
Story Writing
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IMPORTANT: The reproducible assessment checklists are located at the end of the
student binder behind one of the tabs. These include:
• fiction reading skills
• non-fiction reading skills
• frog report
• paragraphs
• poetry
• punctuation and capitalization
• dictionary and grammar skills
• spelling skills
• handwriting
• story writing
12. Assessment
Checklists
• organizational skills
• class participation
• social interactions
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