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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