200 THIRD GRADE READING PASSAGES FOR NEXT YEAR! (Pssst... DEEP DISCOUNT)

There are just a few days left for this sale. Access a full year of Daily Common Core reading today. Follow the link to access more grade levels.

Now is an excellent time to start thinking about some of the resources you'll need for next year. Literacy and Math Ideas has PLENTY of year-end products and resources ready for immediate download!! In particular, we would like to remind you all about one of our best-selling resources. Literacy and Math Ideas has a FULL YEAR of reading passages specifically targeted for the 3rd grade!! Think about that for a second... That's 40 full weeks… 200 passages in all!!

These passages can be used as morning bell ringers, in class assignments or homework! The passages are also aligned to Common Core. Additionally, each passage has 2 comprehension related questions, a weekly checklist, and a different passage for each day of the week.

This resource is a BIG BENEFIT anyway you look at it! We have lowered the price for a limited time to allow all of you to LOCK IN EXTRA SAVINGS beyond the already incredible low price! You can lock in your savings NOW by getting this product as an instant download!

What topics do these passages cover?

With this product, your students will be exposed to a variety of topics including historical fiction, folktales, poetry, informational text, literature and more! This resource is sure to facilitate the critical reading foundation needed in the 3rd grade and beyond!

Get your copy today right here!

Fiction Passages That Are Organized By Guided Reading and Lexile Levels

Creating these leveled passages and the illustrations that accompany them was a great amount of fun.  Best of all, this resource makes differentiating instruction so much easier.

Click Here To Access This Document

Save hours of planning time.  The document contains two fiction passages as well as questions for each Lexile/guided reading level.  The questions are written at different levels of Bloom's Taxonomy to help students practice comprehension skills.  Follow the link to access this document and more guided reading levels.

Click Here To Access This Document

Strategies to Boost Reading Scores

I am sorry, but I must say the phrase. Common Core.  For some students, the Common Core Assessment is no big deal. For others, it causes frustration.  This blog post provides classroom tested strategies that have boosted the reading performance of below and on-level students.  Even better, the strategies take very little extra preparation.

Strategy 1:
Expose students to extra reading passages, and discuss them for just five minutes a day. 

Benefits
Students build vocabulary knowledge and tackle harder text with extra support.

What to Use:
Daily Common Core Reading Passages or Short passages from magazines.  Organize magazine articles by topic.  Discuss them for a few minutes a day.  Over time, students begin to learn vocabulary words and learn how to tackle harder text.  This is what I did everyday until I created Daily Common Core Reading.

Strategy 2:
Teach thematically.  When I first began teaching, I mostly focused on skills.  Week one we worked on main idea, week two we worked on inferences, etc.  After further research on theme based teaching, I decided to give it a try.  It works!  Even my lowest performing students that had previously struggled for years made great leaps.  I still teach these topics, but I do it now in the context of  a theme such as animal adaptations, how societies or communities change over time, etc.

Strategy 3:
Assess students on how well they apply reading strategies.  Students must explain how a specific passage is connected to an overall theme.  They must explain how ideas in a passage advance the author's main idea or the plot.  Often, students know they should apply strategies, but they do not always consistently use them.

Strategy 4:
Read higher grade level text to students, and encourage them to read specific types of texts.  As soon as I began to read to students (even my older ones), I was able to make them into believers.  I highly encourage using high-interest quick text.  You can use these short high interest stories or read Goosebumps to lower grade level students, Gary Paulson stories to intermediate grade levels, and odd but true stories to middle school students.  Gradually, shift students to reading magazines such as National Geographic for Kids, (selected articles) from the Economist (middle school students), etc. Students have to gradually read more complex text in order to grow as readers.

Strategy 5:
Make use of those dead periods in the day to double dose instruction.  The first ten minutes of the school day, the beginning of a class period, and even the end of the school day are good.  I take those times to give students targeted extra practice at their own levels. This is especially helpful if you have students that do not do read at home.  The extra 15 minutes of targeted reading (with progress charts) adds up and really helps.  

Daily Common Core Reading Passages

 

Boost Common Core Reading Scores
Common Core Reading

Using High-Interest Nonfiction Passages To Build Comprehension

The more students know about a topic, the more they tend to like it.  Students love reading fiction.  The tricky part is trying to get them to read informational text.

Doing something as easy as taking a nature hike might be enough to grab their interest.  I love nature and enjoy going into the field to experience nature before I write about it.

The pioneers and Native Americans made salads

using dandelion leaves.

I foraged for native plants that have been used throughout history for food.  I would not recommend doing this with a class, but teaching students an unusual fact about plants that are in their own backyards can spark interest in reading more about plants.

Black walnut seeds provide food for squirrels and other rodents.  They also are the home of maggots that
keep safe in the warm layer under the outer shell of this seed.

This is a picture of a wild plant called bloodroot.  It is an ephemeral.

Ephemerals are plants that bloom for just a few weeks out of the year.

They grow in early spring before larger plants are able to grow and 

compete with them for sunlight.

Click Here for Weird and Gross Passages

Free Close Reading Bookmarks

Students are beginning to learn more about close reading.  I created free bookmarks that students can use as a guide as they closely read text.Click Here To Access Them

Common Core Classic Literature Passages

Have you seen the list of literature stories that Common Core recommends students to read?  The Wizard of Oz, Little Women, and Oliver Twist are radically different from Maniac Magee and Diary of a Wimpy Kid books.  I created short passages that use the same dialects, syntax, and vocabulary as classic literature that was written over 100 years ago.  All of this is to bridge a gap between modern and classic literature.  Being able to read texts from different time periods is a focus of the Common Core Language Standards and Common Core Literature Standard RL.10. Reading registers and dialects is part of the Common Core Language Standards L.3.  The quick passages in this document can be used as assessments or as pretests. Multiple choice and close reading practice are both included.Click Here To Access It

The document contains four original and carefully constructed, short literature excerpts.   Close reading and multiple choice questions are both included.

**Free** Reading Level Conversion Chart

Can you believe that summer break is coming to a close.  Wow!  This summer really flew by. I am really excited about some of the blog posts that are cued to be released very soon. They include fun classroom ideas, freebies, and back to school giveaways.  Make sure to visit often over the next few weeks.  Before we get to all of those things, I wanted to share my leveling chart. This conversion chart provides equivalents for different leveling systems.  It contains the Lexile* , guided reading and grade comparison equivalents for levels for kindergarten to eighth grade.  Click the link to access this free file.Click Here

Grade 3 Common Core Interactive Reading Notebooks

If you have ever used interactive journals, you know how much fun they can be.  This Grade 3 Common Core Literature Notebook thoroughly covers all nine standards in the literature portion of Common Core.  It is such a fun way to review that students won't realize that they are learning.Click Here

This journal is unique because it includes a reading passage for EVERY literature standard, PLUS it includes reusable templates too.  There is no need to hunt for passages to match each standard.  A short passage that can fit right inside of a notebook has been included to make the transition to Common Core even easier.Click Here To Access It.

This is great for use as a lapbook too!

How to do a Close Reading (Free Video Tutorial)

This free video provides helpful strategies for doing a close reading of text.

Additional Close Reading Resources
Grades K-2 Click Here
Grades 3-5 Click Here
Grades 6-8 Click Here

Click Here For Weird and Gross Passages

Common Core Reading and Math Videos

Free Common Core reading and math videos are here!  Thank you for visiting Literacy and Math Ideas.  We have developed a series of helpful Common Core videos to make the transition to Common Core much easier. More videos are added frequently.  Visit our blog often and click the follow button for updates.CLICK HERE TO ACCESS VIDEOS

Inference Learning Center Games and Task Cards

Do you have students that read at different ability levels in your classroom but still need to teach inference skills?  This document contains inference task cards at TWO LEVELS.  Level A is for students reading at the 1st-2nd grade reading range.  Level B is for students reading at the 3rd-5th grade reading range.  Everything is aligned to ELA Common Core Standards RL.1 and RI.2.  Common Core resources for different ability levels all in one document!

The task cards are so thorough that they review the different types of inferences a student would make while reading.  This entire document is aligned to Common Core Standards RL.1 and RI.1.

The complete bundle includes 40 inference task cards at two levels, 2 inference learning centers, an inference chart, 3 inference worksheets, and answer keys!  Click on the link for more information.   Click Here

Grade 4 Daily Common Core Reading Weeks 1-20

These have been such a help for me with my students.  If you are looking for a way to teach the Common Core Reading Standards, expose students to informational text, realistic fiction, poetry, and plays and monitor student progress simultaneously, this document will be a huge help.  This document includes short reading passages and questions that can be completed in just five minutes a day.  A reading passage is included for each day of the school week.  Use the document as a bell ringer as students first enter the classroom while attendance is taken.  Use the document as an opening activity before starting a reading lesson.  Or, send home the document for use as nightly homework.  Click Here

Features Include:

*Realistic fiction,historical fiction, folktales, informational text, poetry, plays, and myths are all included so that students can review Common Core using a variety of genres of text.

*The standard is written next to each question to assist with progress monitoring.

*A checklist of all of the standards that were covered for the week are included at the end of Friday's lesson to help students keep track of standards that they have mastered.

*Many of the standards repeat across the week  and across the weeks to keep skills sharp.

*Nearly all 20 of the Common Core Literature and Informational Text Standards are covered to help students get acquainted and comfortable with the new Common Core Standards.

*A reading passage is included for each day of the school week.

Click Here

Grade 5 Common Core Reading Assessments, Worksheets, Rubrics, Graphic Organizers, Literacy Center Games, & More!

Would you believe me if I said that I eat, sleep, and breathe, writing?  I really love what I do because it allows me to combine my training as a writer with my training as a teacher.  Plus, it gives me a great reason to visit historical landmarks, speak to marine biologists, and collect ancient artifacts.  These resources were developed as a result of my deep passion for education.  The resources that you will find below were designed to make transitioning to the new Common Core Standards stress-free.

 (Brand New) 300+ Pages of Common Core Resources all Bundled Together (Common Core Task Cards, Common Core Rubrics, Common Core Reading Test Prep Activity Cards, Graphic Organizers & More)

Click Here

*****************Individual Resources****************

Daily Common Core Reading Practice in Five Minutes a Day

Click Here to Access It

Topical Common Core Worksheets

Click Here 

Click Here

Click Here

Click Here

(Follow the links to access even more bundles of worksheets)

Common Core Literacy Center Activity Cards

Click Here to Access Them

Common Core Informational Text Assessments

Click Here to Access Them

Common Core Rubrics and Task Cards
Click Here to Access Them

Common Core and Point of View Standards RL.6 and RI.6

It used to be that all students really needed to know about point of view was the difference between first-person and third-person.  All of this has now changed.  In fact, what students need to know about Common Core Standards RL.6 and RI.6 varies across grade levels.Click Here To Access Differentiated Point of View Task Cards

For the first time, fourth graders are introduced to the meaning of firsthand and secondhand account information.  Students must be able to distinguish the difference between the two as well as compare and contrast them.  This is the main focus of informational text standard RI.6.  Although students are introduced to the concept of first-person point of view (only at fourth grade level), they must extend this knowledge and be able to compare and contrast these points of view between different texts.

At fifth grade level, students need to be able to distinguish how a narrator's point of view influences how events are described (RL.6).  For informational text, fifth graders must be able to analyze different accounts of the same event.

Helpful Teaching Tips

• Have students use primary sources of information when they do research.  This gives them a great opportunity to compare different versions of the same events.  
• In small groups, have students discuss which types of resources are most useful in understanding history.  Is a historical diary entry better or would a historical map be more useful?  They can then think about how and why each account of information would differ.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Topical Common Core Point of View Worksheets Aligned to Specific Grade Levels

Click Here

Click Here

Self-Teaching Common Core Point of View Activity Cards (They Come With A Printable Box For Convenient Storage)

Click Here

Click Here

Click Here

free common core teaching resources point of view