3rd Grade Reading Activities

Reading experts have identified 5 different skills or areas that make up the ability to read. These areas are:

  • Comprehension – the ability to understand and gain meaning from what has been read
  • Phonics – an understanding that there is a relationship between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language
  • Phonemic Awareness – the ability to hear, identify, and play with individual sounds – or phonemes – in spoken words.
  • Vocabulary – the knowledge of words students must have to communicate effectively
  • Fluency – the capacity to read text accurately and quickly

Here are home learning ideas for you to try in each of these areas of reading! Click on the area of interest and discover activities for you to do at home!

Comprehension – the ability to understand and gain meaning from what has been read

Activities to develop reading comprehension:

  • Read to and with your child every day! Take turns reading. You read a sentence, a paragraph or a page and then have your child read. Stop and talk about what is being read. Ask questions that relate to your child’s experiences such as, “What do you think you would do?” “Has something like that ever happened to you?” “What will happen next?” “Can a frog really become a prince?”
  • Read chapter books that continue from day to day. Stop reading aloud at exciting points in the story so there is excitement in returning to the story.
  • Listen to your child read books from school. Reread familiar books.
  • When a word is miss-read, encourage child to break the word apart and sound it out. Reread after sounding it out. Ask your child if the word makes sense with the sentence. Have your child notice the pictures for clues in reading a difficult word. Reread the whole sentence.
  • Allow free reading at comfort level for your child.
  • Ask what problems are in the story. Let them guess how they may be solved. Tell your child a story with problems and let them come up with a solution.
  • Read books, stories and poems aloud to your child that are above his/her reading level. Stop reading aloud at exciting points in the story. Ask what problems are in the story. Ask what might happen next as reading. Let them guess how the book or story may end. Tell your child a story with problems and let them come up with a solution.
  • Build reading comprehension. Talk with your child about what he or she is reading or listening to. Ask about new words. Talk about what happened in a story. Ask about the characters, places, and events that took place. Ask them what they think will happen next or what they hope will happen next. Ask them what they think they would do if they were in the story. Ask what new information he or she has learned from the book.
  • Ask where the characters are in the story. (the setting – in a castle or on a farm) Ask your child to tell what a place in the story looks like. Ask questions that help him/her tell about what the words make him/her see.
  • Ask your child about the characters. Ask which characters your child likes and why. Have your child guess what the characters will do to solve the problems in the story. Ask if anything has happened to him/her like has happened to the characters in the story. Help your child give the characters family members or friend’s faces or the faces of movie stars they know.
  • Stop and ask about the pictures and about what is happening in the story. Ask before, during and after reading. Ask your child’s opinion of the story and what is happening in the story.
  • Read from a variety of children’s books, including fairy tales, song books, poems and information books.
  • Notice what events in the story cause a certain outcome. Discuss with your child what has been the cause of certain events in his or her life. Be aware of cause and effect as you go through your daily routines. (Because I brush my teeth I usually get a good report at a dental check-up) When I watch too much TV, I feel tired and bored.
  • Have your child notice how an author has described a character or a setting in a story. Ask your child to describe his or her room or other familiar areas. Have your child describe things they see outside.
  • Have your child compare and contrast familiar things in their daily life such as what foods they have to eat that day. Ask your child to notice how an author compares and contrasts characters or settings or plot in a story.
  • Have your child re-tell the events of an happening during the day to a family member.
  • After reading a story several time ask your child to re-tell the story in correct order of events.
  • When reading aloud to your child or when your child is reading a book, ask him or her about the characters or where the story takes place or what is happening in the story or what he or she is learning from the story.
  • When reading ask your child if they would like to experience what the characters are experiencing in the story. Ask them if anything like happened to the characters has ever happened to them. Ask them about the setting and if they have ever seen a place like it or if they know of such a place. Have your child discuss and compare the differences between various places in his or her life, such as home, or Grandma’s home, or the movie theater, or church or the library.
  • Practice using the parts of a book to gain information about the book without reading the whole book.
  • Demonstrate to your child how helpful and fun information books are.
  • Ask questions and play a book scavenger hunt. Have three or four books available, both fiction and informational books and ask questions that would come from the various parts of the books and the first person who can find an answer wins a snack and you keep on playing until all the questions are answered or the snacks are gone.
  • Examine various types of information books.
  • Talk to your child about the pictures they make in the mind that relate to the book they are reading.
  • Find out what interests your child and then demonstrate finding information about that subject from various different resources such as encyclopedias, or the internet or atlases or indexes.
  • Using a topic of natural interest to your child and fine information and show your child how to organize that information in such a manner that they are stimulated to find out more. Children are naturally curious and will what more details if they are stimulated to do so.
  • Keep a card catalogue with the names of resources and what the child discovered about various subjects from those resources.
  • Play “Can you find out” games. Set a few resources as the place to discover various bits of information.
  • Read informational books together. Demonstrate how information can be marked to be retrieved later.
  • Help your child pick out the ‘important’ parts of a book and either place a sticky note there or mark in some way.
  • Study informational books together noticing the helpful parts of the book in finding out information without reading the whole book.
  • Demonstrate using parts of a book such as the table of contents, the index, or the glossary.
  • Demonstrate how to use the aids in the books to help find information. Make up questions that can be found in a couple of books. Ask your child to find the answers using the tools in the book.

Phonemic Awareness – the ability to hear, identify, and play with individual sounds – or phonemes – in spoken words.

Activities to Develop Phonemic Awareness

  • Listen for, point out, and discuss the sounds of spoken language. Say the sounds of common words slowly so your child can hear those sounds. Make a fun game of it. “Let’s listen: “food” hmmm I hear a ‘f’ ‘oo’ and a ‘d’.
  • Read many poems and children’s verses. Discuss how words can sound alike and make the reading and the poem more fun. Practice rhyming words for fun during daily activities.

Vocabulary – the knowledge of words students must have to communicate effectively

Activities to Develop Vocabulary and Oral Language Vocabulary

  • Read, look at, or talk about a variety of books and stories such as fairy tales, song books, poems, and informational books.
  • Ask your child to tell what thing look like in his/her environment. Visit the library often. Make checking out books a fun adventure and part of your routines like watching a movie on Friday night – every Saturday we ‘get’ to check out books from the library. Let your child see you look forward to checking out books from the library for yourself.
  • Ask your child about the characters. Ask which characters your child likes and why. Have your child guess what the characters will do to solve the problems in the story. Ask if anything has happened to him/her like has happened to the characters in the story. Help your child give the characters family members or friend’s faces or the faces of movie stars they know.
  • Ask where the characters are in the story. (the setting – ‘in a castle’ or ‘on a farm’) Ask your child to tell you what a place in the story looks like. Ask questions about the words and what they make him/her see in their imagination. Ask your child to use words to tell what something looks like in his/her environment. ( For example: Tell me what your bedroom looks like or describe it to me as if I have never seen it before or could not see it.)
  • Build vocabulary. Show interest in new words and share new word as a common practice.
  • Share conversations with your child over meal times and other times you are together. Your child learns words more easily when they hear them spoken often. Introduce new and interesting words at every opportunity. Ask, “Do you know what (a word that is appropriate to the situation) means?” Then tell them.
  • Talk to your child about the pictures they make in the mind that relate to the book they are reading.

Fluency – the capacity to read text accurately and quickly

Activities to Develop Fluency

  • Read to and with your child every day! Take turns reading. You read a sentence, a paragraph or a page and then have your child read. Stop and talk about what is being read. Ask questions that relate to your child’s experiences such as, “What do you think you would do?” “Has something like that ever happened to you?” “What will happen next?” “Can a frog really become a prince?”
  • Allow free reading at comfort level for your child.
  • Read books, stories and poems aloud to your child that are above his/her reading level. Stop reading aloud at exciting points in the story. Ask what problems are in the story. Ask what might happen next as reading. Let them guess how the book or story may end. Tell your child a story with problems and let them come up with a solution.
  • Read often so that recognizing words becomes easy and automatic.
  • Reread familiar books. Your child needs practice in reading comfortably and with expression using books they know.
  • Build reading accuracy. As your child is reading aloud, point out words he missed and help him read words correctly. Allow your child to attempt sounding out the word, and then break the word apart for them giving them the sounds and let them repeat the sounds slowly as they go together to make the word If you stop to focus on a word, have your child reread the whole sentence to be sure he or she understands the meaning.
  • Read from a variety of children’s books, including fairy tales, song books, poems and information books.

Phonics – an understanding that there is a relationship between the letters of written language and the sounds of spoken language

Activities to Develop Phonics

  • When a word is miss-read, encourage child to break the word apart and sound it out. Reread after sounding it out. Ask your child if the word makes sense with the sentence. Have your child notice the pictures for clues in reading a difficult word. Reread the whole sentence.
  • Throughout the day talk about words and the sounds they make. Take spoken words apart out loud such as ‘bath’ is ‘b’ ‘a’ ‘th’.
  • Listen for, point out, and discuss the sounds of spoken language. Say the sounds of common words slowly so your child can hear those sounds. Make a fun game of it. “Let’s listen: “food” hmmm I hear a ‘f’ ‘oo’ and a ‘d’.
  • Point out the letter-sound relationships your child is learning on labels, boxes, newspapers, magazines, and signs. On average children need about two years of instruction and constant reinforcement of letter-sound relationships to become good readers and spellers.
  • Help your child write the letter-sound relationships they know by using them in words, sentences, messages, and their own stories or letters.
  • Be aware of connecting sounds to letters to figure out the “code” of reading. Kids love secret codes.
  • When cooking or doing routine chores help your child take spoken words apart and put them together. Help your child separate the sounds in words, listen for beginning and ending sounds, and put separate sounds together by saying them very distinctly and carefully such as “fox – ‘f’ ‘o’ ‘x’” or “that – ‘th’ ‘a’ ‘t’”, etc.
  • Build reading accuracy. As your child is reading aloud, point out words he missed and help him read words correctly. Allow your child to attempt sounding out the word, and then break the word apart for them giving them the sounds and let them repeat the sounds slowly as they go together to make the word If you stop to focus on a word, have your child reread the whole sentence to be sure he or she understands the meaning.
  • Read many poems and children’s verses. Discuss how words can sound alike and make the reading and the poem more fun. Practice rhyming words for fun during daily activities.

Print Concepts and Writing

  • Practice writing the sounds that your child hears in a word.
  • Write and then read letters to family members.
  • Help your child write the letter-sound relationships they know by using them in words, sentences, messages, and their own stories or letters.
  • When reading a book where the print is large, point word by word as you read. This will help your child learn that the word he or she says is the word he or she sees.
  • Keep a card catalogue with the names of resources and what the child discovered about various subjects from those resources.
  • Have your child take notes after highlighting certain important information.
  • Help your child write down important information from a book (taking notes) or use a highlighting marker in books that belong to the child.

Motivation

  • Establish reading times that are a part of daily routine.
  • Ask your child to tell what thing look like in his/her environment. Visit the library often. Make checking out books a fun adventure and part of your routines like watching a movie on Friday night – every Saturday we ‘get’ to check out books from the library. Let your child see you look forward to checking out books from the library for yourself.
  • Model using your time for reading. Read while your child does writing or reading or artwork projects or homework.
  • Find out what interests your child and then demonstrate finding information about that subject from various different resources such as encyclopedias, or the internet or atlases or indexes.
  • Using a topic of natural interest to your child and fine information and show your child how to organize that information in such a manner that they are stimulated to find out more. Children are naturally curious and will what more details if they are stimulated to do so.