English Language Arts-3rd Grade

Catholic Standards for Writing

Writing Standards

Catholic Standards for Language

Language Standards

Catholic Standards for Speaking and Listening

Speaking and Listening Standards

Create written works that glorify the Creator, reflect the heart of the Redeemer and are inspired by the Spirit. 

Share well-crafted works, especially those with elements of unity, harmony, and radiance of form. CSDS4 

Write in ways to order our thoughts, align them with truth, and accurately express knowledge and feelings. CSWS2 

Text Types and Purposes 

Production and Distribution of Writing

Research to Build and Present Knowledge

Range of Writing

Exhibit an understanding that words are important to the Word.

Use language as a bridge for communication for the betterment of all involved. CSWS1

Use language to order our thoughts and to accurately express knowledge and feelings. CSWS2 

Conventions of Standard English

Knowledge of Language

Vocabulary Acquisition and Use

Listen attentively and display appropriate reverence during prayer time and in Church. 

Use language as a bridge for communication for the betterment of all involved. CSWS1 

Share beautifully told and well-crafted works, especially those with elements of unity, harmony, and radiance of form. CSDS4

Delight and wonder through reading aloud or listening to creative, sound, and healthy stories, and poems and plays. CSDS7 

Share the beauty and cadence of poetry for its impact on human sensibilities and formation of the soul. CSDS9 

Comprehension and Collaboration

Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas

CSIS2: Write how spiritual knowledge and truth are represented and communicated through fairy tales, fables, myths, parables, and stories. 

CSIS8: Write to develop personal judgment based on truth, goodness and virtue. 

CSIS14: Write to explore reasoning and intent. 

Write opinion pieces on topics or texts (including Catholic/religious topics), supporting a point of view with reasons. 

Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic (including but not limited to a Catholic topic) and convey ideas and information clearly.

Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.

With guidance and support from adults, produce writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task and purpose. 

With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing.

With guidance and support from adults, use traditional tools as well as technology to produce and publish writing (e.g., prayers, Catholic theme) as well as to interact and collaborate with others. 

Conduct short research projects that build knowledge about a topic. Reference sources. 

Recall information from experiences or gather information from print and digital sources; take brief notes on sources and sort evidence into provided categories. Reference sources.  

Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences. 

Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening

Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning word and phrases based on Grade 3 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.

Demonstrate understanding of word relationships and nuances in word meanings.

Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate conversational, general academic, and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal spatial and temporal relationships (e.g., After dinner that night we went looking for them).

Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led), building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly

Determine the main ideas and supporting details of a text read aloud or information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.

Ask and answer questions about information from a speaker, offering appropriate elaboration and detail. 

Report on a topic or text (including Catholic/religious texts), tell a story, or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking clearly at an understandable pace.

Speak in complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation in order to provide requested detail or clarification. (See Grade 3 Language standards 1 and 3 for specific expectations.) 

Create engaging audio recordings of stories or poems that demonstrate fluid reading at an understandable pace; add visual displays when appropriate to emphasize or enhance certain facts or details.

CSIS5: Recite prayers and poems of substance that encourage all to strive for virtue and goodness. 

Introduce the topic or text they are writing about and state an opinion. 

Create an organizational structure (paragraph) in which opinion is supported by reasons, facts, and details.

Use linking words and phrases (e.g., because, therefore, since, for example) to connect opinion and reasons.

Provide a concluding statement or section.

Introduce a topic and group related information together; include illustrations when useful to aiding comprehension. 

Develop the topic with facts, definitions, and details that are organized in paragraphs or sections.

Use linking words and phrases (e.g., also, another, and, more, but) to connect ideas within categories of information.

Provide a concluding statement or section.

Establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.

Use dialogue and descriptions of actions, thoughts, and feelings to develop experiences and events or show the response of characters to situations.

Use temporal words and phrases to signal event order. 

Provide a sense of closure. 

Explain the function of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in general and their functions in particular sentences. 

Form and use regular and irregular plural nouns. 

Use abstract nouns (e.g., childhood).

Form and use regular and irregular verbs.

Form and use the simple (e.g., I walked; I walk; I will walk) verb tenses.

Form subject-verb and pronoun-antecedent agreement.

Form and use comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs, and choose between them depending on what is to be modified.

Use coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.

Produce simple, compound, and complex sentences.

Capitalize appropriate words in titles.

Use commas in addresses.

Use commas and quotation marks in dialogue. 

Form and use possessives.

Use conventional spelling for high-frequency and other studied words and for adding suffixes to base words (e.g., sitting, smiled, cries, happiness).

Use spelling patterns and generalizations (e.g., word families, position-based spellings, syllable patterns, ending rules, meaningful word parts) in writing words. 

Consult reference materials, including beginning dictionaries, as needed to check and correct spellings.

Choose words and phrases for effect.

Recognize and observe differences between the conventions of spoken and written standard English.

Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.

Determine the meaning of the new word formed when a known affix is added to a known word (e.g., agreeable/disagreeable, comfortable/uncomfortable, care/careless, heat/preheat).

Use a known root word as a clue to the meaning of an unknown word with the same root (e.g., company, companion).

Use glossaries or beginning dictionaries, both print and digital, to determine or clarify the precise meaning of key words and phrases.

Distinguish the literal and nonliteral meanings of words and phrases in context (e.g., take steps).

Identify real-life connections between words and their use (e.g., describe people who are friendly or helpful).

Distinguish shades of meaning among related words that describe states of mind or degrees of certainty (e.g., knew, believed, suspected, heard, wondered).

Prepare for discussions (having read or studied required material); explicitly draw on that preparation and other information known about the topic to explore ideas under discussion.

Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions (e.g., gaining the floor in respectful ways, listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion).

Ask questions to check understanding of information presented, stay on topic, and link their comments to the remarks of others in a respectful manner.

Explain their own ideas and understanding in light of the discussion