Canada · Ontario Curriculum Expectations
Grade 3 Language Arts
Third grade students develop foundational literacy skills through deep engagement with diverse texts and creative expression. This course emphasizes the relationship between author intent and reader interpretation across various genres and media.
01Worlds of Wonder: Narrative Craft
Third grade students develop foundational literacy skills through deep engagement with diverse texts and creative expression. This course emphasizes the relationship between author intent and reader interpretation across various genres and media.
Students will analyze how character actions and dialogue reveal their inner traits and motivations.
Students will explore how characters change over time in response to challenges and internal conflicts.
Students will identify the setting of a story and explain its importance to the plot and characters.
Students will identify the structural components of a story (beginning, middle, end) and how they create a narrative arc.
Students will identify the main problem in a story and analyze how characters work to solve it.
Students will examine how authors use descriptive language to paint pictures in the reader's mind, focusing on the five senses.
Students will identify and interpret similes used by authors to create vivid imagery.
Students will identify and interpret metaphors used by authors to create vivid imagery.
Students will identify the narrator's point of view and explain how it affects the story.
Students will identify the central message or lesson (theme) of a story.
02Information Investigators: Non-Fiction and Research
Students learn to navigate informational texts to extract facts, understand text features, and evaluate source credibility.
Students will analyze how headings and subheadings organize information and help readers find key details.
Students will interpret information presented in diagrams, illustrations, maps, and captions.
Students will use glossaries and indexes to locate information and understand new vocabulary.
Students will distinguish between the central point of a text and the details used to support it.
Students will identify specific facts and details that support the main idea of an informational text.
Students will combine information from different texts on the same topic to create a comprehensive understanding.
Students will learn strategies for organizing notes from multiple sources into a clear and coherent report.
Students will identify the author's purpose (to inform, explain, describe) in various informational texts.
Students will make logical inferences about information not directly stated in informational texts.
Students will practice finding and using specific evidence from informational texts to answer comprehension questions.
03The Power of Persuasion: Opinion and Argument
Students explore how to express their own viewpoints effectively and recognize the techniques used by others to influence opinions.
Students will learn to state a clear claim or opinion on a topic.
Students will provide logical reasons to support their stated opinions.
Students will consider who they are trying to persuade and adapt their arguments accordingly.
Students will develop critical thinking skills to differentiate between provable facts and personal beliefs.
Students will begin to recognize when an author's personal feelings or beliefs might influence their writing.
Students will practice active listening techniques during discussions and debates.
Students will practice responding to others' ideas with evidence and maintaining a respectful tone.
Students will explore how hearing different points of view can strengthen their own thinking.
Students will practice orally presenting their opinion pieces to an audience.
Students will learn to use facts and examples as evidence to support their opinions.
04Rhythm and Rhyme: Poetry and Wordplay
A deep dive into the musicality of language through poetry, focusing on rhythm, sound patterns, and figurative meaning.
Students will identify and use alliteration and onomatopoeia to create specific sound effects in poetry.
Students will identify rhyme schemes and analyze how rhythm affects the mood and feeling of a poem.
Students will explore how poets use repetition of words or phrases to emphasize certain ideas or create a musical quality.
Students will use poetic imagery to create mental representations of scenes and concepts.
Students will interpret the meaning of metaphors and similes within poems.
Students will explore how synonyms can have different shades of meaning and impact a text.
Students will analyze how prefixes and suffixes change the meaning and intensity of words.
Students will use context clues to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words in poems and other texts.
Students will apply their understanding of poetic devices to compose a short, original poem.
04The Writer's Workshop: Crafting a Legacy
Students apply their cumulative knowledge to produce a polished piece of writing across a chosen genre.
Students will revise their writing to improve clarity, sentence flow, and overall coherence.
Students will focus on enhancing their writing's voice and making precise word choices.
Students will learn to give and receive constructive feedback to improve their writing.
Students will explore how varying sentence length and structure makes writing more engaging.
Students will apply punctuation rules (commas, periods, question marks, exclamation points) to ensure clear communication.
Students will ensure subjects and verbs agree in number in their writing.
Students will use various strategies (phonics, word patterns, dictionaries) to improve their spelling.
Students will prepare their final work for a specific audience, considering formatting and presentation.
Students will share their finished pieces through various platforms and reflect on the experience.