Language

In this unit you will grow as a listener, speaker and reader. First you will listen to learn: asking clarifying questions, using strategies before, during and after listening, and noticing when a message is hard to understand. You will plan talks for a purpose and audience, connect with your listeners, and use your voice, gestures and best words.

Then you will become a long-word reader. You will learn the six syllable types, read words with three or more syllables (including the lazy schwa sound), use position patterns and endings like -tion, -ture and -ous, and use prefixes, suffixes and word families to read and understand new words. You will read fluently with the right pace and expression, and use simple, compound and complex sentences, parts of speech (possessive nouns, linking verbs, the progressive tense, question words, prepositions and interjections) and punctuation (dialogue, titles, quotations and contractions) to understand what you read.

Remember from Grade 2: you learned vowel teams, bossy r, two-syllable words, prefixes and suffixes, heart words and four kinds of sentences. Grade 3 builds on all of these. Spelling, handwriting and grammar for writing are in the companion writing unit. Every lesson has a hands-on activity, lots of practice and a short quiz.

Curriculum expectations covered: B1.1, B1.2, B1.3, B1.4, B1.5, B2.1, B2.2, B2.3, B2.4, B2.5, B3.1, B3.2, B3.3, with Strand A1 (transferable skills) and A3 (applications, connections and contributions) woven in (The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1–8: Language, 2023, Grade 3).

In this unit you will build the skills that make your writing easy to read and easy to understand. You will begin to write in cursive, joining letters with the right size and slant. You will spell long words using the six syllable types, choose the right spelling for long vowel sounds and consonant patterns (like c in picnic and -tion in station), and use prefixes, suffixes and bases to spell and understand words, including tricky plurals like leaves and mice.

Then you will write simple, compound and complex sentences, use possessive nouns (the girls' team, the children's books), linking verbs and the progressive tense, question words, prepositions and interjections. You will use capital letters in titles and dialogue, commas and quotation marks for speech and for quoting books, and apostrophes in contractions.

Remember from Grade 2: you printed neatly, spelled two-syllable words, used vowel teams, prefixes and suffixes, and wrote compound sentences with commas, apostrophes and quotation marks. Grade 3 builds on all of it. This unit goes with Foundations of Reading. Every lesson has a hands-on activity, lots of practice and a short quiz.

Curriculum expectations covered: B2.1, B2.2, B2.3 (spelling side), B3.1, B3.2, B3.3, with B2.4 (vocabulary) and Strand A1 (transferable skills) woven in (The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1–8: Language, 2023, Grade 3). Beginning cursive is Strand D expectation D2.2 and is included here because it supports writing.

In this unit you will become a stronger, smarter reader, listener and viewer. You will learn more genres and how to choose a purpose for reading. You will find new text patterns (order of importance, cause and effect) and use headings and an index. You will explain how images, graphics and design connect to the words, and ask who made a media text and why.

You will practise reading strategies: activating what you already know, predicting and adjusting, fix-up strategies for tricky parts and new words, making connections, finding the main idea and summarizing, and making inferences from stated and implied information.

You will think like a critic: describe a writer's style (voice, word choice, patterns and sentences), explain metaphors and assonance, name the point of view and suggest a new one, and find explicit and implicit perspectives. You will learn from texts about First Nations, Métis and Inuit histories, cultures and themes, and you will become a smart researcher and safe digital citizen.

Every lesson has short texts written for this site, a hands-on activity, practice questions and a quiz.

Curriculum expectations covered: A1.1, A1.2, A2.1, A2.2, A2.3, A2.4, A2.5, A2.6, A2.7, A3.1, A3.2, A3.3, C1.1–C1.7, C2.1–C2.7, C3.1–C3.8 (The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1–8: Language, 2023, Grade 3).

In this unit you will grow as a writer. You will plan by thinking about purpose, audience and form, and explain why a form fits your message. You will find ideas, research with three or more sources, and organize ideas into paragraphs. You will write many kinds of texts: narratives (stories with a problem and a solution), persuasive letters and reviews, informational reports and how-to procedures, poems, and media texts like posters, slideshows and storyboards. You will add voice, check your point of view, revise with feedback, edit and proofread, and publish and present your work with expression.

Every lesson has model texts, a worked example, a hands-on activity, practice questions with answers and a short quiz. Grade 3 builds on Grade 2: children now write paragraphs, back up opinions with evidence, use text features, and think about which strategies help them most.

Curriculum expectations covered: D1.1, D1.2, D1.3, D1.4, D1.5, D2.1, D2.2, D2.3, D2.4, D2.5, D2.6, D3.1, D3.2, D3.3, with connections to Strand A (A1.1, A1.2, A2.1, A2.2, A2.3, A2.4, A2.5, A3.1, A3.3) (The Ontario Curriculum, Grades 1–8: Language, 2023, Grade 3). Handwriting and cursive (D2.2) are taught mainly in the Foundations of Writing unit.