Reading Assignment
The reading list for third grade includes many well-known children’s authors such as Judy Blume and Roald Dahl. One thing I noticed about the classic and contemporary fiction novels was that most of them were either realistic fiction books or fiction books about animals. I recognized a majority of them from when I was younger, not necessarily because they were books I read in school, but a lot of them were available in my class libraries in third and fourth grade and I enjoyed reading anything I could find. Some of these books include Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord, and, my personal favourite from when I was that age, The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare.
I chose to read a selection from The Sign of the Beaver because I remember loving that book when I was in third grade. To summarize, the book in set in the late 1760s, when fir trade was the biggest (and one of the few) industry around. A boy named Matt Hallowell is left alone in a cabin in the middle of the Maine wilderness, where the Native American Beaver Clan lives, to fend for himself and protect the cabin and land where his family is moving. His father leaves him here to watch the land while he returns to Massachusetts to collect Matt’s mother and sister. There were many unfortunate instances which Matt came across before he is saved by a Native American man named Saknis. Matt later meets Saknis’s grandson, Attean, and they come upon the agreement that Attean will teach Matt hunting and survival skills in return for Matt teaching Attean how to read. This sets up the premise of the rest of the novel.
Reading Rockets Articles
The reading list for third grade includes many well-known children’s authors such as Judy Blume and Roald Dahl. One thing I noticed about the classic and contemporary fiction novels was that most of them were either realistic fiction books or fiction books about animals. I recognized a majority of them from when I was younger, not necessarily because they were books I read in school, but a lot of them were available in my class libraries in third and fourth grade and I enjoyed reading anything I could find. Some of these books include Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord, and, my personal favourite from when I was that age, The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare.
I chose to read a selection from The Sign of the Beaver because I remember loving that book when I was in third grade. To summarize, the book in set in the late 1760s, when fir trade was the biggest (and one of the few) industry around. A boy named Matt Hallowell is left alone in a cabin in the middle of the Maine wilderness, where the Native American Beaver Clan lives, to fend for himself and protect the cabin and land where his family is moving. His father leaves him here to watch the land while he returns to Massachusetts to collect Matt’s mother and sister. There were many unfortunate instances which Matt came across before he is saved by a Native American man named Saknis. Matt later meets Saknis’s grandson, Attean, and they come upon the agreement that Attean will teach Matt hunting and survival skills in return for Matt teaching Attean how to read. This sets up the premise of the rest of the novel.
Reading Rockets Articles
- Article I: Why Some Children Have Difficulties Learning to Read
- In order for them to excel in reading, it is important that children grasp four general concepts first: They must phonemically aware, they must understand the alphabet principle and be able to apply it in a quick and fluent manner, they must have a strong vocabulary and have sufficient grammatical skills, and they must be able to relate the reading to their own experiences. If a child is struggling in one of these four areas, or is unable to grasp one of the concepts, it becomes increasingly difficult for the child to become a strong reader. It is important to pinpoint which concept(s) the child is struggling with and be able to address it on its own. Children who are raised in poverty, who are not proficient in English, whose parents do not read well or regularly aloud, or who are handicapped in hearing are less likely to be proficient readers.
- Article II: Use Words to Teach Words
- Students can comprehend their reading much more quickly when they understand words better. It is important for readers to know about parts of the word – prefixes, roots, and suffixes – as well as for them to know how to give multiple meanings to a single word and be able to choose the best definition to use in a certain situation.