School Skills: Third Grade Milestones
In third grade your child should be around the halfway mark of their journal through the primary/elementary school system. They will continue to grow and increase their confidence. It can sometimes be hard to know what to expect or what they ‘should’ know after their third year at around 8-9 years of age.* By the end of the third grade, your child should be able to do the following tasks in each area.
Listening
Pay attention in groups.
Understand grade-level information.
Speaking
Speak clearly.
Know when to use a soft or loud voice.
Ask and answer questions.
Participate in conversations and group discussions.
Use words related to school subjects like math, science, and history.
Stay on topic, make eye contact, and take turns in conversations.
Summarize stories.
Explain what they learned in school.
Reading
Understand phonics, or how sounds and words go together.
Use word analysis skills, like knowing root words, prefixes, and suffixes. For example, adding "bi" to "cycle" makes "bicycle," and adding "ist" to "cycle" makes "cyclist."
Use clues from a story to help understand what they read.
Predict and explain what will happen next in stories. Compare and contrast stories.
Ask and answer questions about what they read.
Use what they know to learn about new topics.
Read grade-level books with few mistakes.
Reread and correct errors.
Writing
Plan, organize, revise, and edit.
Write stories, letters, and short reports.
Use details in writing.
Spell simple words correctly and correct most spelling without help.
Use a dictionary to check spelling.
Grammar & Punctuation
Understands and uses the words "tell" and "promise."
Uses the suffix "-er" to indicate someone who performs an action, like "teacher."
Uses full passive sentences.
Includes all elements of story grammar in their stories.
Social Skills
Stays on concrete topics during conversations.
Recognizes nonliteral meanings in indirect requests.
Begins to consider other people's intentions.
Can judge grammatical correctness separately from meaning.
Maintains topics through several conversational turns.
Addresses the source of a misunderstanding to fix communication breakdowns.
Suggestions for Parents:
Keep your child reading.
Find books and magazines that interest your child. Get them a book on their favourite subjects.
Ask your child what they think about what they hear or read.
Connect what they read to events in their life. E.g., they play soccer, and find reading material about soccer.
Help your child connect what they reads and hear at school, home, and other events.
Talk out loud as you help your child read about and solve problems. Homework at the kitchen table is a great time to do this or on the drive back from school.
Help your child recognize spelling patterns. For example, point out the beginnings and endings of words, like "pre-" or "–ed."
Get your child to write letters, keep a diary, and write stories.
Encourage them to explore the wide world of literature.
*As the age at which children can start or end certain grades varies wildly from country to country, this guide is written with general achievements in mind, so has tried to use as broad age ranges as possible. Please check with your kindergarten or school for more detailed local information and guidelines.
Please note the above information is general in nature and is not intended as professional medical advice. Please seek an appointment with a registered speech-language pathologist if you are at all worried about your child's development.
References:
ASHA (2009). Your Child’s Communication: Third Grade. American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. https://www.asha.org/public/speech/development/thirdgrade/
Paul, R., Norbury, C., & Gosse, C. (2018). Language Disorders from Infancy through Adolescence: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, and Communicating (5th ed.). Elsevier.
Roseberry-McKibbin, C., Hegde, M. N., & Tellis, G. M. (2024). An Advanced Review of Speech-language Pathology.
Suggested Resources
FREEBIE Nifty Nature: The Water Cycle Reading Comprehension
Informational text reading comprehension and multi-choice question activities to check understanding. Practices more advanced reading concepts around finding main ideas and details.
FREEBIE Castles & Creatures: The Fortress Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension for more advanced readers. Includes multi-choice questions, sequencing tasks, true/false questions and writing prompts.
FREEBIE Detective Dave: Social Inferencing
Helps students to practice those more abstract figurative language concepts, like social inferencing, by following the adventures of the detective.
FREEBIE The Write Sounds: Extended Code /ae/ Sounds (ea, ay, ai, a-e)
A game show-themed activity set for students to practice their more advanced phonics and spelling skills. Practice important abilities like blending, segmenting, and picking sound with audio.
FREEBIE Investigator Ivan: Recognising Emotions
Follow the adventures of Ivan as he navigates the world of social skills. Help students practice recognising different emotions and how others may be feeling.