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Common Core ELA3rd GradeReading: Informational

RI.3.3: Connect Events with Time and Cause Words

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.3 · Cluster: Key Ideas and Details.

All 42 3rd Grade ELA Standards

The Official Wording

Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.

Common Core State Standards, Grade 3, Reading: Informational Text · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What RI.3.3 Means in Plain English

Third graders explain how a chain of events, science ideas or steps fits together, and they say it with time and cause words: first, later, because, so, as a result. The Leaning Tower of Pisa makes a good chain, since each event set up the next.

Second graders (RI.2.3) described how the events or steps connect. Third grade names the connection with precise words, so “and then” becomes “because the ground was soft.” Fourth grade (RI.4.3) explains what happened and why, using specific information from the text.

RI.3.3 I Can Statements

  • I can tell the order of events in a history or science text.
  • I can explain what caused an event and what it caused next.
  • I can use words like before, after, because and as a result.

RI.3.3 Worked Example

The passage is a chain of causes stretched over more than 800 years, and the weak answer keeps the order but drops every link.

Read the Story
In 1173, builders in Pisa, Italy, began a tall bell tower made of stone. The ground under it was soft clay and sand.Soon after the second floor was finished, the heavy stone began to sink into the soft ground on one side, and the tower started to lean.Then a war stopped the work for almost 100 years. During that long pause, the soil under the tower slowly packed down and grew firmer. Engineers today think the pause is why the tower did not fall.When work began again, builders made the new floors a little taller on the low side to try to straighten the tower. As a result, the tower is slightly curved.The lean kept growing for centuries. Finally, from 1990 to 2001, engineers closed the tower and carefully removed soil from under its high side. The tower settled back a little, and visitors can climb it safely again.
A short passage written for this page.
Question: Why did the Leaning Tower of Pisa start to lean, and why didn’t it fall? Use time and cause words in your answer.
Not Yet“First they built the tower. Then there was a war. Then they built more floors. Then engineers fixed it.”The order is right, but every link is “then.” The answer never says the soft ground caused the lean or that the long pause is why the tower stayed up.
Meets the Standard“The tower started to lean because it was heavy stone sitting on soft clay and sand. Then a war stopped the work for almost 100 years. During that pause, the soil packed down and grew firmer, so the tower did not fall. Later, builders made the new floors taller on the low side to fix the lean, and as a result the tower is curved.”The events stay in order, and each one is joined to the next with a time or cause word, so the reader sees why each thing happened, not only when.
Question Stems to Use
What happened first? What happened because of that?Which words in the text tell you when this happened?What caused the lean? What was the result?Could this event have happened before that one? Why not?Retell it using “because” and “as a result.”

Common Mistakes with RI.3.3

Every link is “then”

“Then there was a war. Then they built more floors.”

Try this: Give students a short bank of linking words, such as because, so, as a result and during, and require one in every sentence.

Mixing up cause and effect

“The tower leaned, so the ground got soft.”

Try this: Ask “Which happened first?” The cause comes first in time, so a timeline under the passage settles most arguments.

Skipping the event that explains everything

An answer that jumps from the war to the engineers and never mentions the soil packing down

Try this: Have students number each event on a sequence chart, then draw an arrow only where one event caused the next.

Where RI.3.3 Fits

Comes BeforeRI.2.3Describe how a series of events, science ideas or steps in a text connect.
AlongsideW.3.2Write to inform, joining ideas with linking words such as also, another and but.L.3.6Learn and use words and phrases that signal time and place, such as after dinner that night.
Comes NextRI.4.3Explain what happened and why in a history, science or technical text, based on specific information.

Practice RI.3.3

Quick Check

  1. Why did the tower start to lean?
  2. What happened during the war that probably kept the tower from falling?
  3. What did engineers do from 1990 to 2001, and what was the result?

RI.3.3: Other Names

RI.3.3CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.3

Common Core State Standards © Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved. Official wording from the Common Core State Standards PDFs at corestandards.org, last checked October 14, 2026. The explanation, I can statements, example, mistakes and practice on this page are EMStudio’s own, written beside the official wording. They are not part of the standard.