Common Core ELA3rd GradeSpeaking & Listening

SL.3.5: Record a Story or Poem Fluently

Also written as CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.3.5 · Cluster: Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas.

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The Official Wording

Create engaging audio recordings of stories or poems that demonstrate fluid reading at an understandable pace; add visual displays when appropriate to emphasize or enhance certain facts or details.

Common Core State Standards, Grade 3, Speaking & Listening · Read it at the source · Checked October 14, 2026

What SL.3.5 Means in Plain English

Third graders record themselves reading a story or poem for real listeners, such as a class podcast or the listening center. They practice until the reading is smooth, pause where the punctuation says to, keep a steady pace, and add a drawing or chart only when it highlights a fact.

Second graders (SL.2.5) made audio recordings and added drawings to make their ideas clearer. Third grade raises the bar on the recording itself: smooth, lively and at a pace listeners can follow. Fourth grade (SL.4.5) adds recordings and visual displays to presentations to develop main ideas.

SL.3.5 I Can Statements

I can practice a poem until I read it smoothly.
I can pause at punctuation, not at every line end.
I can add a picture that shows a fact the words don’t.

SL.3.5 Worked Example

One four-line poem recorded two ways for the listening center, with notes on how each take sounds.

Prompt

Record this poem for the listening center, and decide whether a picture would help. “The crickets tune up after dark / beneath the garden wall. / They fiddle, fiddle, chirp and chirp, / then hush at morning’s call.”

Not Yet“The… crick… crickets… tune… up… after… dark.” (stops) “Beneath the garden wall they fiddle fiddle chirp and chirp then hush at morning’s call.” On screen: a clip-art moon.Word by word at the start, a full stop after dark where the sentence keeps going, then a race to the end with no pause at the commas. The moon decorates; it tells the listener nothing.

Meets the Standard“The crickets tune up after dark beneath the garden wall.” (short pause) “They fiddle, fiddle, chirp and chirp,” (a little quicker) “then hush at morning’s call.” (softer, slower) On screen: the student’s drawing of a cricket rubbing its wings together, labeled “How a cricket chirps.”The first two lines are read as one sentence, the way the punctuation says. The voice speeds up for the fiddling and softens on hush, and the drawing adds a fact the poem only hints at: the sound comes from the cricket’s wings.

Moves to Use

Practice aloud until no word makes you stop.Pause at commas and periods; read on when a line ends without punctuation.Let your voice match the words: quicker for fiddle, softer for hush.Keep a steady pace a listener can follow.Add a picture only if it shows a fact or detail the words don’t.

Common Mistakes with SL.3.5

Stopping at every line end

“The crickets tune up after dark.” (full stop) “Beneath the garden wall.”

Try this: Have students run a finger under the lines as they read, pausing only where a comma or period appears, not where the line breaks.

Keeping the first take

A recording full of restarts, “wait, no” and long silences while a word gets sounded out

Try this: Require three practice reads before recording, and let students listen back and re-record any take where a word made them stop.

A picture just to have one

A clip-art moon on the screen while the poem plays

Try this: Ask which line of the poem the picture belongs to and what it teaches about that line; if nothing, record without one.

Where SL.3.5 Fits

Comes BeforeSL.2.5Create audio recordings of stories or poems and add drawings to make ideas clearer.

AlongsideRF.3.4Read prose and poetry aloud with accuracy, a good rate and expression on repeated readings.RL.3.5Use terms like stanza when talking about a poem, and tell how each part builds on the last.

Comes NextSL.4.5Add audio recordings and visual displays to presentations to develop main ideas.

Practice SL.3.5

Classroom TimerFree ToolSet two minutes of practice reads before each student records, so every take comes after a warm-up, not on the first try.Practice reads2 minutes

Start a Timer

Quick Check

Where should the reader not pause in the poem, and why?
After “dark,” at the end of the first line. There is no punctuation there; the sentence keeps going to “beneath the garden wall.”
What fact does the drawing in the strong recording add?
That a cricket chirps by rubbing its wings together. The poem says the crickets fiddle but never says how they make the sound.
How should the reader’s voice change on the last line?
It should get softer and slower on “then hush at morning’s call,” to match the crickets going quiet.

SL.3.5: Other Names

SL.3.5CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.3.5