Arizona Standards
Arizona 3rd Grade ELA Standards
All 44 Arizona English language arts standards for 3rd grade, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Arizona Department of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.
44 standards
Reading Standards for Literature
9 standards3.RL.1
Ask and answer questions about a story and point to the exact words in it that prove each answer, not a guess from memory.
3.RL.2
Retell fables, folktales and myths from many cultures in their own words, find the lesson or moral, and show which details reveal it.
3.RL.3
Describe a character’s traits, feelings and reasons for acting, and explain how what the character does moves the story along.
3.RL.4
Figure out what words and phrases mean in a story and tell when one is not meant literally, like it’s raining cats and dogs.
3.RL.5
Use words like chapter, scene and stanza when talking about a story, play or poem, and tell how each part builds on the one before.
3.RL.6
Tell how their own view of the events in a story differs from what the narrator or the characters think.
3.RL.7
Explain what a story’s pictures add to its words, such as making a scene feel scary or showing how small a character is.
3.RL.9
Compare the themes, settings and plots of two books in the same series, like two stories about the same detective.
3.RL.10
By year's end, read and understand third-grade fiction, plays and poetry independently and with skill.
Reading Standards for Informational Text
10 standards3.RI.1
Ask and answer questions about a story and point to the exact words in it that prove each answer, not a guess from memory.
3.RI.2
Find the main idea of a nonfiction text, retell its key details in their own words, and explain how those details back it up.
3.RI.3
Explain how events, ideas or steps in a nonfiction text connect, using words like first, next, because and as a result.
3.RI.4
Work out what school words like compare and subject words like habitat mean in a text on a grade 3 topic.
3.RI.5
Use a book’s headings, bold key words and sidebars, or a website’s search box and links, to find facts on a topic fast.
3.RI.6
Tell how their own view on a topic differs from the view the author shares in a nonfiction text.
3.RI.7
Use a map, photo or diagram together with the words to explain where, when, why or how something in a nonfiction text happened.
3.RI.8
Explain how the sentences and paragraphs of an informational text fit together, like a cause and its effect or steps in order.
3.RI.9
Read two books or articles on the same topic, such as two about sharks, and tell how their big points and details are alike and different.
3.RI.10
By year's end, read and understand third-grade history, science and technical texts independently and with skill.
Reading Standards: Foundational Skills
2 standards3.RF.3
Read longer words by knowing common prefixes and suffixes and their meanings, Latin suffixes like -able, the six syllable types, and irregular third-grade words.
3.RF.4
Read 1st-grade books aloud smoothly and accurately with expression, understand them, and reread when a word or sentence does not make sense.
Writing Standards
9 standards3.W.1
Write an opinion piece that introduces the topic, states a view, lists reasons, links them with words like because, and ends with a conclusion.
3.W.2
Write an informative piece that introduces a topic, groups related facts and definitions, links them with words like also, and closes with a final sentence.
3.W.3
Write a story, real or made up, that sets the scene, introduces the characters, uses dialogue and time words like later, and ends with a sense of closure.
3.W.4
With an adult’s help, organize a piece of writing so it fits the job, like a thank-you note versus a report on bats.
3.W.5
With help from classmates and adults, improve their writing by planning, revising and fixing errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation.
3.W.6
With an adult’s help, type and publish writing on a computer or tablet and use it to share work and ideas with others.
3.W.7
Do a short research project on one topic, like reading a few books about honeybees and writing down what was learned.
3.W.8
Gather facts from memory, books or websites, jot short notes, and sort them into the categories the teacher gives, like food and habitat.
3.W.10
Write regularly, from a report built over several days to a journal entry finished in one class, for different subjects, purposes and readers.
Writing Standards: Foundational Skills
2 standards3.WF.1
Read and write capital and lowercase cursive letters, and copy down ideas neatly in cursive and print with good spacing and indents.
3.WF.3
Spell words with tricky patterns like ough, possessives like teachers', and longer words with prefixes and suffixes, and look up where a word comes from.
Speaking and Listening Standards
6 standards3.SL.1
Join discussions on grade 3 topics prepared, follow the group’s rules, ask questions to check understanding, stay on topic and build on others’ ideas.
3.SL.2
Tell the main idea and key details of a read-aloud, a video, a chart or a talk.
3.SL.3
Ask a speaker questions about what they said and answer questions about it with enough detail to be clear.
3.SL.4
Give a short talk about a topic, book or experience with facts and descriptive details, speaking clearly and not too fast.
3.SL.5
Record themselves reading a story or poem smoothly at a clear pace, and add pictures or other visuals when they help highlight key facts.
3.SL.6
Speak in full sentences when asked to give more detail or clear something up, like explaining how they solved a problem.
Language Standards
6 standards3.L.1
Print many letters, use everyday nouns, verbs and little words like in and on, make plurals like dogs and wishes, ask with who and where, and speak in full sentences.
3.L.2
Capitalize the first word of a sentence and the word I, name the period and question mark, and spell simple words the way they sound, like kat for cat.
3.L.3
Notice the difference between formal and casual English, like Good morning, Mrs. Lee versus Hey, and choose which fits the moment.
3.L.4
Work out unknown or multiple-meaning words using prefixes and suffixes, shared roots like company and companion, sentence clues, and glossaries or dictionaries.
3.L.5
Connect words to real life, like naming foods that are spicy or juicy, and tell apart close words like toss, throw and hurl or thin, slender and scrawny.
3.L.6
Learn and use grade 3 conversation, school and subject words, including time and place words like after, during and beside.
The official Arizona documents
- Arizona English Language Arts Standards: Third Grade · adopted December 2016 · since 2018-19
The plain-English lines on this page are EMStudio's own explanations of Arizona's standards, not the official wording, which Arizona Department of Education publishes in the documents above. Codes and strand names identify each standard.