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Colorado Standards

Colorado 3rd Grade ELA Standards

All 10 Colorado English language arts standards for 3rd grade, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Colorado Department of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.

10 standards

Oral Expression and Listening

2 standards
RW.3.1.1
Come to group discussions prepared, follow talk rules, link comments and explain your ideas, and find the main ideas and details of something read aloud or presented.
RW.3.1.2
Report on a topic or tell a story with clear facts and details, speak at a fitting volume, shift between formal and casual talk, and record smooth readings of stories or poems.

Reading for All Purposes

3 standards
RW.3.2.1
Read stories, myths and poems: answer questions with proof from the text, summarize the lesson, infer how characters' actions shape the plot, and compare one author's stories.
RW.3.2.2
Read nonfiction to find the main idea and supporting details, use search tools and maps, spot cause and effect and comparison, and compare key points of two texts on a topic.
RW.3.2.3
Decode multisyllable words with common prefixes and suffixes, read prose and poetry fluently, and use context, roots and dictionaries to work out literal and figurative meanings.

Writing and Composition

4 standards
RW.3.3.1
Write an opinion piece that names the topic, states the opinion, gives reasons in order, links them with because or for example, and ends with a closing.
Common Core W.3.1
RW.3.3.2
Write to inform by grouping related facts, definitions and details under a topic, adding pictures if helpful, linking ideas with words like also, and ending with a conclusion.
RW.3.3.3
Write a real or imagined story with a narrator, dialogue, characters' thoughts and actions, time words to show order, and a satisfying ending.
RW.3.3.4
Plan, draft, revise and edit writing using correct verb tenses, comparisons and conjunctions, varied sentences, commas and quotation marks in dialogue, and correct spelling.

Research Inquiry and Design

1 standard
RW.3.4.1
Do short research projects: gather facts from print and digital sources with brief notes, summarize them with details and visuals like maps, and present a short report.

The official Colorado documents

The plain-English lines on this page are EMStudio's own explanations of Colorado's standards, not the official wording, which Colorado Department of Education publishes in the documents above. Codes and strand names identify each standard.