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Kentucky Standards

Kentucky 3rd Grade ELA Standards

All 34 Kentucky English language arts standards for 3rd grade, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in Kentucky Department of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.

34 standards

Reading Foundational Skills

2 standards
RF.3.3
Read, spell and know the meaning of words with common prefixes and suffixes, including Latin ones like -tion, and sound out and spell words of several syllables.
RF.3.4
Read grade-level prose and poetry with purpose, reread aloud until it flows, use context to catch and fix mistakes, and read irregular words like island correctly.

Reading Standards for Literature

9 standards
RL.3.1
Ask and answer questions about a story and make inferences, backing them up with details from the text.
RL.3.2
Use hinted ideas and quoted details from a story, like a fable, folktale or myth from another culture, to find its theme, lesson or moral.
RL.3.3
Describe a character's traits, motives, actions or feelings and how they shape what happens in the plot.
RL.3.4
Work out what words and phrases mean in a story, telling literal from figurative ones like idioms and exaggeration, and describe how they shape meaning.
RL.3.5
Describe how a story, poem or play is organized, using evidence to show how a chapter, stanza or scene builds on earlier parts.
RL.3.6
Separate a personal point of view from the narrator's or characters' views, and describe how different viewpoints shape the story.
RL.3.7
Explain how particular details in a story's pictures create an effect, like setting a mood or showing a character or place.
RL.3.9
Tell how stories by one author about the same or similar characters, like books in a series, are alike and different in theme, setting and plot.
RL.3.10
Read rich grade-level stories, poems and plays independently, using background knowledge and strategies like summarizing to understand and analyze them.

Reading Standards for Informational Text

10 standards
RI.3.1
Ask and answer questions about a nonfiction text and make inferences, backing them up with facts from it.
RI.3.2
Use hinted ideas and quoted facts from a nonfiction text to determine its central idea.
RI.3.3
Describe how people, a chain of historical events, science ideas or steps in a procedure relate across a text.
RI.3.4
Work out the meaning of school words and phrases in a grade-level text, like analyze or estimate, and describe how they shape meaning.
RI.3.5
Name and describe structures like comparison, cause and effect, and problem and solution, and explain how sentences and paragraphs link to build the whole text.
RI.3.6
Separate a personal point of view from the author's, and describe how different viewpoints shape what a text says and how it says it.
RI.3.7
Identify and explain how diagrams, graphs, photos and sidebars make a text's meaning clearer.
RI.3.8
Describe how an author uses reasons and evidence to back up specific claims, like facts showing why bees matter.
RI.3.9
Explain how information from several texts on one topic or theme connects, like two articles about the same storm.
RI.3.10
Read rich grade-level nonfiction independently, using background knowledge and strategies like summarizing each section to understand and analyze it.

Handwriting

1 standard
HW.3.1
Write cursive letters, words and sentences neatly, following standard letter forms and joins.

Composition

7 standards
C.3.1
Write an opinion on a topic or text, on paper or digitally, with an opening, a clear structure, reasons with rich details, linking words, and a closing, revising with help.
C.3.2
On paper or digitally, explain a topic by grouping related facts, developing it with facts, definitions and details, linking ideas, and adding a closing.
C.3.3
On paper or digitally, write a real or made-up story that sets up a situation and characters, uses dialogue and description, signals time order, and closes naturally.
C.3.4
With adult help, use digital tools to create and publish writing and to work with others, like co-editing a class document.
C.3.5
Do a short research project on one topic, like reading a few books about honeybees and writing down what was learned.
Common Core W.3.7
C.3.6
Sum up what was learned from experiences or gather facts from print and digital sources, take brief notes, and sort them into categories.
C.3.7
Write regularly, both in long projects and in single sittings, for many different tasks, purposes and audiences.

Language

5 standards
L.3.1
Explain parts of speech, form irregular plurals and verbs, keep tenses and agreement right, use forms like faster and fastest, and vary sentences from simple to complex.
L.3.2
Capitalize titles, use commas in addresses, punctuate dialogue, write possessives, spell words with suffixes and longer words, and check spelling in a dictionary.
L.3.3
Notice the difference between formal and casual English, like Good morning, Mrs. Lee versus Hey, and choose which fits the moment.
Common Core L.2.3
L.3.4
Figure out unknown and multiple-meaning words with context, word parts, roots and dictionaries, and use new school and topic words, including ones for place and time.
L.3.5
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.
Common Core L.2.5

The official Kentucky documents

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