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South Carolina Standards

South Carolina 3rd Grade ELA Standards

All 33 South Carolina English language arts standards for 3rd grade, each explained in plain English. The official wording is in South Carolina Department of Education's document, linked at the end of this page.

33 standards

Overarching Expectations

6 standards
ELA.3.OE.1
Read and write for academic and personal reasons over long, focused periods, like a novel during independent reading or a report written over several days.
ELA.3.OE.2
Learn, refine and share knowledge through written, spoken, visual, digital and interactive texts, like an article, an infographic or a slideshow.
ELA.3.OE.3
Make inferences by combining text clues with background knowledge to understand more deeply, like why a character keeps a secret.
ELA.3.OE.4
Collaborate with classmates using active listening, like paraphrasing a partner's point before adding a new one in a group project.
ELA.3.OE.5
Cite specific evidence from a text to explain and justify reasoning, like quoting a line that supports a claim about a character.
ELA.3.OE.6
Create quality work that meets an accepted format, like a paragraph with a topic sentence or a report with headings.

Foundations of Literacy

2 standards
ELA.3.F.4.2
Read many kinds of texts aloud and silently, accurately, at a fitting pace and with expression and intonation, like a poem read with feeling.
ELA.3.F.4.3
Decode unfamiliar words by blending sounds, using analogy, recognizing prefixes, suffixes and first syllables, stretching phonics to new words, and checking context to self-correct.

Applications of Reading

14 standards
ELA.3.AOR.1.1
Explain how one or more characters grow or change over the course of the plot, like a shy character who learns to speak up.
ELA.3.AOR.1.2
Find metaphors, hyperbole and idioms in a text and explain why the author used them, like a classroom that was a zoo or a backpack weighing a ton.
ELA.3.AOR.2.1
Identify a theme that a story states directly, explain it and show how key details build it, like a fable that teaches patience.
ELA.3.AOR.2.2
Find the central idea an informational text states and explain it along with its supporting details, like an article on why bees matter.
ELA.3.AOR.3.1
Explain how characters see things differently from each other or from the reader, like a reader who knows a surprise the character does not.
ELA.3.AOR.4.1
Explain why an author wrote a text, such as to answer, explain or describe, and identify the author's view on the topic, like favoring school uniforms.
ELA.3.AOR.5.1
Explain how the chapters of a story, the scenes of a play or the stanzas of a poem build on each other to form the whole work.
ELA.3.AOR.5.2
Explain how basic text features add meaning to an informational text, and spot structures that describe, list or show cause and effect, like how storms cause floods.
ELA.3.AOR.5.3
Find the claim an author makes in an informational text and explain how the author's reasons support it, like a claim that recess helps learning.
ELA.3.AOR.6.1
Summarize a text to understand it better, giving a story's plot, theme and key details or an informational text's central idea and supporting details.
ELA.3.AOR.7.1
Work out or confirm word meanings using sentence clues and print and digital references to learn background, pronunciation, part of speech and exact meaning.
ELA.3.AOR.8.1
Analyze how an author uses words by telling literal from nonliteral meanings, connecting words to real life, and using synonyms and antonyms, like a heavy heart.
ELA.3.AOR.9.1
Use prefixes, suffixes, other word parts and spelling patterns to work out word meanings in grade-level content, like unhelpful or careless.
ELA.3.AOR.10.1
Explain how pictures, photos, graphs and maps add to the meaning of a printed or digital text, like a graph showing rainfall by month.

Research

2 standards
ELA.3.R.1.1
Ask and answer questions about printed and nonprinted sources to narrow or broaden a research topic, like going from animals to desert animals.
ELA.3.R.1.2
Sort findings from a given print or nonprint source into groups, like facts about an animal's habitat, food and enemies.

Written and Oral Communications

9 standards
ELA.3.C.1.1
Write an opinion piece that introduces a topic and opinion, gives reasons with details from a provided source, links ideas with transitions, stays organized and concludes.
ELA.3.C.2.1
Write an informational piece that introduces a topic, develops it with facts and definitions, groups ideas, uses exact words and a given source, and ends with a conclusion.
ELA.3.C.3.1
Write a real or imagined story that sets a scene, introduces a narrator or characters, orders the plot with time words, shows thoughts and feelings, and has an ending.
ELA.3.C.4.1
Write and expand correct simple, compound and complex sentences and paragraphs, using capitals, commas, quotation marks and apostrophes, and fixing fragments and run-ons.
ELA.3.C.5.1
Strengthen drafts through planning, revising and editing, drawing on their own ideas and feedback from others, like reworking a weak opening after a peer conference.
ELA.3.C.6.1
Form all 52 capital and lowercase letters in cursive handwriting.
ELA.3.C.7.1
Speak to the class to share a report on a topic or book, a story or a personal experience with relevant facts and details, using clear speech, eye contact and, with adult help, digital tools.
ELA.3.C.8.1
Take part in structured talks and group work about third-grade topics and texts, joining in politely, listening actively, asking and answering questions, and reflecting on ideas.
ELA.3.C.9.1
Pick out the claim a speaker is making and at least one reason backing it, like a classmate arguing the school needs a garden.

The official South Carolina documents

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