Reading Standards for Literature and Informational Text (Grade 3)
This domain carries most of the reading score. Grade 3 students read stories, fables, folktales, myths, poetry, and drama, plus informational texts on history, science, and technical steps. Questions are multiple-choice and short response, and almost all require pointing to the text rather than recalling a feeling or guessing.
Literature rules
- Recount and message: Recount the plot, then state the central message, lesson, or moral as a full sentence about the whole story.
- Character: Name a trait, cite the action that shows it, and explain the consequence.
- Word meaning: Use context for nonliteral phrases, not the literal dictionary sense.
- Point of view: Distinguish the narrator's or character's view from the reader's.
- Compare: For stories by the same author or with similar characters, compare theme, setting, or plot.
Informational rules
- Main idea: It covers the whole passage; key details support it rather than replace it.
- Text features: Headings, captions, diagrams, and glossaries carry information.
- Connections: Explain how events, ideas, or steps are linked by cause, sequence, or comparison.
- Two texts: Compare key points on one topic.
Worked example
A crow cannot reach water in a pitcher, so it drops in pebbles until the water rises. Question: What is the central message? The answer is not 'crows are thirsty' (a plot detail) or 'pebbles are useful' (one event). It is 'patience and clever thinking can solve a hard problem,' because that idea fits the whole story and the outcome. In an informational passage, the same logic separates main idea from topic.
Traps
Choosing a true statement that does not answer the question; retelling instead of inferring; giving a topic word where a message is required; ignoring the line reference; using outside knowledge instead of the passage.