OST ELA Grade 3 flashcards
OST ELA Grade 3 · Build recall with a focused review session.
32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.
- Central message
- The lesson or big idea a story teaches about life or how people should act. It is stated as a full sentence, not as a single topic word.
- Story retelling order
- Events are retold in the same order they appear in the text, using words such as first, next, then, and finally to show the sequence.
- Character trait
- A word describing what a character is like inside, such as kind, brave, or selfish. Readers infer it from the character's words, actions, and thoughts.
- Setting
- The time and place where a story happens. Clues come from words about location, weather, season, time of day, and objects in the scene.
- Problem and solution
- The problem is the conflict a character faces; the solution is how that conflict is resolved by the end of the story.
- First-person narrator
- A narrator who is a character in the story. This narrator uses words like I and we and can tell only what that character knows.
- Nonliteral language
- Words whose meaning is not the everyday dictionary meaning, such as an idiom or simile. "Raining cats and dogs" means raining very hard.
- Illustration clues
- Details shown only in a picture, such as a character's face or the setting, that help a reader answer questions about the story.
- Main idea
- What an entire informational text is mostly about. It must cover the whole passage, not just one paragraph or one supporting detail.
- Key detail
- A fact or example in the text that supports or explains the main idea. A key detail answers a question about one part of the text.
- Heading
- A short title above a section of text. It names the topic of that section and helps a reader predict what the section explains.
- Caption
- Text placed next to or under a picture or diagram. It explains what the picture shows and often adds a fact not in the sentences.
- Glossary
- A list, usually at the back of a book, that gives the meanings of important words from the text, often in alphabetical order.
- Cause and effect
- A text structure that explains why something happened. Signal words include because, so, therefore, and as a result.
- Compare and contrast
- A text structure that shows how two things are alike and different. Signal words include both, alike, unlike, and in contrast.
- Author's point of view
- What the author thinks or wants readers to believe about a topic. Reasons and evidence in the text are used to support it.
- Author's purpose
- The reason the author wrote the text: to inform, to explain how something works, or to persuade readers to agree with an opinion.
- Opinion writing
- A form of writing that states what the writer thinks, gives at least two reasons, supports them with evidence, and ends by restating the opinion.
- Informative writing
- Writing that teaches about a topic by grouping related facts, using linking words, and ending with a concluding sentence rather than an opinion.
- Narrative writing
- Writing that tells a story with characters, a setting, an ordered sequence of events, dialogue or description, and a clear ending.
- Concluding statement
- The final sentence or section of a piece of writing. It restates the main point or wraps up the events without adding a brand-new topic.
- Linking words
- Words that connect ideas, such as also and another for adding, because for cause, but for contrast, and finally for ending a sequence.
- Revision versus editing
- Revision changes ideas, reasons, and organization. Editing fixes conventions such as spelling, capitals, and punctuation after the ideas are set.
- Sentence fragment
- A group of words punctuated like a sentence but missing a subject, a predicate, or a complete thought, such as "Ran to the store."
- Run-on sentence
- Two complete sentences joined without correct punctuation or a conjunction. It must be split or fixed with a comma and conjunction.
- Irregular plural noun
- A plural noun that does not follow the -s or -es rule, such as child to children, mouse to mice, foot to feet, and tooth to teeth.
- Irregular past-tense verb
- A verb whose past tense is not formed by adding -ed, such as go to went, see to saw, run to ran, and eat to ate.
- Subject-verb agreement
- A singular subject takes a present-tense verb ending in -s (the dog runs); a plural subject takes the base verb (the dogs run).
- Proper noun capitals
- Names of specific people, places, days, months, and holidays are proper nouns and begin with a capital letter; common nouns do not.
- Prefix and suffix
- A prefix is added to the beginning and changes meaning, such as re- (again). A suffix is added to the end and changes use, such as -ly.
- Singular possessive
- A possessive showing that one person or thing owns something. It is formed by adding an apostrophe and s, as in the girl's coat.
- Dictionary entry parts
- An entry shows the word, its pronunciation, its part of speech, and one or more meanings, sometimes with an example sentence for each meaning.