3rd Grade Close Reading Passages and Prompts

Need a ready-to-implement 3rd grade close reading resource to help you teach rigorous reading standards with grade level text? This 3rd grade close reading resource is everything you need to implement rigorous, skill-based, and transferrable close reading in your 3rd grade classroom.

Click here to see 5th Grade Close Reading Passages and Prompts.

The reading skills covered in this close reading resource align with the 3rd grade common core reading standards for informational and literature text.

What is Included:

• 21 Close Reading “Three Read” Prompt Sets (One for Each 3rd Grade Reading Standard)
• 21 Texts or Paired Text Set – One for Each Close Reading Prompt Set
• Sample Responses
• Optional Posters
• Optional Recording Templates

This resource contains a three-read close reading prompt set for each 3rd grade common core standard.

The prompts for each read build on the one before to lead students to a deeper understanding of the text.

About the Close Reading “Three Read” Prompts:

•Each strategy focuses on one skill (or a set of highly related skills) to allow the students to really dig deep with one skill and to allow the teacher to use this resource throughout the year.

•The skill-based prompts help the students gain a deeper understanding of a skill as it relates to a grade-level text.

•The prompts help the students learn to analyze a text for multiple purposes that are related.

•The close reading prompts are transferrable. The teacher can use the texts included in this resource and then replicate the close reading strategy with other texts.

Implementing the Close Reading Resource

The resource is flexible and can be used during small group or whole group. If your students are not proficient readers and a great amount of teacher modeling and remediation is needed, I recommend small group instruction.

No matter the mode of instruction, I recommend the close reading prompts be completed over the course of 2-3 days and not in one day.

Here are the steps that I follow when using these close reading strategy prompts:

•Step 1 – Review the reading skill, if needed.

•Step 2 – Read the “1st Read” prompt and discuss.

•Step 3 – Provide an introduction and/or build background (if needed) for the text.

•Step 4 – Have the students read the text, annotating details that will help them respond to the prompt.

•Step 5 – As the students are reading, check in with students to monitor comprehension.

•Step 6 – Come back together as a group/class and discuss the text, the students’ annotations, and the students’ responses to the prompt.

•Step 7 – Repeat steps 2,4, 5 and 6 with the 2nd and 3rd reads, which are typically completed on separate days.

Looking for more reading resources for 3rd grade?

• Click here to see all of my 3rd grade reading activities and resources, including reading homework, reading centers and choice boards.