A 3rd-grade student is in emergent stage of spelling words. Before that, the student just knows how to hold the pencil and draw scribbles. In 3rd grade, the students are familiar with sounds and shapes of letters. In fact, they must have learned small and simple words in the previous grade.
This is the stage when parents & teachers must pay attention to spelling exercise. In this age, the student or kid is learning words with faster pace like never before. In simple words, if you arrange a proper set of words with engaging activities, the kid can improve vocabulary efficiently.
Why Does Good Spelling Matter?
The correct spelling of words is vital for every student. Reading and writing are the two main components of any language. Both are preceded by spelling words. On the basic level, spelling refers to correct identification and placement of alphabets or letters to make a word. When a kid learns a new word, he/she remember the letters with sounds. If the spelling is wrong, the kid cannot pronounce or write the word properly.
Spelling has the tremendous effect in anyone’s academic life. Academic is all about books, reading, and writing. Irrespective of the nature or type of books, the student, has to read and write.
If your kid is not learning words properly in 3rd grade, he/she will suffer for a lifetime. Because this is an emergent stage. Whatever you teach the students, they will learn and remember it for a lifetime. You cannot miss this golden opportunity.
Most parents and teachers fail to teach spelling just because of the wrong curriculum. Teaching a new word is not the key to success. A language has thousands of words with various types. You have to teach them in a sequence. Don’t worry; I am going to discuss this in next section.
Similar Read: Lesson Plan Templates Word
Sequence Of 3rd Grade Spelling List
Before teaching new words to a 3rd-grade student, you must understand the spelling curriculum. Most importantly, the sequence of curriculum and what exactly are the third-grade Spelling words.
When we are talking about 3rd-grade students, they are learning how to arrange alphabets to make new words. They must know simple words like cat, door, you, do, can, is or are, etc. Now, introduce them with contractions such as can’t, don’t and isn’t. As they are derived from is, do and can. Next, move to bigger and compound words including yourself, themselves, birthday, some time and somewhere, etc.
You can also include words like agree, half and choose, etc. Words starting with QU will be great, such as Queen and Quit. The students always enjoy learning words with double consonants, like pretty, butter and berry. Now it’s time to teach new category of words that is homophones, as in pale and pail. Show them how to make a plural of words ending with Y into -IES words. Such as story into stories!
How Do You Make 3rd Grade Spelling Interesting?
Recall the time when you started learning new words. I bet, at first, you found spelling words to be boring. So did I!
Fortunately, today, there are several ways to make the spelling words interesting. We should call this process, a word study. The most efficient way to word study is word sort. Word sort is like learning words with the same pattern of words. For instance, pan, can, man, or cat, pat, etc. Without word sorting, word study is impossible!
With word sort, the kids make generalizations of the words. This way, they can make new words using old words. Word sort let the kids compare, contrast and analyze words. So, instead of a passive learner, he/she would grow as an active speller!
Now, you have the clear cut idea about word sort. The problem is how to teach this technique to kids. Most teachers repeat one common mistake of presenting the list of words instead of the table. Always remember, kids, memorize words quickly if arrange in multiple columns. It means each row will have words with the same pattern.
To make word study more interesting, go a step further with extracurricular actives based on spelling words.
Kids just love creating artworks. Why not use this? You can ask students to write words for ten times with new color. That’s an effective way to practice new words. But don’t make it as a burden. Let them do it in their way!
Kids are so smart. They interpret things that we cannot understand. So, you must ask them to illustrate new words using their interpretation. Such as the following example!
Always encourage your students to make drawings based on new words. This way, the learning process will become interesting and fun. In fact, post their alphabetical artworks on a classroom wall. In simple word, art is a sneaky way to make 3rd-grade students learn new words!
Third Grade Spelling Words Curriculum
Here is the list of words that you can utilize in the spelling test, homework and games for 3rd-grade students.
- About
- Agree
- Baseball
- Beat
- Clean
- Cut
- Day
- Dinner
- Enjoy
- Early
- Face
- Fit
- Gate
- Glove
- Hair
- Half
- Itself
- If
- Join
- Joy
- Kind
- Kidnap
- Later
- Light
- Mark
- Mouth
- Never
- Number
- Only
- Own
- Past
- Pear
- Queen
- Quick
- Rent
- Role
- Scarf
- Show
- Talk
- Voice
Please share our ideas with other parents & teachers for teaching 3rd-grade spelling words to children! If you have a 5th grader too, check out some really fun 5th Grade Spelling Words
