3rd Grade - Gateway 2

The instructional materials reviewed for Benchmark Grade 3 meet the criteria that materials contain sets of coherently sequenced questions and tasks that require students to analyze the language, key ideas, details, craft, and structure of individual texts.

Short reads, extended reads and independent readings assist students in developing a deeper understanding of key ideas. Language lessons provide opportunities for students to explore word choices and text structure. Sequences of questions and tasks support students’ skill development in analyzing components of texts, so students may navigate the content, draw conclusions and articulate their evidence-based opinions.

Opportunities are provided for students to analyze language, key ideas, details, craft, and structure of texts in order to determine main idea, describe text structures, and explain author’s reasoning. To support students in developing a deep conceptual understanding of texts in each unit, questions and tasks are scaffolded, becoming progressively more complex. Questions accompanying the texts require students to use inferential knowledge to deepen their understanding of the texts. Questions and tasks push students’ thinking around the text structure, language and author’s craft.

• In Unit 1, Week 1, Lesson 2, teacher models paragraph one of the informational text, “Working Together”, on how to read and determine main idea, recount key details, and explain how these details support the main idea. Guided practice with a partner follows using text-dependent questions: “Who worked together to prepare for the flood?,” “What did they do to prepare for the flood?,” and “Why did they work together?” For a reread of paragraph two in “Working Together.” Students use a graphic organizer to help organize their evidence with key details from the text on the right side and the main idea on the left side of the paper.
• In Lesson 7, the teacher models how to read and determine main idea using paragraphs 1-3 of “Election Day.” Again, students are provided with guided practice using paragraphs 4-6 and the following guiding questions: “Which sentence in paragraph 5 tells you one reason why African Americans had to fight for the right to vote?,” “Which sentence in paragraph 6 tells you another reason?,” “Which events in paragraphs 5 and 6 helped African Americans get the right to vote?,” “What two dates are mentioned?,” “Why are they important?,” and “What main idea could these details, and the details presented in paragraphs 1-3, support?” Weeks 2 and 3 have Extended Reads that follow the same format scaffolding to independence on key details and main idea.
• In Unit 4, Lesson 1, students are provided with an overview of the essential question, “What makes people view the same experience in different ways?” The teacher explains that over the next three weeks, students will read literary texts that will help them explore how characters’ points of view affect the way characters react to story events. Students work collaboratively to analyze text specific word choice, focusing on perspective, outlook, opinion, and position.
• In Unit 6, Week 1, Lesson 4, students look at words describing an action and the teacher asks how this action influences the outcome of the story: “I see you have underlined the words describing the action of the goose speaking up. How does this action influence what happens in the rest of the story?”
• In Unit 10, close reading questions require students to analyze the structure of the text, author’s intent and language. For example in Short Read 1, poems of movement, “The Swing” and “The Wind,” students reread lines 7–8 of “The Wind” finding the meaning. In Extended Read 2, “Investigate Magnetism,” students reread paragraph 10 to figure out the meaning of the word “repel” through context clues. In Lesson 14, students closely analyze two previously read texts and use textual evidence to answer a question. Teachers ask students to recall the experience of reading poetry from the Week 1 readings “The Swing” and “The Wind.” Students use the scientific knowledge they gained from “Investigate Magnetism” to discuss forces that cause movement.

The instructional materials reviewed for Benchmark Grade 3 meet the criteria that materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to interact with and build key academic vocabulary words in and across texts.

The instructional materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to interact and build key academic vocabulary words in and across texts. A scope and sequence is provided allowing for identification of the academic and domain-specific vocabulary for each week within the unit of study. Vocabulary instruction is highlighted throughout each unit and is addressed both explicitly and embedded in context. Teachers are provided guidance and suggestions outlining differentiated support in order to meet the needs of various learners that is cohesive and spans across the year.

Opportunities are provided for students to use and respond to the words they learn through playful, informal talk, discussion, reading or being read to, and responding to what is read. Word study and vocabulary mini-lessons are a part of the instruction each week with a text to accompany the lessons. Vocabulary builds throughout the week and across texts within a one-week period. Specific texts are used which focus strictly on domain specific vocabulary. Academic vocabulary is also a part of the unit assessment as well as the weekly assessment.

Vocabulary lessons highlight the most relevant vocabulary words aimed at building knowledge of the unit topic and support comprehension. To support students’ understanding of complex texts, the following vocabulary words and mini-lessons are targeted. Opportunities to interact and build vocabulary include:

• In Unit 1, students have the opportunity to interact and the learn the word citizen(s) in four different texts (“Working Together,” “Election Day,”, “It is my Right!,” “Winning the Right to Vote”) during the Build Vocabulary lesson.
• In Unit 2, Week 1, students interact with noble (“Two Fables from Aesop”), anonymous & forge (“Two Famous Poems”), and attitudes (“Build, Write, Reflect”). Since those four words are in the Short Reads and the Build, Write, Reflect, the teacher is directed to use the following activities: “Use the Vocabulary Routines on pages AR8-AR9 to introduce these words. Have students complete the “Making Meaning with Words” glossary on the inside of the back cover of their Texts for Close Reading.”
• In Unit 3, Week 1, Lesson 4, the teacher reminds students that when they read informational texts, they will come across unfamiliar words (survive, behave, adaptation, undetected, reptiles, frigid) that are specific to the topic or content of what they are reading. Students practice how to use context clues to help them determine the meanings of these words. In Week 3, Lesson 6, students discuss building vocabulary by determining the meaning of domain specific words (frigid, projections, blubber) and using that vocabulary appropriately when speaking and writing. Students used a domain-specific vocabulary chart to help them with definitions and context clues.
• In Unit 6, Week 2, the vocabulary from “Doctor Knowall” is advice, magnificent, bellowed and nudged. These words appear in the Short Reads and the Build, Write, Reflect. Students use activities outlined in the units to build word knowledge. Students complete the “Making Meaning with Words” glossary on the inside back cover of their Texts for Close Reading.
• In Unit 7, Week 1, Lesson 4, the mini-lesson focuses on using context clues in the text to help understand vocabulary used in informational text as well as an author’s ideas. Students learn to recognize signal words such as is or are. Students use a context clue chart to help them with understanding and organization. In Week 2, Lesson 9, homophones are introduced to students using the text “All Kinds of Communities.” In Lesson 12, partners share the homophone pairs they identified. Students are encouraged to add words they found. Students engage in a discussion of the text to reveal how understanding homophones helped them understand the whole text using question prompts such as: “What was the Underground Railroad?, Why did Levi Coffin help with the Underground Railroad?, How was the red brick house used?, and How did your knowledge of homophones help you understand this text?”
• In Unit 10, Week 2, Lesson 12, students use context clues and what they know about suffixes to explain the meaning of the words. Students read paragraphs in “The Merchant’s Donkey.” As they read, they circle words they find with suffixes. Students use the context and the meaning of the suffixes to determine the word meanings and write their definitions in the notation column next to the word. To support instruction a sample model is given detailing how to use derivational suffixes to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words.

The instructional materials reviewed for Benchmark Grade 3 meet the criteria that materials support students’ increasing writing skills over the course of the school year, building students’ writing ability to demonstrate proficiency at grade level at the end of the school year.

The instructional materials include embedded writing across the year using a variety of well-designed guidance, protocols, models, and support for teachers to implement and monitor students' writing development. The writing instruction supports students’ growth in writing skills over the course of the school year, building students’ writing ability to demonstrate proficiency at grade level at the end of the year. Students write to address multiple topics over both short and extended time frames and are provided with mentor texts, writing prompts, and rubrics to help them self-evaluate writing, as well as give teachers a clear picture to evaluate and give feedback. The required time the weekly lesson would take, along with the amount of writing students are responsible for, is balanced and takes place during each three week unit. Students are provided time to adequately refine and reflect on their writing before moving on to a new topic. Discussion regarding writing also takes place with peers and with the teacher.

Students participate in both on-demand and process writings throughout the year. Students are required to respond to evidence-based writing prompts in the Build, Reflect, Write notebook. Prior to responding to the text, students have done pre-work to support their response. Students read and reread texts, use annotation, cite text evidence to support their ideas and opinions, and write short analytical responses. Students are provided objectives directly related to the writing process during the lessons. Writing requires students to synthesize information gathered while engaging with text sets and use the writing to demonstrate comprehension of complex texts. Writing is used as a vehicle for research and building knowledge, and range of writing activities and increase in rigor from the beginning to the end of the school year. To provide comprehensive support, teacher materials support students’ writing development by providing well-designed lesson plans, models and/or exemplars, and protocols to support student writing. Materials attend to not just end results of writing work, but also provide guidance for practicing, revising, and creating.

• The Benchmark Program Reference Guide includes a component that outlines writing alignment: Writing Aligned to Common Core Expectations. This resource shows the writing progression and distribution of writing types and skills for grades K-6.
• In Unit 2, Week 1, Lesson 3, students plan and write a fable. Students read and analyze a mentor text. In Lesson 6, students use brainstorming to come up with a moral of the fable. In Week 9, students choose characters and setting. In Lesson 12, students use a planning guide to organize their writing. In Week 2, Lesson 4, students establish a situation and introduce characters. In Lesson 7, students start drafting the beginning of their fables by developing the events of the story using descriptive language and characters using dialogue. In Lesson 13, students provide a sense of closure. In Week 3, Lesson 4, students use vocabulary to add vivid details to their fables. In Lesson 7, students revise to use temporal words to signal event order. In Week 10, students edit for correct form and the use of regular past tense verbs. In Week 13, students edit for use of adjectives and adverbs. In Week 15, students create a title and use technology to publish. The teacher confers and monitors students using conferring prompts such as: “Directive feedback, look at the page, does it look like all the words are bunched together? Do you need to add more space between the lines? Self-monitoring and reflection, Does your story look easy to read? Do you notice anywhere you can add extra space? Is there anywhere you have too much space? Validating and confirming, Your story looks easy to read. Your title reflects what is in the story. Well done!” A copy of the student’s writing is placed in the portfolio to be used at the end of the writing program for reflection.
• In Unit 7, Week 2, Lesson 7, students read “All Kinds of Communities” and respond to the following prompt; Plan and write an informative report describing everyday life in one of the communities covered in “All Kinds of Communities.” Students organize their news report in an opening paragraph, main paragraph, and closing paragraph, incorporating facts and quotations from their source. Students begin reading and analyzing the prompt in Unit 7, Week 2, Lesson 4. They are supported in Lessons 7, 10 and 13 by gradually building a coherent product.
• In Unit 8, Week 1, Lesson 3, students write an informative report beginning with topic brainstorming. In Lesson 6, students evaluate online sources that are credible and reliable. In Lesson 9, students gather information and take notes from online sources. A note-taking graphic organizer is used to help students organize their notes and have discussions. In Lesson 12, students begin to organize their informative report. In Week 2, Lesson 4, students introduce their topic by writing an opening paragraph. In Lesson 7, students turn their focus to writing body paragraphs that develop their topics with facts, definitions, and details. Students are provided a model body paragraph to review while the teacher reads it aloud and discusses. In Lesson 10, students learn the process of how to fit facts and details together in order to support a larger idea and make clear connections using linking words and phrases. In Lesson 13, student draft a conclusion and the teacher uses a model conclusion as an example for them to follow. In Week 3, students revise and edit their informative report. In Lesson 4, students revise to improve sentence fluency, length, and structure. In Lesson 7, students revise to include domain-specific vocabulary. In Lesson 10, students edit for correct use of verb tense. In Lesson 13, students edit to correct coordinating and subordinating conjunctions and in Lesson 15, students publish the writing which includes illustrations to aid comprehension.
• In Unit 10, students write a haiku, a newly introduced genre of writing in the materials. To support students in completing this task they engage in the following progression: In Week 1, students organize ideas by being introduced to the genre, understanding the haiku form, brainstorming ideas for a Haiku, evaluating ideas and narrowing to the focus and developing ideas through freewriting. In Week 2, students draft a haiku, revise to use imagery and strengthen the Haiku, use a checklist to edit and use keyboarding skills to publish. In Week 3, students reflect on narrative, informational/explanatory and opinion writing, prepare to share their writing and then share their writing.

The instructional materials reviewed for Benchmark Grade 3 meet the criteria that materials include a progression of focused research projects to encourage students to develop knowledge in a given area by confronting and analyzing different aspects of a topic using multiple texts and source materials.

The instructional materials provide a Program Reference Guide component that outlines writing alignment. This resource shows the writing progression and distribution of writing types and skills for grades K-6. In Units 8, 9 and 10, students conduct research independently or with a peer. In each unit, students conduct research to write in a different mode. Daily research and writing process mini-lessons support students’ independent work. In addition to a progression of writing tasks that increase in complexity across the grade levels, tasks also increase over time vertically through the grade levels. In Grade 3, students participate in independent/peer research projects. Research opportunities are sequenced throughout the year to include a progression of research skills that build to student independence. Opportunities are provided for students to integrate their language skills across units and topics. Students are provided with robust instruction, practice, and application of research skills throughout their grade level reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language skills. These skills are supported and put into practice as they build knowledge about a topic or topics. Support for students to develop and apply research skills are explicitly provided throughout each unit. The mini-lessons and topic-driven text sets support teachers in employing projects that develop students’ knowledge of different aspects of a topic.

• In Unit 1, Connect Across the Disciplines, students can participate in a short research project called “Design a New Way to Vote.” Students look over books and website about electronic voting and note details they observe about electronic voting machines. Students consider the benefits and problems with electronic voting machines. Based on their research, students create new ways of voting. Students draw their new voting method and label the drawing.
• In Unit 2, Week 1, Lesson 3, explicit teacher support is provided by giving a sample think aloud on the topic and an informative report anchor chart. The following are examples of purposefully sequenced mini-lessons to support students in completing the task. Week 1, the focus is Analyze the Text Type and mini-lesson tasks are: read a mentor informative text, analyze facts and details from a print source, analyze facts and details from a video source, analyze an author’s organization and form and use of possessives. In Week 2, the focus is Organize Ideas and the mini-lessons are: read and analyze the prompt, find facts and details in a print source, gather evidence from a video source, organize ideas and pronouns and pronoun-antecedent agreement. In Week 3, the focus is Draft, Revise and Edit and the mini-lessons are: draft an effective opening paragraph, incorporate facts and details from sources, improve fluency by using pronouns, form and use possessives and evaluate and reflect on writing.
• In Unit 3, Week 1, Lesson 3, students respond to the following research prompt: Write an informative report in which you explain the different ways camouflage helps animals survive. Support your ideas with facts and details from “Animal Disguises” and “Camouflage Creatures.” Mini-lessons support students in analyzing the writing prompt and understanding the features of an informative report. In Week 1, Lesson 9, while viewing the video “Camouflage Creatures,” students gather information from the video and share their ideas in collaborative conversation and in writing.
• In Unit 6, Connect Across Disciplines Inquiry Projects, students can participate in the short research project, “Develop Environmental Solutions.” Students review books and websites about threats to the environment. The teacher encourages students to think about how methods of preventing and containing environmental threats could be improved. In groups, students brainstorm a new solution for preventing or containing threats. Students present their ideas to the class.
• In Unit 8, Week 1, Process Writing, students brainstorm their idea and evaluate online sources to determine credibility. Students gather information and take notes from the online sources and organize their informative report. In Week 2, students begin the writing process by developing the introduction of the topic and then use the details from the research to support the topic. In Week 3, students revise and edit the writing and ensure they have included domain specific vocabulary. Students also use illustrations to aid in comprehension.

The materials reviewed for Benchmark Grade 3 meet the criteria that materials provide a design, including accountability, for how students will regularly engage in a volume of independent reading either in or outside of class.

Benchmark materials provide the opportunity for students to read independently throughout the school year. The materials include a resource in Program Support titled, “Managing Your Independent Reading Program,” which details the expectations for teachers and students to be reading both in class and independently at home. The “Managing Your Independent Reading Program” includes: resources for organizing independent reading, the classroom library, room arrangement, anchor charts, mini-lessons for promoting independent reading, reading response journals and logs, discussion groups and book recommendations, guidance for conferring with students, and information on growing your classroom library. According to Benchmark materials, “Students should also be encouraged to develop a routine of reading daily at home for a minimum of 20 minutes, either independently or with a parent.” In the independent reading stage, students are required to self-select and to read materials at their own ‘just-right’ levels.” For Fluent Readers, the Five-Finger Method is recommended for book selection:

1. Choose a book that you would like to read.
2. Turn to any page and begin reading.
3. If there are five words you can’t pronounce or that you don’t understand, the book is too difficult for you.
4. Repeat the process until you find a “just-right” book.

A tracking system is recommended in the “Managing Your Independent Reading Program” to track students’ independent reading in the form of a reading log and reading response journal. Reading response journals are kept by students and used to record personal responses to texts they have read or will read. Teachers demonstrate proper techniques, provide mini-lessons on how to respond to literature and model several prompts by listing them on chart paper, and hang the paper on the wall. The reading log is also suggested as an independent reading tracking tool. In reading logs, students keep a record of what they have read by writing the book title, author, illustrator, genre, and date read.

There is sufficient teacher guidance to foster independence for all readers and procedures are organized for independent reading included in the lessons, for example, as stated in the text, “Within Benchmark Advance, students may participate in daily independent reading during the Independent and Collaborative Activity block, while the teacher meets with small groups of students to conduct differentiated small-group reading instruction, model fluency skills through Reader’s Theater, or reteach skills and strategies.” Students complete a variety of reading activities in the reading block. Students have shared reading and mentor read-alouds each week. There is also a set of small group texts that will be used in small group time. Each set of texts is leveled according to Guided Reading levels. Student independent reading materials span a wide volume of texts at grade levels. These texts titles are included as a teacher resource, Recommended Trade Books.