Foundational Skills Resources to Help Students Read by Grade 3

Reading proficiently by third grade is paramount to a child’s academic advancement and life-long success. Foundational skills are high-priority components of early literacy development, and the backbone of reading. Raz-Plus (which combines Reading A-Z and Raz-Kids) provides educators and students with the differentiated, Foundational Skills resources needed to help students advance their reading abilities.

View More Information About Foundational Reading Skills and Raz-Plus Here

Here are a few of the Foundational Skills resources you should be using:

Decodable Books and Phonics Lessons

Raz-Plus.com or ReadingA-Z.com > Resources > Books > Decodable Books

Each lesson and book introduces a new phonics element while spiraling previously taught phonics elements and high-frequency words/sight words. Lessons include activities using manipulatives, such as letter cards, phonogram cards, workmats, decodable and high-frequency word cards, games, and purposeful practice sheets that support instruction.

Each phonics lesson is built on research-based strategies for introducing, teaching, and practicing a sound (phoneme) and its related symbol or symbols (grapheme or graphemes).

Wordless Books

Raz-Plus.com or ReadingA-Z.com > Resources > Leveled Books > Filter for Wordless Books

Many books in Raz-Plus are accompanied by a Wordless Book PDF. Wordless Books are a great resource for emergent readers, as well as for English language learners because they tell a story visually, and students do not need to read text in order to understand the story. Here are a few unique ideas that teachers have shared with us, about ways that they like to use Wordless Books in their classroom:

• Have students practice retelling a story. This is a great tool for emergent readers and writers to practice retelling a story, by filling in the text for each page using their own words.
• Have students make predictions about the story they will soon read, using only the illustrations. Teachers use these as a preview to the story where the kids look at the illustrations only to predict what the story may be about.
• Use the Wordless Books as a sequencing aid. Simply take the pages of the story apart, mix them up, then have the students sequence the story based on the visual contexts of the wordless books.
• Ask students to create their own story. This is a great way to connect reading text with writing text, and to practice creativity and critical thinking through prompts like “Create Your Own Story. What Other Stories Could These Illustrations Tell?” This could be done prior to reading the text or after.

You can find the Wordless Books by filtering from Leveled Books within both Reading A-Z and Raz-Plus.

Shared Reading Books and Characters

Raz-Plus.com or ReadingA-Z.com > Resources > Books > Shared Reading

Shared Reading Books are a fantastic way to engage the whole class to demonstrate and practice foundational skills. Fun characters in the Projectable Books With Prompts ask readers to complete tasks and interact with the books. These books are also the perfect tool to use in small groups or for independent practice as the characters also present text-dependent questions that help model close reading strategies. When class time is over, students can practice the skills learned on their own using the printable versions of the books, or the eBook versions on the Kids A-Z website and mobile app (included with Raz-Plus).

Be sure to check out the supplemental Raz-Plus Foundational Reading Skills One-Sheet for even more information on Foundational Skills resources.

View all of the Foundational Skills resources available on Raz-Plus or Reading A-Z.
Raz-Plus.com or ReadingA-Z.com > Resources > Foundational Skills