South Dakota ELA 3.RF.1

ELA3rd GradeReading Foundational Skills

The Standard

There is not a grade 3 standard for this concept. Please see preceding grades for more information.

South Dakota English Language Arts Standards (2025)

Teacher's field guide

What Students Need to Do: There is no new grade 3 skill to teach for this concept. Students who need review can practice following words in order and noticing where sentences begin and end.
What Mastery Looks Like: A student points to each word while reading a short sentence without skipping words. They can show where the next sentence begins and point to the punctuation that ends it.
Common Misconceptions: Some students point once for a whole phrase instead of each word. Others treat a line break as the end of a sentence, even when there is no ending punctuation.
How to Assess It: Write “The dog ran. It hid.” on the board. Ask students to point to each word as they read, then circle the first word of the second sentence and its ending punctuation.

Lesson moves

Give pairs word and punctuation cards to rebuild “The dog ran. It hid.”, then have them point to each word as they read.
Show “The cat slept. It woke up.” and ask, “How do you know where the second sentence begins?”
Play word-pointer relay with a four-sentence passage; partners take turns pointing to each word while the other reads.
Bring a school flyer and have students highlight the first word and ending punctuation of two complete sentences.

Free download

A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to 3.RF.1, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.

PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.

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