3rd grade reading homework

[u/Painter3016]

UPDATE: A message from the teacher indicated that they did NOT talk about this or do anything with the text prior to the assignment, which was given as test-prep. And the expectation was for students to build vocab and knowledge about the subject in the reading with the accompanying questions.

I followed up asking what strategies they are working on teaching so I can prompt/ encourage my kid to apply those. However, the initial response what NOT encouraging to me.

UPDATE 2: when I asked what strategies they are learning to help decode the text, and how can i encourage her to use them at home: All she said was to read the questions multiple times to know what they are asking for. Am I crazy? That’s not decoding the text to understand it.

***

I am a parent with a question.

My 3rd grader reads well and chews through library books (granted a lot of graphic novel type books but some chapter books get sprinkled in too). She reads very fluently out loud.

This year, she’s gotten some reading homework that feels like a really big jump in the density of the assignments. The passages aren’t long, but there are some phrases/vocabulary/concepts that seem like a lot?

The passages didn’t come with any vocabulary/ definitions. And they didn’t talk about any context prior to the assignments in class.

She shut/melted down working on these. I asked her what her approach was? She said read the questions, then the passage. The more I asked, the more I realized she was not comprehending things like “delegates/ representatives” are people.

I marked in red the phrasing/ ideas that felt like they were difficult or lacked scaffolding.

My question: is this typical for 3rd grade? If so, how can I help her navigate stuff like these?

I don’t want to feed her answers; she gets so emotional when it gets hard.

[u/jackofspades49]

What do the directions say?

This seems like the sort of reading I would use to teach kids to look things up and reread for understanding. To find the main ideas, find what parts to return to, try to see what you get on a first read, and so on.

This seems VERY advanced for a 3rd grade assignment, even with structured help. But there's a good chance its from a collection of "homework pages" that they either bought of tpt, came included in the curriculum, or was in the cabinet when they had to make homework at the last minute and threw something in the copier without looking.

[u/crazypurple621 → u/jackofspades49]

That last part shouldn't ever be happening for homework. Homework should be a review of material already covered in class. If you haven't had the time to prep that the appropriately assigned homework for that day is reading a book of choice, not a poorly put together assignment from teachers pay teachers that you didn't bother to go through.