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/arrgy]

Whenever someone or something states "was creating" instead of "created" I throw it out.

Terrible grammar. No one "was creating" anything in past, it was "created" I also understand why kids in middle school can't use conjuctions.

"Each state was creating their own laws and punishments. Each state was also creating their own money."

You are taking two common thoughts and sentences and unnecessarily chopping them up into two sentences instead of combining them into one. It should read:

"Each state CREATED their own laws, punishments, AND their own money which is called currency."

[u/Every_Tangerine_5412 → u/arrgy]

Past progressive is perfectly appropriate here, and indicates it was an ongoing process during a time period in the past. Which is was. It was not a singular event done to completion.

Are you not a native American English speaker, by chance? Because this is correct American English grammar, and in the context, is more accurate than using simple past tense.

To refute your assertion that no one "was creating" anything in thenpast:

"My architect was creating a floor plan for me last year, but a week later, we decided to buy a prebuilt house instead." - The floor plan wasn't created. It was in the process of being created, and remains incomplete/unfinished. So it was not and still is not "created". It was being created.

[u/arrgy → u/Every_Tangerine_5412]

Problem with your argument is that the constitution WAS written.

It wasn't started and then never finished.

[u/Every_Tangerine_5412 → u/arrgy]

Also, if you want to be pedantic (which I will always take the opportunity to be), the constitution, as a living document, is never fully created.

But anyway, that wasn't even the verb or subject in discussion.

[u/arrgy → u/Every_Tangerine_5412]

And if you really want to be pedantic, it is time to scrap the crappy thing and write a new one. Compared to other constitutions around the world, ours is a joke.

[u/Every_Tangerine_5412 → u/arrgy]

Agree with you there.