A FREE 3rd Grade Pacing Guide for ELA!

Creating a year-long plan for when and where you will teach your standards is crucial.

I took out all the hard work for you! I developed the order in which I teach reading and language throughout the third-grade year.

In this plan, you will find the reading standards, language standards, writing standards, and themes for the week, plus resource links!

How do you decide which order to teach?

When I look at my whole year I follow this order:

1. I add review weeks. I schedule these weeks around holidays. This way I can plan fun holiday or themed curriculum without feeling like I am forgetting a standard. I review ALL of the different standards during these weeks.
2. I look at the novels I want to read whole class throughout the year. I do not schedule any novels in the first two quarters and save them all for the end half of the year. I typically schedule 3 novels each year. If the class ends up being very low I may forget a novel week and replace it for a review week, but if they are super high I may put two standard weeks together and focus on another novel.
3. Then, I go through and place my skills/standards in order that I have seen students understand best. I focus anything they NEED for testing before the actual test dates and move from there. I like to do a scaffolded approach so we focus on the easiest and then move to the hardest. I also make sure that I am only focusing on teaching a new skill once a week.

Do you follow this no matter what?

Nope!! This is a rough outline! You can’t make a 100% plan until you really know your students for that year. So, typically I will take this plan and keep it next to me when I am planning for the week. If the students show proficiency on what we did the last week then I will go with my scope, but if they didn’t I may need to move around things. I can always take out or add a novel week depending on the class that year.

What do you do with this pacing guide?

I keep it printed in my lesson planner and I put it on the desktop of my computer. When I sit down to plan, I pull out my scope and sequence to see what I need to teach for the next week. I can write on this if I need to move things and check them off when my students show proficiency. This way I always know that I taught each standard and can prove it if needed.

Then, I use the one on my computer desktop so that I can click on links to resources, blog posts, etc.

I hope that this scope can help you create your own! Please comment below with any questions you have!