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Child Development - The Eight-Year Old
The Eight-Year Old at School

by Kimberly L. Keith
for About.com

Third Grade

Skills Kids Need to Begin Third Grade

  • Attend to and follow multi-step oral instructions
  • Extensive sight word recognition and phonics mastery
  • Reading fluency and comprehension of text while reading
  • Identify parts of a book - title, author, illustrator, table of contents, index
  • Cursive handwriting with proper spacing of words and complete sentences
  • Count and write numbers to 1000 and know addition and subtraction facts to 20
  • Introduced to basic science facts including plant and animal classifications, motion, gravity, earth land forms, and properties of matter
  • Locate one's country, state, and town on a map or globe

Next > The Eight-Year Old - What Kids Learn in Third Grade

Note to Parents...
Children, families, and schools vary so widely that it's possible only to state general guidelines for the skills needed to start the grade and those the child will learn in this grade. So, don't panic if your child or school doesn't match the list exactly. Just be aware of these skills and work on them with your child this year.

Child Development - The Eight-Year Old

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