Read grade-level stories and articles with scaffolds chosen as needed, and use what you know to make connections and comparisons

Learning goal: This lesson teaches Ohio's 2026 standards RL.3.10 and RI.3.10, first implemented in 2027-28. You will read and comprehend grade-level literary text with scaffolding as needed, and grade-level informational text with scaffolding and support as needed. You will also use prior knowledge and previous experiences to make text-to-self and text-to-text connections and comparisons.

Grade-level texts. A grade-level text is written for third graders. It has the kinds of words, sentences and ideas third graders are expected to read and understand by the end of the year. Some parts will feel easy and some parts will make you slow down. That is normal. The goal is to understand the text, not just to say the words.

What "scaffolding as needed" means. A scaffold is a support that helps you understand a text right now. The words as needed matter most. You do not use every support every time, and you do not have to read every grade-level text with no help at all. Instead, you notice where your understanding breaks down, and you choose the support that fits that problem. Using a support is not cheating and it is not failing. It is what careful readers do. As you get to know a kind of text, you often need fewer supports for it, but a new kind of text may need a support again.

Supports you can choose. For stories: a preview of the title, pictures and characters; stopping after each part to retell what happened; a guiding question such as "How does Mateo feel, and how do I know?"; listening to a part read aloud while you follow the words; talking with a partner. For articles: a preview of the title and headings; a short list of key terms with their meanings; a quick sketch or a labeled diagram; a sequence chart for steps; reading one paragraph at a time and saying it in your own words; asking an adult a question the text does not answer.

Match the support to the problem. Stop after each chunk (one paragraph, or one part of a story) and try to say what it was about in one sentence. If you can, keep reading; no extra support is needed there. If you cannot, ask what went wrong. A word you cannot figure out calls for a key-term list, a glossary or asking. Something you cannot picture calls for a sketch or a diagram. Losing track of the order of events or steps calls for a retelling or a sequence chart. Not knowing what the text is about at all calls for a new preview and a little background.

Prior knowledge and previous experiences. Before you read, think about what you already know about the topic (prior knowledge) and about things that have happened to you (previous experiences). If you know that water freezes into ice when it is very cold, an article about snowflakes will make more sense. If you have ever been the new kid somewhere, you will understand a character who has just moved. Use what you know to help, but check it against the text: the text is the boss.

Connections and comparisons. A text-to-self connection links the text to your own life. A text-to-text connection links it to another text you have read. A comparison says how two things are alike and how they are different. A good connection sends you back to the words and helps you understand something in them. "I like snow too" is not yet a useful connection. "When I moved, I also pretended to understand what everyone was talking about, so I can tell that Mateo's nod hides how lost he feels" is useful, because it explains a detail in the story.

Original story — The First Snow

Mateo's family moved from Houston, Texas, to Columbus, Ohio, at the end of summer. At his new school, everyone talked about snow as if it were an old friend. Mateo had never seen any. He nodded when the other kids talked about sledding, but his stomach felt tight, because he did not really know what they meant.

One gray morning in December, his neighbor Rosa knocked on the door. "Come outside! It's snowing!"

Mateo pulled on the new mittens his mom had bought, dark blue and still stiff. Outside, the air smelled clean and cold. Tiny white pieces drifted down slowly, as if they were not sure where to land. One settled on his mitten. He held his breath and looked closely. It was not a round white dot at all. It was a star, no bigger than a grain of rice, with six sharp arms, and each arm had even tinier branches.

"Rosa, look at this one!" he said. But when he breathed on it, the star turned into a drop of water.

"You have to look fast," Rosa laughed. "And hold your breath, like you did the first time."

More flakes landed. Some were single stars. Others were fat, fluffy clumps that looked like torn bits of cotton. Mateo turned his mitten this way and that, counting arms. Every single star he counted had six.

That night he wrote to his cousin Luis in Houston. "Snow is not what I thought," he wrote. "It is little stars, and every one I looked at had six arms. I still don't know how to sled. Rosa says she will teach me."

Original article — How a Snowflake Grows

A snowflake begins high up in a cold cloud. The cloud holds water vapor, which is water in the form of an invisible gas, and tiny specks of dust or pollen. When the air is cold enough, a tiny droplet of very cold water freezes onto one of these specks and makes a tiny piece of ice called an ice crystal.

The ice crystal grows as water vapor from the air turns straight into ice on it, without becoming liquid water first. Snow crystals almost always have six sides or six arms. That is because of the way the tiny particles of water fit together when they become ice.

The shape of a crystal depends on the air around it as it grows. In some temperatures, crystals grow into flat, six-sided plates. In others, they grow into thin needles or into stars with branching arms. Two crystals rarely meet exactly the same air as they grow and drift through the cloud, so their arms grow in slightly different ways.

When a crystal is heavy enough, it falls. On the way down, crystals may bump into each other and stick together. That makes the big, fluffy flakes you can catch on a mitten. If the air near the ground is warm enough, the snow melts on the way down and lands as rain.

Worked example 1 — Reading the story with a support chosen as needed. A reader previews the title and the first sentence and uses prior knowledge: "Moving to a new state is hard." Chunk 1 (paragraph 1): the reader stops and tries a one-sentence summary: "Mateo moved to Ohio and has never seen snow, and he feels left out." It works, so no support is needed. Chunk 3 (the mitten): the reader cannot picture "each arm had even tinier branches." The problem is picturing, so the reader makes a quick sketch of a six-armed star with little branches on each arm. Now the summary works: "Mateo sees that a snowflake is a tiny six-armed star." The reader used one support, only where it was needed.

Worked example 2 — Reading the article with a key-term list. A reader stops at "water vapor from the air turns straight into ice on it." The problem is a word, not a picture. An earlier sentence defines water vapor, so the reader first rereads it, then keeps both new terms handy with the key-term list: water vapor is water as an invisible gas; an ice crystal is a tiny piece of ice. Later the reader loses track of the order of the steps, so the reader uses a sequence chart for paragraphs 1 to 4: a very cold droplet freezes onto a speck and makes an ice crystal; the crystal grows as vapor turns straight into ice on it; it falls when it is heavy enough; crystals may stick together into big flakes; if the air near the ground is warm enough, the snow melts into rain. Each chunk can now be said in one sentence.

Worked example 3 — A text-to-text connection and comparison. In the story, Mateo counts six arms on every star, and some flakes are "fat, fluffy clumps." The article explains both: snow crystals almost always have six arms because of the way water particles fit together, and big flakes form when crystals bump and stick on the way down. Alike: both texts are about snow and both describe six-armed crystals and clumps. Different: the story shows how snow feels to a boy seeing it for the first time, while the article explains how snowflakes form. Reading the article sends the reader back to the story with a new understanding of what Mateo saw.

Worked example 4 — A text-to-self connection that returns to the text. "On my first day at a new school, I laughed at a joke I didn't understand so I would fit in. That helps me see why Mateo nods about sledding even though his stomach feels tight: he is hiding that he feels left out." The connection starts with the reader's experience and ends with a detail from the story.

Support log (record task): Read the story and the article in chunks. For each chunk, write a one-sentence summary. When you cannot, write what went wrong (a word, a picture, the order, or the whole topic) and the support you chose. At the end, circle the chunks where you needed no support.

Connection builder: Write one text-to-self connection and one text-to-text connection. Under each one, copy the sentence from the text that your connection helped you understand.

Independent performance: Read a new grade-level story and a new grade-level article on a related topic, chosen with your teacher. Show your understanding by (1) stating what you already knew or had experienced about the topic before reading, (2) keeping a support log that names each support you used and the problem it fixed, (3) retelling the story and summarizing the article in order, (4) writing one text-to-self and one text-to-text connection that each explain a detail in the text, and (5) comparing the two texts: one way they are alike and one way they are different. Success criteria: your retelling and summary match the texts; every support you used matches a real problem you noticed; you may use any support you need, and you say why; and each connection sends you back to a sentence in the text.