Grade 3

Read it so it sounds like something

Punctuation is an instruction. Part of reading and writing.

Read it so it sounds like something

Punctuation is an instruction · Alberta Grade 3 · maddyhelps.com

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Read each line aloud three times: once flat, once following the punctuation, and once for somebody else in the room. Then write what your voice did at each mark.

Mark	What the voice does
. a full stop	Voice drops. Stop.
? a question mark	Voice rises at the end.
! an exclamation mark	Louder, faster, more.
, a comma	A small pause, and keep going.
— a dash	A break, then something added.

Reading with expression is not acting. It is doing what the punctuation already says, and a child who reads straight through a full stop has not yet noticed that the marks are instructions.

My voice

Reading with expression is evidence of comprehension: you cannot phrase a sentence you have not understood. A child who reads straight through a full stop is usually decoding rather than reading.

Why this matters is on the reading and writing page. More sheets