3 Quick Tips to Boost Student Engagement with 3rd Grade Wonders

If you use the 3rd Grade Wonders reading series curriculum, you know it’s packed with engaging content and activities that help students. The different types of texts are a great opportunity to expose students to interesting material, but sometimes the passages are difficult to read. This can turn off some third-grade students who may struggle with reading. When that happens, students become disengaged, and it’s hard to bring them back. Today, I’m going to share three quick tips you can use to boost student engagement with the 3rd Grade Wonders resources, so even the most reluctant reader will be excited to learn!

Tip #1 – Boost Engagement with a Wonders 3rd Grade Preview

Preview the text together as a class before starting the reading response activity. This will give your students some background knowledge about what they will be reading and allow them to start thinking about key ideas and vocabulary. As you preview the text, make sure to point out any words or concepts that may be unfamiliar to your students.

The shared reading text in Wonders is perfect for this. You are already supporting students with this text, possibly with a gradual release lesson. Now you could give them a specific question that they will answer after your shared reading lesson. This gives students a purpose while reading that can improve their engagement immediately.

Tip #2 – Let Students Work Together on Wonders 3rd Grade Activities

Have your students work in pairs or small groups on reading response activities. This will allow them to discuss and share their ideas with one another, which will deepen their understanding of the text. In addition, working in small groups will allow you to provide more targeted guidance and support.

This reading response activity sheet will encourage your students to share their thoughts and ideas as they work through the questions.

Small groups or partners can work on question #1 together. They each get support, and two or more heads together is best at this point!

Let them switch it up for question #2. Regroup students or partners and let them share and respond.

Finally, question #3 is for each student to independently demonstrate what they have learned.

This scaffolding of the text and reading response questions helps students stay focused and engaged. Working together is always more fun!

Tip #3 – Use Tools That Engage Students

Use graphic organizers & other tools to keep it fun and full of variety. Of course, graphic organizers help students organize key details, but they also can be revisited as new information is gained. It’s a great engagement strategy for multiple readings of complex texts like the Wonders Anthology stories.

Other helpful tools include sticky notes, highlighters, and colored pencils. These things can be used to have students mark important details in the text or make connections between different parts of the passage. 

Helping your students comprehensively understand more complex texts doesn’t have to be difficult; you can do plenty of simple activities to help them out!

Remember to encourage rereading and close reading, incorporate sentence starters or thought-provoking questions and use graphic organizers or other tools while working with the text. With these tips in mind, you’ll be well on your way to helping your student successfully engage with any complex text they come across!

Bonus Tip

Give your students this Citing Text Evidence FREEBIE that will help them write great responses to these questions!

Wonders Resources for 3rd and 4th Grade

These 3rd and 4th-grade reading response resources have comprehension questions, vocabulary questions, graphic organizers, and summarizing opportunities for all shared reading, anthology, and paired texts!