"Language arts" for 3rd grader

Do you have the SCM language arts book, Hearing and Reading, Telling and Writing? 

If you look at the SCM Free Curriculum Guide you’ll see these marked under grade 3 for Language Arts type stuff:

Copywork and Transcription : details here: http://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/scmguide/copywork/

Gentle Intro to English/Grammar: details here: http://simplycharlottemason.com/planning/scmguide/grammar/

And narration for history of course.

The chart at the beginning of chapter 2 in the Hearing and Reading, Telling and Writing book might a helpful place to start. (Those of you who don’t have the book can still see the chart in the free sample download.) It lists these aspects for grade 3:

• Good literature, as opposed to twaddle
• Vocabulary learned naturally through context, not a separate subject
• Reading for instruction; i.e., practicing the habit of attention when listening to a reading
• Oral narration

Those four items are integrated in other school subjects like history, geography, and Bible.

The next three items would be separate language arts-type lessons.

• Beginning reading; i.e., making sure the child is comfortable and progressing in fluency with reading
• Copywork and Transcription (3rd grade would be making the transition to transcription)
• Poetry: mainly reading together and enjoying, but could also include memorization and recitation

Does that help any?

If she needs no more reading instruction, I’m not sure I’d begin dictation yet.  There is a LOT going on in dictation.  Those little brains have to do a lot of things at once! Remember what you dictated, remember how to spell it, remember how to write it— I’d still wait just a little while.  How is her handwriting?  That’s one thing I waited on for my boys–until it wasn’t quite so painful to write much.  When they were still sitting there tending to tense up and stick their tongues out of the corner of their mouths, concentrating for all they were worth–I wanted them to be a little more relaxed before I expected them to remember a several-word phrase, remember how to spell it, and then get it on the paper!

She can certainly begin to transition to reading some of her own books.  I wouldn’t stop reading to her and expecting narrations COMPLETELY, though, as you want her to develop BOTH skills–the skill of reading herself and being able to retain and narrate, and the skill of listening and being able to retain and narrate.  It’s good to realize she can do the one better than the other–but not so good to give up on the other.