During their second grade year students are primarily taught reinforcement of the concepts that they learned in their first grade year. Third grade skills will be new to your child and they will also be more complex. Knowing what skills your child is expected to master by the completion of third grade is important. Knowledge of this information can help you to properly prepare you child and make certain that they have mastered all the required skills by the completion of their third grade year. Students should be able to identify simple subjects and predicates, writes sentences with subject and verb agreement, use punctuation of words correctly on their own and efficiently use a dictionary by the end of their third grade year. Along with building reading comprehension skills, they should also be able to properly identify the plot of a story, the setting of a story and the main characters. Having the ability to construct paragraphs with a main idea and supporting facts is also important. Students in third grade should also be able to identify national figures, local history and historical facts. Additionally, they should be able to conduct basic scientific investigations.

Many new concepts are introduced to third graders in math class. Students will learn how to add and subtract larger numbers, up to the number 1,000. They will learn multiplication and they will begin to to identify basic division facts. Children will also learn measurement in standard and metric units, counting by tens, hundreds, or thousands, adding and subtracting of money up to five dollars, estimating, and more complex word problems. The math at this age gets a little more difficult and often this is when many parents begin to see their children struggling, so it is important to stay on top of these concepts with them.