Florida Assessment of Student Thinking English Language Arts Reading Grade 3

Room 4 keeps a small tank. The animal in it came from the pond behind the school. It has a round body and a long tail. It has no legs.

A chart by the tank shows three stages. A tadpole has a tail and no legs. A young frog has legs and a short tail. A frog has legs and no tail. Ms. Patel pointed to the first picture. "Our animal matches the tadpole," she said. "It is not a frog yet."

The class will look again each Monday. If legs appear, the animal is changing. Until then, the chart name stays tadpole.

The drawbridge on Canal Street stays closed so cars can drive across. It opens for a boat only when two things are true. The boat must be taller than the closed deck, so it cannot fit under, and the captain must ask to pass.

On Tuesday a low fishing boat came along the canal. Its cabin was lower than the deck, so the boat fit under. The captain waved and did not call on the radio. The bridge stayed closed. Cars kept crossing.

Then a sailboat called on the radio. Its mast, the tall pole for the sail, was taller than the closed deck. The operator stopped the cars and lifted the deck. After the sailboat passed, the deck came back down for the cars.

The art room desk needed a mat along its front edge. Jun laid paper clips on that edge. Some clips lay on top of others. He counted 24 clips.

Ms. Alvarez measured the same edge with a ruler. The ruler said 20 inches. She showed Jun two spots where one clip lay on top of another. Those extra clips made his number bigger, but they did not make the edge longer. Twenty-four is a bigger number than twenty. It was still not the length the shop needed.

The mat shop needed a length in inches. Ms. Alvarez wrote 20 inches on the order card. Jun's count of 24 stayed in his notebook. The ruler was the measurement they kept.

The cactus on the science shelf came from a dry place. Its stem is thick and green. The plant can hold water in that stem and use the water slowly.

Sharp spines grow out of the stem. They are not leaves that fell off. A spine stays on the cactus. Spines can help keep some animals from chewing the stem. The water is in the stem, not in the spines.

A card under the pot has two sentences. One says, "Water is stored in the stem." The other says, "Spines grow on the plant." A brown leaf on the floor came from the oak tree outside. It did not come from the cactus.

On a night walk, Ava and her uncle passed a street lamp. The sidewalk under the lamp was bright. Down the block, away from the lamp, the moonlight on the sidewalk was dim.

Ava said, "The moon must be smaller than the lamp. The lamp lights the ground more." Her uncle shook his head. "The lamp is close to us. The moon is very far away. A close lamp can light this sidewalk more than the far moon does."

The moon is not a tiny lamp. It is a huge ball of rock. It looks small only because it is so far. The street lamp is not bigger than the moon. The lamp lights this sidewalk more because it is near.

The playground map is a page of colored squares. An N at the top of the page marks north. The swings are on a yellow square. The slide is on a red square two squares north of the swings.

East is to the right on this page. The water fountain is one square east of the swings. The sandbox is one square south of the swings. South is toward the bottom of the page.

Sam started at the swings and walked east. He reached the fountain. He did not reach the slide. The slide was north, not east. Two squares north would have taken him to the red square.

The journal page had two jobs. The first sentence had to tell what happened at recess. The second sentence could be a wish. A wish did not have to be real.

Priya wrote, "I traded my apple for a pear." She made that trade at the picnic table. Then she wrote, "I wish I had scored the winning goal." Priya had not played soccer. She had sat on a bench with a book.

Mr. Ellis circled the apple sentence for the What Happened chart. He did not circle the wish. He told the class, "A wish stays in the journal. It is not a record of the game."

The soccer scoreboard showed Hawks 3, Owls 1 at the end of the game. The Hawks had scored more goals.

Fans on the Owl benches cheered, "Owls win!" The shout was loud. It did not add a goal. Coach Diaz pointed to the board. "The board is the count," he said. "A cheer is not a new score."

The Hawks took the small trophy. The Owls clapped for them. The numbers on the board stayed 3 to 1.

The class voted for the next read-aloud book. One choice was the dog book, Paws in the Park. The other was the space book, Moon Trip. Each child put one slip in the box. Paws in the Park got 9 slips. Moon Trip got 7 slips. Two slips were blank.

Ms. Brooks emptied the box and counted. There were 18 slips, because 9 plus 7 plus 2 is 18. She held up the blank slips. "A blank slip is not a vote for the dog book or the space book," she said.

Paws in the Park had more votes than Moon Trip, so the dog book won. The space book stayed on the shelf for another week. The blank slips went into the scrap bin.

Grandma sent a new letter about her trip. She will ride from Oak Bend to Maple and change trains in Maple. Then she will ride to Cedar, where the family lives. The letter names one change of trains.

Theo told Dad they should meet a second train in Pine Hill. He was thinking of last summer. That old letter had a longer trip, and Pine Hill was on it. This new letter does not name Pine Hill.

Dad read the new letter out loud. "She changes trains in Maple only," he said. "We meet her at our station in Cedar. There is no second change."

A card is tied to the bird feeder by the lunch court. The card says sunflower seeds only. Bread is not on the card. Nuts and crackers are not on it either.

On Friday Leo brought a bag of bread crusts from his toast. He held the bag over the feeder. Mr. Green read the card and gave the bag back. "The card is the list," he said. "Bread does not go in."

Leo put the bread in the cafeteria bin. Then he took sunflower seeds from the class jar and poured them into the feeder. Those seeds were the food the card allowed.

A note by the drum says band practice starts at 2:10 and ends at 2:40. The minutes from 2:10 to 2:40 are 30 minutes.

Mina said practice was one hour long because she felt tired. Ms. Cole tapped the note. "Tired is not the same as sixty minutes," she said. "It starts at 2:10 and ends at 2:40. That is half an hour."

The next song still started at 2:10. No one changed the end time to 3:10. The note kept the same two times.

The class sorted four objects on a shape chart. The chart had a box labeled Rectangle and a box labeled Not a rectangle. A rectangle has four sides and four square corners.

The door has four sides and four square corners, so it went in the Rectangle box. The window did too. The wheel is round. It has no straight sides, so it is not a rectangle. The clock face is round, so it went with the wheel.

Being round sent the wheel to the second box. A wheel can still roll and be useful. Useful did not make it a rectangle. The chart followed the sides and the corners.

A poster on the fence described a lost kitten named Pip. Pip has one blue eye and one brown eye. Pip wears a green collar.

A cat was sitting in the yard. Both of its eyes were brown. It wore no collar. Luz called, "Pip!" The cat stayed still and did not come.

Mr. Ortiz looked from the poster to the cat. "This cat has two brown eyes, so it is not Pip," he said. They left that cat in the yard and kept looking for the kitten on the poster.

A note on the fridge said no nuts. Dad was packing a lunch bag for the field trip. He picked up a granola bar and read the list on the wrapper: oats, honey, and almonds.

Almonds are nuts. The note did not say that only peanuts were banned. It said no nuts. Dad put the granola bar back in the cupboard.

He packed apple slices and a cheese stick. Those foods are not nuts. The granola bar stayed out of the lunch bag.

The garden club planted radishes in the front bed. A full row holds ten radishes. Three rows are full. Three groups of ten make 30 radishes.

The fourth row is not full. It has 4 radishes. The seed pack ran out, so the club stopped. Adding the short row makes 30 plus 4, which is 34.

A sign by the bed said 40. That would be right if all four rows were full, because four tens are 40. The fourth row has 4, not 10. The club turned the sign over and wrote 34.

Two singers used the same song sheet in the music room. The sheet had eight lines. Ms. Reed, the judge, moved her pencil down the sheet as each singer performed.

Bo sang in a loud voice. He skipped line 4. He also changed the last word of line 6. Cora sang in a quieter voice. She matched every line on the sheet.

Ms. Reed gave the ribbon to Cora. "The sheet is what I follow," she said. "The quieter singer matched every line." Bo's voice had filled the room, but the louder singer did not win.