Alabama, for example, passed legislation that required 3rd grade retention in 2019, but decided to delay the enforcement of that policy until the 2023-24 school year.

3rd grade English Language Arts skills: Find out what you need to know for your student In third grade, children practice reading with fluency and using strategies to make sense of unknown words.

The third-grade ELA portion of the M-STEP also includes answering questions about a longer passage, writing paragraphs and matching notes with main ideas, for example.