Third Grade Mentor Texts and Poems

Used to TeachThinking Strategies and/or Common Core

3rd Grade

Title and Author / Thinking Strategy / Common Core
First Day Jitters (T) by Julie Danneburg / Character and Setting
Sequence of Events
The Perfect Pet (T) by Margie Palatini / Determining Importance / Text Features
Little Mama Forgets by Robin Cruise / Schema
The Checker Players (T) by Alan Venable / Characters and Their Motivations
Wolf! (T) by Becky Bloom / Character Traits and Motivations
The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant / Schema
Hazel’s Amazing Mother by Rosemary Wells / Schema / Character Traits and Motivations
My Rotten Red-Headed Older Brother by Patricia Polacco / Schema T-T-S
The Pain and the Great One by Judy Blume / Schema T-T-T
A Picnic in October by Eve Bunting / Schema T-T-W
The Planets in Our Solar System (T) / Determining Importance / Main Idea and Details
Night Sounds, Morning Colors by Rosemary Wells / Visualizing(only)
Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg / Visualizing(only)
Author – A True Story by Helen Lester / Determining Importance / Author’s Purpose
Good Dog, Carl by Alexander Day / Visualizing
Red Riding Hood by James Marshal / Recount Fairytales
Thumbelina / Recount Fairytales
Hansel and Gretel by James Marshal / Visualizing / Recount Fairytales
Stone Soup (T) by Jon Muth / Inferring
Roxaboxen by Barbara Cooney / Visualizing
The Lotus Seed by Sherry Garland / Questioning
The Sweetest Fig by Chris Van Allsburg / Questioning
What Do Illustrators Do? (T) by Eileen Christelow / Sequence of Events
Lon Po Po by Ed Young / Questioning
Grandmother Winter by Phyllis Root / Questioning
Applemando’s Dreams by Pollaco / Questioning
Charlie Anderson by Barbara Abercrombie / Questioning
Thunder Cake by Patricia Polacco / Questioning / Sequence of Events
Cook-A-Doodle Doo! by Janet Stevens & Susan Crummel / Compare/Contrast Characters
Seven Spools of Thread (T) by Angela Shelf Medearis / Inferring
Honey I Love by Eloise Greenfield (poems) / Inferring
Brother and Sisters Family Poems by Eloise Greenfield / Inferring
My Very Own Room (T) by Amada Irma Perez / Inferring / Connect Illustrations to Text
Tight Times by Barbara Shook Hazen / Inferring / Connect Illustrations to Text
The Royal Bee by Frances Park / Inferring / Connect Illustrations to Text
Boom Town by Sonia Levitin / Inferring / Sequence of Events
Connect Illustrations to Text
“A Bad Road for Cats” short story from Every Living Thing by Cynthia Rylant / Inferring / Character Traits
Jack and the Beanstalk by Steven Kellogg / Inferring / Sequence of Events
Character Traits
Kate and the Beanstalk by Mary Pope Osborne / Inferring / Compare/Contrast Character Traits
Oliver Button is a Sissy – Tomie dePaola / Inferring / Comparing Characters
Beatrice’s Goat (T) by Page McBrier / Inferring / Cause/Effect
Sequence of Events
Connect Illustrations to Text
Rumpelstiltskin by the Brothers Grimm / Inferring / Determine the Moral in a Folktale
The Magic Fish by Freya Littledale / Inferring / Determine the Moral in a Folktale
Animal Homes (T) by Ann Squire / Determining Importance / Main Idea and Details
“Dreams” poem by Langston Hughes / Inferring
Where are you going, Manyon? / Inferring
The Rag Coat – Lauren Mills / Synthesis