This reading list accompanies our classical homeschooling curriculum for third grade. It is:
- a reading list for classic literature for third grade,
- a reading list to accompany Vol. 3 of Story of the World, and
- a reading list to guide you through classics from the Renaissance through 1850.
There’s a lot here! But it gives you a wide variety of classic literature to pick and chose from. These books work as read-louds for the whole family or as assigned independent reading for a proficient third-grade reader.
And don’t forget to download and print the cute bookmarks to mark your new treasures with!
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Reading for a Classical Education
Classical education means reading a variety of high-quality books in literature, history, art, science, and more. For fiction, we read classic novels, plays, poetry, myths and fables, and fairy tales.
For history, we read literature from the time period we’re studying, as well as biographies and other non-fiction. Where possible we read original writings: books, journals, letters, and other documents written by the actual people we’re studying or people from the time period.
For science, we, of course, read non-fiction books about the particular science topics we’re studying. But we also choose biographies of relevant scientists. Same with art and music—biographies of artists and composers make wonderful choices. We even love fun books about math!
The classical approach combines regular reading in three areas:
- below instructional level – for pure enjoyment and easier comprehension;
- at instructional level – where real progress is made in fluency;
- and above instructional level – where you reading to them allows them to absorb far more vocabulary, complex sentence structure, and knowledge than just reading at their own reading level ever would.
A Word About Abridged Books
Unlike with the Charlotte Mason method, a classical approach preaches the use of abridged classics for children. I believe there are many benefits to this:
- you are still reading a high-quality story, which will then be familiar to your child when they read the original later;
- it helps ensure the material they’re reading is age-appropriate;
- they are usually perfect for my daughter to read independently while still being challenging;
- it frees up more time for me to work with my other child.
The books marked (Classic Starts) below are from the Classic Starts Publisher Series. These are well-written abridged versions that keep closely to the original story line. They have some illustrations, which keep it fun. And they have discussion questions at the end, which are very helpful for narrations.
Check out more curriculum resources here.
Our Literature Reading List
Collected Works & Poetry
Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault
Shakespeare’s Stories for Young Readers
American Classics
European Classics
Les Miserables (A Stepping Stone Book)
Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass (Classic Starts)
Printable Bookmarks
Pssst. I’ll tell you a secret. I dog-ear. I really do.
But since I feel guilty every time, I’m trying to be better about that and not pass on the habit. We have ten gazillion books, and are always searching for something to mark them with. So, I made up these bookmarks for my kiddos and wanted to share them with you.
They are designed to print double-sided. But you can also just print single-sided and have twice as many!
Enjoy!
