Your Year 3 child has a short story in front of them and knows they’re meant to use paragraphs—but where should a new one begin? Read this little frog story together. Then have a look at where Mia’s attention moves next.
A paragraph groups ideas that belong together. A paragraph break starts the next group on a new line, so first show your child how that looks different from simply beginning another sentence. You can read aloud while they follow, and they can respond by talking or pointing.
Read the story together
Start with all five sentences in one paragraph:
Mia crouched beside the garden bed. A tiny frog was trapped inside an empty pot. She tipped the pot gently onto its side and watched the frog hop beneath the leaves. Back in the kitchen, Mia drew the frog in her notebook. She added the broad leaves and the overturned pot.
Ask your child what happens. There’s no need to correct anything or turn the reading into a punctuation lesson. You’re simply getting the little sequence of events clear before looking at how the ideas might be grouped.
Try a break here
Now read exactly the same words again, with one paragraph break:
Mia crouched beside the garden bed. A tiny frog was trapped inside an empty pot. She tipped the pot gently onto its side and watched the frog hop beneath the leaves.
Back in the kitchen, Mia drew the frog in her notebook. She added the broad leaves and the overturned pot.
Nothing has been added or rewritten. The first paragraph follows Mia finding and freeing the frog. The next turns our attention to her drawing the discovery.
Ask, “Which sentences belong together?” and “What is Mia doing in this next part?” Then try, “What does starting a new paragraph help you notice?” These sorts of questions sit comfortably alongside the Victorian Department of Education’s guidance on looking closely at a model text before trying a writing choice.
If your child needs a start, you might say, “I’d put a break here because Mia has finished helping the frog and is now drawing what happened.” They may see another possibility. Ask what their choice shows the reader, rather than searching for a hidden correct answer.
The shift in focus makes this break useful, but a change of place doesn’t automatically require a new paragraph. Nor do the three sentences in the first group and two in the second form a pattern to copy. The useful idea is that related information can be grouped together—part of the Year 3 English work of creating simple paragraphs.
Try one choice in your child’s story
Choose a short piece your child has already written and read it together. Ask, “Where does one part finish and another focus begin?” Let your child mark one possible break, then reread the draft with the new spacing.
Keep their sentences as they wrote them. They can keep the break, move it or undo it after hearing how the story flows. If all the ideas belong comfortably in one paragraph, the draft can stay as it is. This gentle rereading and revising keeps the decision with the young writer, as encouraged in the Victorian Department’s writing-workshop guidance.
For broader classroom teaching
If you’re a teacher planning a fuller classroom sequence, Practising Paragraphs – Year 3 explores persuasive, informative and imaginative purposes. It includes a 30-slide editable teaching presentation and ten sequenced paragraph worksheets with matching answer pages.
The listed digital licence is for one teacher to use with their own classes. The frog-story conversation above is complete on its own for a parent and child at home.
Let the writer decide
Read your child’s draft once more and ask, “What does your paragraph break help the reader notice?” Listen to their explanation, then let them decide whether the break stays. That small choice is the heart of the activity: the words belong to the writer, and so does the way they’re grouped.