Cause and Effect Anchor Chart – Reading Reference Set

Help students explain why something happened and what happened next. A cause-and-effect chart, guided notes, and sentence frames support discussion and writing about connected events.
Grades
Grades 1–3
File type
PDF
Preparation
Print ready

Updated Apr 01, 2022

Subject
ELA, Reading, Writing
Topic
Cause and effect, Signal words
Resource types
Anchor Charts
Preparation
Print ready
Standards
CCSS.RI.3.3

Product description

From the author

This is a set of 3 anchor charts for cause and effect. The first anchor chart is complete. The following 2 charts are fill in the blank. These charts work well displayed on a bulletin board or inserted into students' interactive reading notebooks.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

  • Define cause and effect and recognize common signal words that indicate a cause-and-effect relationship (because, so, as a result, since, consequently, therefore, due to, thus, which caused).

  • Complete a partially blanked cause-and-effect definition using the correct missing terms.

  • Compose an original sentence expressing a cause-and-effect relationship using a provided signal-word sentence frame.

Teaching tips

  • Display the completed Chart 1 on a bulletin board as a permanent reference, and use Chart 2 as a guided fill-in activity during initial instruction so students help reconstruct the definition themselves.

  • Have students glue a reduced copy of Chart 1 into an interactive reading notebook, as the vendor's own materials suggest, for a take-home reference.

  • Use Chart 3's sentence frames as a quick formative check after teaching the signal words, since students must generate original content rather than just recognizing a completed example.

Skills covered

  • Cause-and-effect signal-word recognition — students learn to associate specific words and phrases (because, since, as a result, consequently, etc.) with cause-and-effect text structure.

  • Guided-notes completion — Chart 2 requires filling in key terms within an otherwise-familiar structure, reinforcing the Chart 1 definition through active recall.

  • Original sentence composition — Chart 3's open sentence frames require students to supply their own cause-and-effect content rather than only identifying an example.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

Are all three charts identical, or does each serve a different purpose?

Each serves a different purpose. Chart 1 is the fully completed reference version; Chart 2 uses the same layout with 3 terms blanked out for guided fill-in practice; Chart 3 drops the definitional layout entirely in favor of 5 open sentence frames for students to write their own cause-and-effect sentences.

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Curriculum

Standards, concepts & topics

Standards

  • CCSS.RI.3.3 — Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.

Core concepts

  • Cause and effect

  • Signal words

  • Text structure

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