Reading level 3: what it looks like and what to practise

What a level 3 story reads like

This is the start of The Otter's Rock, one of Peabody's own stories at level 3 (measured reading ease 2.9). The whole story is free to read, with no account.

Cleo was a young sea otter, and she was starving. She floated on her back in the cove while the fog sat on the water like a gray blanket. Beside her, her mother floated too, with a clam resting on her chest.

The story teaches 5 words, each with a kid-sized meaning. A few: otter (furry sea animal), cove (small bay), kelp (long sea plant) and pouch (skin pocket).

Compared with level 2: the longest sentence goes from 10 to 26 words, a screen goes from 12–30 words to 40–65, and the share of words allowed off the familiar-word list goes from 8% to 9%.

What Peabody practises at level 3

At this level the practice brain works on vocabulary and spelling. The skills it holds, in the order it teaches them:

A word a child gets right is done for good and is not asked again, so practice moves on rather than looping. The sight-word lists are pre-primer (40), primer (52), first grade (41), second grade (46) and third grade (41). The full phonics scope and sequence is a free guide.

Free games that practise these skills

Every game below asks questions from the same practice brain, as three big boxes to tap, with no typing. They start from a child's grade, not their reading level, so a game's questions fit the grade they pick.

Two word games sit outside the learning list: Word Rescue (catch falling letters to spell words from your story) and Word Blocks (hop on the word you hear).

The arcade also has two action games with cartoon violence, Sniper and Doomcrawl. We leave them off these lists on purpose; every game is on the games page.

Free stories at level 3

The 19 open stories at level 3 include 16 retold classics. Their themes include fairy tale, funny, fable, just so stories, africa and animals.

• Penguins Up Close
• Stone Soup
• Tom Thumb
• The Bremen Town Musicians
• The Otter's Rock
• How the Camel Got His Hump

All level 3 stories are free to read without an account. Each ends with questions of a few kinds: inference, literal and word-in-context.

Other levels

Level 2 · Level 4 · all levels and grades · the reading levels cheat sheet

Questions parents ask

Which children start at level 3?

Peabody starts a child one level under the grade they say they are in, so the first stories are easy: 4th grade readers start at level 3. The level moves up when books run easy.

How is level 3 measured?

From the text, never from the child. The limits are a longest sentence of 26 words, 40 to 65 words a screen, a Flesch–Kincaid score of 2.5 to 3.5 and at most 9% of words off the Dale–Chall list.

Is it free?

Yes, free through the end of 2026, with no sign-up. Peabody is a reading app, not an assessment: it cannot hear a child read, so a teacher is the one to ask about fluency.