English Language Arts/Reading

Second Grade Literacy Overview

The Reading/Language Arts curriculum for second grade follows a balanced literacy approach which provides experiences for students in reading, writing, listening and speaking. Balanced literacy is a research based approach which has shown to increase student achievement. Within the balanced literacy approach, students participate in whole group instruction with grade level text as well as small group instruction in which a student works with text at his/her instructional level. Small group instruction consists of a student-teacher ratio of no more than 6 students per teacher. Students are instructed in the research based five components of reading which include phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension and vocabulary

Parent Reading Handbook : For information about ways that you can assist your child in learning to read and enjoy reading.

By the end of second grade, students will be proficient in the following Iowa Core Standards:  

Foundational Skills

• Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words
• Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension

Reading Literature (Fiction)

• Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text
• Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central message, lesson, or moral
• Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges
• Employ the full range of research-based comprehension strategies, including making connections, determining importance, questioning, visualizing, making inferences, summarizing, and monitoring for comprehension
• Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song
• Describe the overall structure of a story, including describing how the beginning introduces the story and the ending concludes the action
• Acknowledge differences in the points of view of characters, including by speaking in a different voice for each character when reading dialogue aloud
• Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print or digital text to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot
• Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story (e.g., Cinderella stories) by different authors or from different cultures
• By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories and poetry, in the grades 2-3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range

Reading Informational Text

• Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text
• Identify the main topic of a multiparagraph text as well as the focus of specific paragraphs within the text
• Describe the connection between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text
• Employ the full range of research based comprehension strategies, including making connections, determining importance, questioning, visualizing, making inferences, summarizing and monitoring for comprehension
• Determine the meaning of words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 2 topic or subject area
• Know and use various text features (e.g., captions, bold print, subheadings, glossaries, indexes, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text efficiently
• Identify the main purpose of a text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe
• Explain how specific images (e.g,, a diagram showing how a machine works) contribute to and clarify a text
• Describe how reasons support specific points the author makes in a text
• Compare and contrast the most important points presented by two texts on the same topic
• By the end of the year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, in the grades 2-3 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range

Writing

• Write opinion pieces in which they introduce the topic or book they are writing about, state an opinion, supply reasons that support the opinion, use linking words (e.g., because, and, also) to connect opinion and reasons, and provide a concluding statement or section
• Write informative/explanatory texts in which they introduce a topic, use facts and definitions to develop points, and provide a concluding statement or section
• Write narratives in which they recount a well-elaborated event or short sequence of events, include details to describe actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure
• With guidance and support from adults and peers, focus on a topic and strengthen writing as needed by revising and editing
• With guidance and support from adults, use a variety of digital tools to produce and publish writing, including in collaboration with peers
• Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., read a number of books on a single topic to produce a report; record science observations)
• Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a questions

Speaking and Listening

• Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 2 topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups
• Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media
• Ask and answer questions about what a speaker says in order to clarify comprehension, gather additional information, or deepen understanding of a topic or issue
• Tell a story or recount an experience with appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details, speaking audibly in coherent sentences
• Create audio recordings of stories or poems; add drawings or other visual displays to stories or recounts of experiences when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings
• Produce complete sentences when appropriate to task and situation in order to provide requested detail or clarification
• Recite familiar stories, poems, nursery rhymes, and lines of a play