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our second grade program

Language Arts

Language arts instruction includes instruction in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Modeled, guided, shared, and independent reading concepts and skills are the focus of the Readers’ Workshop while guided writing, independent writing, and spelling are associated with the Writers’ Workshop.

Second Graders bring greater confidence to the reading process. As students consolidate basic skills learned in kindergarten and First Grade, they use this skill base as a spring board to new and more sophisticated tasks and begin to read independently across curricular areas like the science/research workshop.

During the 90 minutes typically designated for Readers’ Workshop each day, students works in small groups or individually on word study activities, individual tasks and center work while the teachers meet with small groups for guided reading instruction.

Word study activities are direct and systematic, and teachers may introduce topics in large group settings and then ask children to complete tasks individually or with friends during Readers’ Workshop. Word study activities allow students to build understanding of word patterns and word families, sight word knowledge, rhyming, letter/sound correspondence and segmenting/blending.

Center work is lively and engaging, and through games, reader’s theater, puppetry, art, activities, the listening center or paper-and-pencil tasks, teachers tailor this instructional time for skill development in phonics, phonemic awareness, oral fluency or comprehension. Readers’ Workshop also allows time for shared and independent reading experiences.

During guided reading instruction, a group of two to six students meets with the teacher several times each week. Using a book the teacher introduces, the students read the book aloud, focusing on skills, strategies, listening and speaking skills, oral fluency or comprehension tasks.

The focus of strategies and skills introduced in this setting typically depends upon the children’s instructional reading level. The strategies and skills typically introduced in Second Grade are:

  • Early stage: practice reading familiar texts confidently to promote oral fluency; identify different text forms; understand that authors express own ideas; use picture clues to check for meaning; begin to use a variety of word identification strategies to decode; phonic knowledge, patterns and syllabification; develop broader sight word bank; expand vocabulary by using and applying a variety of graphophonic strategies; begin to use more varied strategies to decode unknown words
  • Transitional stage: retell and discuss interpretation; become more efficient using strategies to make meaning; predict, self-correct, re-read, reading-on; make meaningful substitutions; use increasing bank of sight words; broaden vocabulary based on reading of increasingly challenging selections; use word identification strategies more regularly to decode; phonic knowledge, patterns and syllabification; develop the ability to identify character traits, setting, main ideas and details
  • Self-extending stage: recognize and discuss elements and purposes for text; comprehend text removed from experience; make inferences and critical comparisons; use range of strategies automatically to make meaning; increase vocabulary; use word identification strategies automatically to decode; read silently for information/pleasure and orally with fluency and expression; use a dictionary/thesaurus for word meanings; use a table of contents, glossary, chapter headings or index to locate information

Writers’ Workshop in Second Grade, which meets several times each week, provides students opportunities to express themselves through written words. Teachers use whole group instruction, shared writing and mini-lessons and base their instruction on the text Writing Across the Primary Years (Calkins). Teachers introduce the processes and structure of writers’ workshop, the understanding of what a writer does and the ways a writer effectively conveys a message.

Writers’ Workshop at this level supports children thinking of themselves as writers. Students begin to revise and edit text and share stories with others.

  • Skills and strategies introduced at this level related to productivity and the writing process include: understanding the purpose of writing; generating topics willingly; composing personal writing about events in one’s life; working through portions of the writing process with independence; and revising writing by adding details into text.
  • Skills and strategies introduced related to graphophonics and revision/editing processes include: developing strategies for spelling unfamiliar words; spelling appropriately using developmental spelling and expected conventions for grade level; and understanding and beginning to use revision and proofreading as part of the writer’s process. Formal weekly spelling lessons and assessments begin in Second Grade, using the work of Richard Gentry as a guideline.
  • Skills and strategies introduced related to handwriting include: using Handwriting Without Tears manuscript in the fall and advancing mid-year to learning cursive; practicing for legibility the upper and lower case letter formation; practicing word and sentence writing with appropriate spacing and capitalization.