Second Grade

In Grade 2, instructional time should focus on four critical areas:

• extending understanding of base-ten notation;
• building fluency with addition and subtraction;
• using standard units of measure; and
• describing and analyzing shapes.

View the District Math Department website to learn more >>

Interactive Read Aloud and Shared Reading
Children are actively involved in the reading of a book, and are learning about how books work.

Guided Reading Groups
Each child's root to an effective reading process is unique. Therefore we design groups based on needs, with the expectation that these groups will change as the readers' needs change. During Guided Reading, teachers are informed minute by minute about what the child needs to know next about books. It wouldn't be unusual for a child to move to a different Guided Reading group depending on the changing needs of student.

Guided reading is a context in which a teacher supports each reader's development of effective strategies for processing novel texts at increasingly challenging levels of difficulty. The teacher works with a small group of children who use similar reading processes and are able to read similar levels of text with support. The purpose of guided reading is to enable children to use and develop strategies "on the run." They are enjoying the story because they can understand it; it is accessible to them through their own strategies supported by the teacher's introduction. The idea is for the children to take on novel texts, read them at once with a minimum of support, and ready many of the them again and again for independence and fluency.

Strategies taught during Guided Reading groups include: What do you do when you see an unfamiliar word? What do you do if the word you tried doesn't sound right or look right? What are some clues you would use to figure out how to read a word? etc. During the Guided Reading process, the teacher will be prompting students to use these strategies. In Guided Reading groups the teacher demonstrates and reinforces effective reading behaviors.

The strategies taught during Guided Reading groups eventually become internalized, and children become independent, fluent readers. As independent, fluent readers, children are able to access all sources of information including visual clues (Does it look right?), syntax clues (Does it sound right?), meaning clues (Does it make sense?). As fluent readers they also realize that reading is a "message getting" process. Reading is understanding the author's message.

As teachers, we collect behavioral evidence that helps us hypothesize what strategies a child is using when they are reading independently.

Guided Reading is a time for the teacher to guide the child in understanding "book language". Book language refers to something they may encounter in a book that they would not be familiar with. (eg. metaphors, dialect, a foreign language, italics, bold print, punctuation)

Independent Reading
Children choose "just right" books with the guidance of their teacher. They can also choose books independently using guidelines the whole class has discussed and formulated for how to choose appropriate level books. After reading, children respond in a variety of ways (retelling, reading response writing, journal response, projects, etc.) Assignments and responses change over time according to their needs and abilities.

Overarching themes for Grade Two Science include cause and effect (How do water and wind shape the surface of the Earth?), structure and function (How do the properties of materials affect how they are used?) and systems/system models (How do animals and plants get what they need to survive in the places where they live?). Learn more >>

We believe the social competency of children is strongly tied to both social and academic success and the development of higher-level thinking skills. In second grade, we capitalize on the natural social interactions between students each day. We help facilitate constructive problem solving, conflict resolution and peace making with peers all in an effort to develop personal and social responsibility. The following resources are incorporated into our social curriculum:

Bully Proof, Nan Stein
Quit It, Merle Froschl, Barbara Sprung, Nancy Mullin-Rindler
Open Circle Curriculum: Social Competency Program, The Stone Center, Wellesley College
Responsive Classroom Curriculum, The Northeast Foundation for Children

Writing Workshop
The goals of Writer's Workshop are:

• To provide opportunities for children to learn and practice writing through different genres and become proficient writers.
• Interactive Writing takes place when teacher and student "share the pen" and collectively write a message or record information.
• Writing for different purposes (personal narrative, letter writing, list writing, etc.)
• Writer's Workshop time includes a focused mini-lesson, teacher conferences, the editing and publishing process.
• During Writer's Workshop we are guiding children to write with the reader in mind. Writing informs the teacher of spelling patterns the class or individual students need to work on. It gives the teacher a window for word choices for word study.

Word Study

• Good spellers develop strategies that allow them to learn how to spell a large number of words, even those they have not attended to in informal instruction. They can do so because they have internalized a network of word-solving strategies, important principles, and many basic spelling patterns. Then they have the ability to apply the knowledge to an ever-increasing number of words.
• Word Study teaches children to "word solve" throughout meaningful reading and writing. When we talk about word solving, we are describing a dynamic process in which the learner actively investigates how words work. Word solving is not just word learning. Its purpose lies In the discovery of the principles underlying the construction of the words that make up written language.