Literacy
Through reading and writing experiences, second graders strengthen their phonemic awareness. Focused phonics instruction and spelling activities tied to literature themes help students strengthen decoding skill and build fluent reading. Through guided reading and independent reading of award winning texts, students broaden their vocabulary, practice reading with expression and utilize comprehension strategies. The Houghton-Mifflin series provides quality literature on a variety of levels to allow students explore stories and non-fiction material on their level. Theme studies include silly stories, along with selections about families, communities, animals and nature. Second graders gain familiarity with genres including poetry, folktales and fables, biographies, and chapter books.
Reading strategies are continually developed as students make story predictions and infer meaning before and while reading. They ask questions of themselves and one another during and after reading. Monitoring their own comprehension and clarifying their understanding while reading is another important reading strategy. Students also gather experience by summarizing narrative and informational text using elements of story structure and graphic organizers. Students practice critical thinking as they evaluate text for effective writing.
We Love Books!
Second grade students love to explore funny fantasy stories, realistic fiction, and poetry. They explore dinosaurs, rain forest animals and biographies in non-fiction texts. Students read about current events happening near and far in our weekly classroom newspapers. In May students read a biography and report interesting facts to the class.
Writing
Second grade students spend time journaling, writing observations, stories, letters, descriptions and reports. Students build a strong understanding of sentences in second grade and begin understanding the structure of paragraphs. While studying rain forest animals, students write reports on a specific animal of interest.
The writing process: On this level students are using a variety of ways to brainstorm and collect information in the pre-writing phase. After drafting a writing piece, students provide feedback to one another. While revising, children can add or clarify elements of their writing before moving through an editing checklist to publish an effective piece of writing. Writing conventions of capitalization and ending punctuation are emphasized. The correct use of nouns, pronouns and verbs of present and past tense are grammar skills built through writing and proofreading experiences.
Writing Traits: Students are supported in developing ideas and organizing their writing. Instruction and feedback help writers to carefully choose specific language. These young writers are encouraged to let their voice come through in their choice of words.
Sharing With Technology
S.D. is presenting her Christmas Around the World Report on the interactive Smartboard. This is great way to get a close look at writing samples and for students to present their great work!