Second Grade Curriculum

English-Language Arts

READING

Word Analysis, Fluency, and Systematic Vocabulary Development

Students:

• Understand the basic features of reading.
• Select letter patterns and know how to translate them into spoken language by using phonics, syllabication, and word parts.
• Apply this knowledge to achieve fluent oral and silent reading.

Reading Comprehension

Students:

• Read and understand grade-level-appropriate material.
• Draw upon a variety of comprehension strategies as needed (e.g., generating and responding to essential questions, making predictions, comparing information from several sources).
• Continue to make progress toward the goal of by grade four annually reading one-half million words including a wide range of grade level appropriate narrative and expository text.

Literary Response and Analysis

Students:

• Read and respond to a wide variety of significant works of children’s literature.
• Distinguish between the structural features of the text and the literary terms or elements (e.g., theme, plot, setting, characters).

WRITING

Writing Strategies

Students:

• Write clear and coherent sentences and paragraphs that develop a central idea.
• Show they consider the audience and purpose.

• Progress through the stages of the writing process (e.g., pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing successive versions).

Writing Applications (Genres and Their Characteristics)

Students:

• Write compositions that describe and explain familiar objects, events, and experiences.
• Demonstrate a command of standard American English and the drafting, research, and organizational strategies outlined in the writing standards.

WRITTEN AND ORAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE CONVENTIONS

• Students write and speak with a command of standard English conventions appropriate to second grade.

LISTENING AND SPEAKING

Listening and Speaking Strategies

Students:

• Listen critically and respond appropriately to oral communication.
• Speak in a manner that guides the listener to understand important ideas by using proper phrasing, pitch, and modulation.

Speaking Applications (Genres and Their Characteristics)

Students:

• Deliver brief recitations and oral presentations about familiar experiences or interests that are organized around a coherent thesis statement.
• Demonstrate a command of standard American English and the organizational and delivery strategies outlined in Listening and Speaking standards.

Mathematics

By the end of grade two, students understand place value and number relationships in addition and subtraction and they use simple concepts of multiplication. They measure quantities with appropriate units. They classify shapes and see relationships among them by paying attention to their geometric attributes. They collect and analyze date and verify the answers.

NUMBER SENSE

Students:

• Understand the relationship between numbers, quantities, and place value in whole numbers up to 1,000.
• Estimate, calculate, and solve problems involving addition and subtraction of two-and three digit numbers.
• Model and solve simple problems involving multiplication and division.
• Understand that fractions and decimals may refer to parts of a set and parts of a whole.
• Model and solve problems by representing, adding, and subtracting amounts of money.
• Use estimation strategies in computation and problem solving that involve numbers that use the ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands places.

ALGEBRA AND FUNCTIONS

• Students model, represent and interpret number relationships to create and solve problems involving addition and subtraction.

MEASUREMENT AND GEOMETRY

Students:

• Understand that measurement is accomplished by identifying a unit of measure, iterating (repeating) that unit, and comparing it to the item to be measured.
• Identify and describe the attributes of common figures in the plane and of common objects in space.

STATISTICS, DATA ANALYSIS, AND PROBABILITY

Students:

• Collect numerical data and record, organize, display, and interpret the data on bar graphs and other representations.
• Demonstrate an understanding of patterns
• Understand how patterns grow and describe them in general ways.

MATHEMATICAL REASONING

Students:

• Make decisions about how to set up a problem.
• Solve problems and justify their reasoning.
• Note connections between one problem and another.

History-Social Science

PEOPLE WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Students in grade two explore the lives of actual people who make a difference in their everyday lives and learn the stories of extraordinary people from history whose achievements have touched them, directly or indirectly. The study of contemporary people who supply goods and services aids in understanding the complex interdependence in our free-market system.

Students:

• Differentiate between things that happened long ago and things that happened yesterday.
• Demonstrate map skills by describing the absolute and relative locations of people, places and environments.
• Explain governmental institutions and practices in the United States and other countries.

• Understand basic economic concepts and their individual roles in the economy and demonstrate basic economic reasoning skills.
• Understand the importance of individual action and character and explain how heroes from long ago and the recent past have made a

• Students understand that motion of objects can be observed and measured.

• Students understand that plants and animals have predictable life cycles.

• Students understand that the earth is made of materials that have distinct properties and provide resources for human activities.