2nd Grade - Gateway 1

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials include frequent practice opportunities for students to decode words that consist of common and newly-taught sound and spelling patterns and provide opportunities for students to review previously taught phonics skills.

The materials provide frequent opportunities for students to decode phonetically spelled words using phonemes and/or syllables. Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to read complete words by saying the entire word as a unit using newly taught phonics skills, while also providing review opportunities to connect with previously learned grade level phonics skills. The materials utilize a variety of methods for students to practice their phonics skills. Decodable readers give students the ability to apply phonics in continuous texts, while other areas of the lesson break decoding down into isolated words. Student activity pages give students the opportunity to practice both in isolation and in continuous text.

Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to decode (phonemes and/or syllables) phonetically spelled words.

• In Skills 1, Lesson 13, students are reminded that words can be broken into chunks called syllables. Students read two-syllable words by reading each syllable separately and then blending the word together. Words include basket, catfish, himself, suntan, dustpan, bandit, picnic, and invent.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 4, students choose the correct decoding of words divided into syllables two ways such as choosing lab/el or la/bel.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 4, students decode adjectives that have suffix -ous. Words for practice include monstrous, disastrous, nervous, chivalrous, enormous, generous, boisterous, hideous, and jealous.

Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to read complete words by saying the entire word as a unit using newly taught phonics skills. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 17, students play the baseball game. The class is divided into two teams, and each team takes a “turn at bat.” A student picks up a card from the pile and reads it. If they read it correctly, their “bat” is recorded on a baseball diamond. Play continues and the team proceeds through the “inning” as long as no words are misread.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 12, students get additional support reading r-controlled words in the game “Race Against the Clock.” Students are given a set of word cards and have a specific number of time to read the word cards. The teacher can select the words based on each individual student.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 2, students read the text, “The Spelling Bee.” Prior to reading, students review words with the spellings ay and ai. Words include Gail, chair, airplane, and Sunday.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 4, students read “All’s Well that Ends Well.” The story includes practice with words with the spellings ou and o_e. Words for practice include country, nervously, young, touched, generous, glove, and come.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 13, students read words aloud as a class that have the schwa + l sound. Words include model, tunnel, middle, and simple.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 1, students read words with the /f/ sound spelled ph in Activity Page 1.1. The class reads the words aloud, circles the /f/ spelling in each word, and then reads the word again.

Materials contain opportunities for students to review previously learned grade-level phonics. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 12, students read “The Chicken Nugget,” which contains words with double letter spellings, which is a phonics skill reviewed in the lesson. Words included in the text with double letter spellings are nugget and sniff.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 9, students decode words with previously taught sound patterns of ‘oi’, ‘oy’, and ‘ow’. Words include: join, enjoy, frowned, house, coins, how, and south.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 2, students review the spellings for the /er/ sound. Students circle the spelling for the /er/ before reading the word aloud. Words include servant, sunburn, stirrup, murder, blackbird, modern, and interest.

Materials contain a variety of methods to promote students’ practice of previously taught phonics. Examples include:

• In Skills 2, Lesson 2, students review magic e in a pop out chaining activity. The teacher writes a CVC word on the board such as cut and then the teacher adds the e. The students read the new word cute.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 18, students read and act out Wiggle Cards. Phrases on the Wiggle Cards include: pretend to be a donkey, act like you’re playing hockey, and point at your kidneys.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials that promote frequent opportunities for students to practice decoding phonetically regular words in a sentence.

The materials provide explicit practice for decoding phonetically regular words in sentences through decodable readers and activity pages that align with the phonics skills in the lesson.

Materials provide explicit, systematic practice for decoding phonetically regular words in a sentence. Examples include:

• In Skills 2, Lesson 4, prior to reading, the teacher reviews with students how to break unknown words into syllables. The teacher reminds the students to cover the second syllable of a word, while they read the first syllable, and then cover the first syllable while reading the second syllable before blending the word together.
• In Skills 5, in the Introduction, it states, “In the Reader lessons for this unit, you will notice a decrease in the number of individual words and spellings reviewed in isolation for decoding purposes immediately before students read the story. This decrease is intentional and represents a very gradual process in which students will assume increasing responsibility and independence in reading texts.”

Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to decode words in a sentence. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 1, students read the decodable text “Kate Visits Nan” and sentences include, “But in the end, I had a lot of fun.”
• In Skills 1, Activity Page 1.2, students read the decodable questions and answer choices, written in sentences. Sentences include,“What will Kate do on the trip? Kate will swing, slide, and run. Kate will hike, cook outside, and sleep in a tent. Kate will fly a kite.”
• In Skills 4, Lesson 1, students read questions on Activity Page 1.2 to be able to answer yes or no. For example, students read, “Can a dog chirp with joy?”
• In Skills 5, Activity Page 5.4, students read the decodable questions and answer choices, written in sentences. Sentences include, “Where does Sir Gus go when the rest of the knights ride off to find the troll? Sir Gus goes to the shed to find a weapon. Sir Gus goes to the barn to find a horse. Sir Gus goes to the kitchen to get a snack.”

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials include daily practice opportunities for students to build/manipulate/spell and encode grade-level phonics, including common and newly-taught sound and sound patterns.

The Grade 2 materials have daily student practice beginning for building, manipulating, and spelling grade-level appropriate words. Materials include explicit instruction, as well as background information for the teacher to use. Students are provided with opportunities to build, manipulate, spell, and encode common and newly-taught grade level phonics through chaining activities, dictation activities, and Student Activity pages.

The materials contain teacher-level instruction/modeling for building, manipulating, spelling, and encoding words using common and newly-taught sound and spelling patterns of phonics. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Less 1, the teacher models a think-aloud strategy for a spelling chaining activity. The word is at and the teacher says, “First I have to say and listen to the sounds: /a/.../t/. There are two sounds in the word at. I’ll need to write a spelling for each of these sounds. So first I will write the spelling or letter for /a/ because it is the first sound. Then I will write the spelling or letter for /t/ because it is the next sound.”
• In Skills 1, Lesson 13, the teacher tells students that “today you are going to focus on some spellings for consonant sounds found mostly at the beginning of words.” The teacher writes kn on the board and reminds students that kn says /n/. The teacher says, “When we see the letters ‘k’ and ‘n’ side by side like this, we recognize they make up a single spelling and we say /n/.”
• In Skills 2, Lesson 8, in a Teacher Chaining activity the teacher writes oil on the board and reads the word aloud. The teacher asks, “If this is oil, how would I write boil?” The teacher can add the b to create the word boil or have a student go to the board and change the spelling to create boil. The teacher reminds students that although vowel digraphs include multiple letters they represent one sound and only count as one change in the chaining activity. Words in the activity include: coin, join, joint, and pout, bout, boot.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 18, in a Language activity, the teacher reminds students they have learned three ways to change singular nouns into plural nouns. The teacher writes dog on chart paper and asks students how they would turn dog into a plural word and writes dogs by dog and underlines the -s. The teacher writes box, asking students how they would change it into a plural word and writes boxes next to box, underling -es. The teacher models using the word butterfly ending in y to write the plural butterflies going through all of the steps aloud. The teacher models changing supply into the plural word supplies, asking students for the spelling rule to change supply to the plural word form. The teacher models changing play into the plural form plays and tells students that whenever y is preceded by a vowel they only need to add -s to create the plural word. The teacher writes the words provided on the board and asks students if the y needs to be changed to make the plural word.

Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to build, manipulate, spell, and encode words in isolation based in common and newly-taught phonics patterns. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 1, students use a magic e card to change short vowel words that are written on the board into long vowel words. Words for encoding practice include mad-made, tap-tape, and cap-cape.
• In Skills 1, Lesson 3, students write words that the teacher says in their dictation journals. The teacher says the word, uses it in a sentence, and then says the word one more time. Words include: jog, hop, top.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 1, in a Teacher Chaining activity students practice reading words created by the teacher by changing, taking away, or adding a letter or sound to create new words. Students segment and blend the word at, then read ad as the teacher takes the t away and changes it to d. Words included in the activity are: pit, pat, bat and tad, bad, bat.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 3, students read and sort words by spelling and place the correct words in the proper column for words with the /a/ spelled with a and the /ae/ sound spelled a, a_e, ai, ay. Students write each word in the appropriate sound spelling column on Activity Page 3.1. Twenty words are provided on the sheet to be sorted and written by the students.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 14, the teacher reminds students of the new sound they learned /ee/ spelled i. Students are guided through a Spelling Tree activity where they sort sound i as /ee/, /ie/, /i/. Students complete Activity page 14.2 where they write the correct spelling in the sentences provided. Words include: igloo, media, item, impossible, chilly, chili, medium, violin, piano, curious, spaghetti, India.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials that promote application and encoding of phonics in activities and tasks. (mid K-Grade 2)

The materials include explicit, systematic teacher-level instruction and modeling to demonstrate the use of phonics to encode sounds to letters and words in writing tasks through dictation work. The program provides students with frequent activities and tasks to promote application of phonics to encode words in phrases or sentences based on common and previously taught phonics patterns.

Materials include explicit, systematic teacher-level instruction of teacher modeling that demonstrates the use of phonics to encode sounds to letters and words in writing tasks. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, the Introduction states that simple dictation exercises are in each lesson. It tells teachers to encourage students to actively and openly refer to their Individual Code Charts if needed. It states that after the dictation, the teacher should go over and model the correct spelling for each word while students write the correct spelling next to it.
• In Skills 1, Lesson 13, the teacher models how to add suffix -ing to the word rub. The scripting provided says, “Rub has one syllable. Let’s look to see if it has a short vowel in it. Yes, the ‘u’ in rub is a short vowel. Does rub end in a single consonant? Yes ‘b’ is a single consonant.” The teacher explains that because rub has only one syllable, a short vowel, and ends in a consonant, the consonant b is doubled before adding - ing. The teacher writes the word on the board, circles the root word and underlines the suffix before students practice this skill.

Lessons provide students with frequent activities and tasks to promote application of phonics as they encode words in sentences or in phrases based on common and newly taught phonics patterns. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 1, students complete a dictation activity in their dictation journal. The teacher says a word, uses it in a sentence and says it one more time before students write the word. Words include bat, pad, and tap.
• In Skills 1, Lesson 13, students answer questions about the decodable story “The Chicken Nugget” in writing.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 10, students complete Activity Page 10.3 by creating sentences with words that contain the er spelling such as flower and later.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 13, students answer the question in writing, “Who do you expect to win the race?” after reading “The Big Race.”
• In Skills 5, Lesson 2, students complete Activity Page 2.2 by filling in the blank by completing sentences with words that contain alternative spelling of o and u for /u/.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials to include systematic instruction of high-frequency words and practice opportunities of high-frequency words to develop automaticity.

Materials include systematic and explicit instruction of high-frequency words through the Tricky Word instruction. Tricky words are explicitly taught, modeled, and practiced in isolation and in context. The materials provide opportunity to review previously taught Tricky Words as well.

Materials include systematic and explicit instruction of irregularly spelled words. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 22, the teacher goes over the words there, said, and says. For each word, the teacher reads the word and discusses what part of the word is read as expected and which part is tricky and then provides the students with a sentence that has the word.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 6, the teacher reviews the Tricky Words are, were, and, some. The teacher discusses the expected pronunciation of the word and the tricky part of the word.

Materials include frequent opportunities for the teacher to model the spelling and reading of irregularly spelled words in isolation. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 12, the teacher models reading previously taught tricky words of was, of, and a.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 2, before reading the chapter, the teacher models how to read the words before and always. For example, the teacher explains the /or/ sound in before spelled ore.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 11, the teacher pre-teaches the Tricky Words ghost and again before reading a story. The Teacher’s Guide says, “Students might think the ‘gh’ in ghost would be pronounced /g/ /h/, but these letters stand for the /g/ sound. Students might think the ‘ai’ in again would be pronounced /ae/, but in this word, these letters stand for the /e/ sound.”
• In Skills 6, Lesson 5, the teacher models and reviews sound spelling patterns for Tricky Words and identifies common errors. The teacher begins with the words Great Britain. The teacher begins with the word great and explains that students might think to pronounce it the ea as /ee/ but the ea actually says /ae/. Other words in this lesson include Europe, native, American, and war. For each of these, the teacher explains how students might pronounce it and what the correct pronunciation is.

Students practice identifying and reading irregularly spelled words in isolation. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 11, students complete a review of Tricky Words on flash cards by reading the words in isolation.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 1, students practice reading and identifying 20 words from a list of 53 high-frequency words in a game of Word Baseball.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 19, in a baseball game with words, students practice identifying and reading words with the schwa sound, which was studied in Skills 5. High-frequency words in the list include about, around, along, animal, and little.

Materials include a sufficient quantity of new grade-appropriate irregularly spelled words for students to make reading progress. According to Appendix B, students review and learn the following words:

• In Skills 1, in Appendix B, a Grade 2 Scope and Sequence is provided, which lists the 44 Tricky Words taught in Skills Units as follows:
• Skills 1: he, she, we, be, me, the, was, of, a, do, down, how, to, what, where, why, from, once, one, two, could, would, should, there, said, says, word
• Skills 2: you, your, street, my, by, have, all, who, no, go, so, are, were, some, they, their
• Skills 3-5: students review all previously taught Tricky Words.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials to provide frequent practice opportunities to read and write high-frequency words in context (sentences).

The materials include the opportunity to read grade-level high frequency words in sentences and to write words in tasks to promote automaticity. A Word Wall is built collaboratively by the students using the Tricky Words, and students use this tool throughout the year to support their reading and writing of high-frequency words.

Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to read grade-level irregularly spelled words in a sentence. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, on Take-Home Activity Page 12.3, students read the Tricky Words in the box at the top of the page. The students put those words into sentences with blanks, and the students read the completed sentence. The Tricky Words are the, a, he, she and be.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 1, the Tricky Words I, you, your, and street are pre-taught prior to reading the decodable “Mike’s Bedtime.” These words are found throughout the text in sentences such as, “Not if the sun is down and the street lamp is on.” and “What if I tell you a bedtime tale?”
• In Skills 3, the Introduction notes the Tricky word, minute, is introduced in the Reader and should be pre-taught before students read the decodable “The Math Contest.” This word is found throughout the text in sentences such as “Runner 1 runs a mile in six minutes. Runner 2 runs a mile in seven minutes.”
• In Skills 4, Lesson 3, the Tricky Words people, walk, and grown-up are pre-taught prior to reading the decodable “Brooklyn.” These words are found throughout the text in sentences such as “There were people walking here and there.”

Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to write grade-level irregularly spelled words in tasks (such as sentences) in order to promote automaticity in writing grade-level irregularly spelled words. Examples include:

• In Skills 4, Activity Page 21.1, students read the Tricky Words in the box and write the best word from the box to complete a sentence. Words to use for sentence completion include, salty, false, caught, always, dawn, almanac, wallpaper, and walrus.
• In Skills 5, Activity Page 12.1, students choose the best word from the box to complete each sentence. Words to use for sentence completion include, about, China, around, Africa, appetite, Tennessee, love cousin, something and touch.
• In Skills 6, Activity 3.1, students fill in the blank with irregularly spelled words such as “Would you _________ butter on the toast?”

Materials provide repeated, explicit instruction in how to use student-friendly reference materials and resources of reading irregularly spelled words. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 11, the teacher writes the Tricky Words the, he, she, we, be, me on yellow index cards. The Teacher Guide states, “If space allows, allocate wall space somewhere in your classroom to start a Tricky Word Wall where you will display these Tricky Word cards.” In Lesson 20, the teacher uses the Tricky Word Wall to review the Tricky Words with the class. The directions say, “Have all students say the word, or call on individual students. Make a note of any students who appear to struggle or make errors.”
• In Skills 2, the teacher creates another word wall. One is for Tricky Words, and one is for decodable words. According to the Teacher Guide, “There will be times when you will move a word from the Tricky Word Wall over to the Decodable Word Wall or Spelling Tree. This will happen as spellings are reviewed.” It goes on to say that words in the Tricky Word Wall should be yellow and words in the Decodable Word Wall will be green.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for materials to explicitly teach word analysis strategies (e.g., phoneme/grapheme recognition, syllabication, morpheme analysis) based on the requirements of the standards and providing frequent practice opportunities for students to apply word analysis strategies.

Materials include frequent and explicit instruction of word analysis strategies as well as explicit instruction for decoding familiar words. Students have opportunities to apply word analysis strategies in isolated word-level activities in lessons and when completing activity pages.

Materials contain frequent explicit instruction of word analysis strategies (e.g. phoneme/grapheme recognition, syllabication, morpheme analysis). Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 13, the teacher reviews two-syllable words. The teacher reminds students that words can be broken apart into chunks called syllables, and that a word has as many syllables as vowel sounds in it. The teacher models with words such as picnic, contest, upset, and himself.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 1, students learn the vowel sound /ae/. The teacher points out that the vowel sound in bake is a different kind of spelling. The teacher explains that even though the a and the e in bake are separated, they work together to stand for the /ae/ sound. This kind of spelling is called a separate digraph.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 10, students learn rules for changing words from singular nouns to plural nouns. Students learn that they add the suffix -es to words ending in ch, sh, ss, x, and z and that they change y to i and then add -es.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 13, students are given two or three syllable words, broken apart. The teacher points out that each syllable in each of the words ends in a consonant, so the syllables follow the CVC pattern and that the vowel is short because the syllable ends in a consonant. The teacher writes another set of words with an open syllable and points out that the first syllable in each word ends with a vowel so in the first syllable the vowel is long. The teacher tells students they are learning a new syllable pattern that ends in le. The teacher tells students that in these words the ending syllable has a consonant and then an le. Then students practice reading words such as single, handle, and gamble.

Materials contain frequent explicit instruction of word solving strategies to decode unfamiliar words. Examples include:

• In Skills 2, Lesson 5, students are asked to identify the vowel sound in the word book. They are asked, “if this is the same sound they hear in moon.” The teacher points out that the letters oo work together, as a digraph, or letter team, to stand for one sound in book. The teacher explains that oo can say /oo/ as in soon or /oo/ as in book.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 15, the teacher introduces the suffix -tion and tells students that it is pronounced /shen/ and is often added to the end of words. The teacher writes words on the board such as action, section and function, and the students circle the spelling for tion and read the word.

Multiple and varied opportunities are provided over the course of the year for students to learn, practice, and apply word analysis strategies. Examples include:

• In Skills 3, Lesson 2, students learn word spelling spellings ai and ay for the sound /ae/. Students participate in a Warm-up to review the /a/ sound and /ae/ sound. They practice with a word sort with words containing the spellings a_e, ai and ay. Students read “The Spelling Bee” and apply strategies to decode words with ai and ay.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 23, students learn tricky o spellings that say /oe/, /o/, and /u/. Students review a tricky o word chart with word sounds they have already learned. They read a story with tricky o words and point and count words with underlined tricky o spellings. Students sort words with a tricky o spelling.

The materials reviewed for Grade 2 meet the criteria for varied and frequent opportunities that are built into the materials for students to engage in supported practice to gain oral reading fluency beginning in mid-Grade 1 and through Grade 2 (once accuracy is secure).

The Grade 2 materials provide opportunities over the course of the year for students to gain oral reading fluency. Students engage in partner reading and repeated readings of grade-level text to practice oral reading fluency using the decodable readers. The materials include guidance and feedback suggestions to the teacher for supporting student gains in oral reading fluency.

Varied, frequent opportunities are provided over the course of the year in core materials for students to gain oral reading fluency. Examples include:

• The Grade 2 Materials include a Fluency Packet, containing poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and Reader’s Theater selections.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 2, students read “The Milk” with a partner.
• In Skills 3, Lesson 2, students read “The Spelling Bee” by taking turns reading aloud with a partner.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 4, there is an additional Activity Page, TR 4.1, to help students with oral reading. Students work in small groups and read the poem to one another orally.
• In Skills 5, Lesson 13, students read “The Letter” by taking turns reading aloud as a group. The teacher encourages students to read with expression.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 26, students read “The End of the War” with a partner.

Materials contain opportunities for students to participate in repeated readings of a grade-level text to practice oral reading fluency. Examples include:

• In Skills 1, Lesson 13, students in Group 1 reread “The Chicken Nugget” aloud to the teacher, while Group 2 rereads the story with a partner by taking turns reading the story.
• In Skills 2, Lesson 9, students reread “The Hare and the Hedgehog” with a partner.
• In Skills 4, Lesson 9, students reread the text “The Subway.” The teacher asks students to demonstrate a loud sigh and encourages students to reread the text with expression.
• In Skills 6, Lesson 30, students reread “Francis Scott Key and the National Anthem.” Students reread the chapter with a partner, taking turns to read each page.

Materials include guidance and feedback suggestions to the teacher for supporting students’ gains in oral reading fluency. Examples include:

• The Program Guide encourages teachers to select relevant passages in the Fluency packet and model reading them aloud and then having students take home the texts to practice reading them aloud throughout the week. By the end of the week, students individually read the passages or perform a choral reading to demonstrate fluency.
• In Skills 1, Lesson 14, the teacher is advised to use the Anecdotal Reading Records to monitor the reading progress of the students. The teacher can track students needing additional support.
• In Skills 3, in the Assessment and Remediation Guide, it states “while is it beyond the scope of this Guide to provide detailed suggestions for improving fluency, the following best practices are highly recommended...such as modeling fluency reading aloud with expression and using punctuation for pauses, as well as providing opportunities for students to reread passages after corrective feedback."