2nd Grade - Gateway 2

The instructional materials reviewed for Benchmark Grade 2 meet the criteria that materials contain sets of coherently sequenced questions and tasks that require students to analyze the language (words/phrases), key ideas, details, craft, and structure of individual texts in order to make meaning and build understanding of texts and topics.

Mentor Read-Alouds, Shared Reading, and Extended Reads provide opportunities for students to analyze words/phrases and or author’s word choice according to grade level standards. Tables and charts are created to help students determine word meaning in various ways. Texts are used for comprehension strategies like key ideas and details, structure, and craft according to grade level standards. By the end of the year, components like language, word choice, key ideas, details, structure and craft are embedded in students’ work rather than taught directly. Each three week unit focuses on an Essential Question that combines direct instruction with independent practice of skills.

• In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 4, the Shared Reading text, “Since Hannah Moved Away,” is used to help students to understand how a poet uses similes to make a description more vivid. In doing this, students must identify specific words that help them determine similes used in the text.
• In Unit 2, Week 1, Day 4, Short Read 2 Mini-Lesson, students analyze how characters respond to major events and challenges. The teacher models how to describe characters’ responses to major events and challenges. During Guided Practice, the teacher uses text-dependent questions to guide students’ thinking: “What major events happen in paragraphs 3-5? How does Yeh-Shen respond to these events? What do we learn about Yeh-Shen?” During Show Your Knowledge, students select a character and write a sentence that describes what the character is like based on the way the character acts and reacts in response to a major event.
• In Unit 5, Week 2, Day 2, Extended Read 1 Mini-Lesson, students identify the main topic of a text. Students read “George Washington Carver (1864-1943)’ and “Conclusion” and underline key details. Students use the details to note the possible main topic of the section. During Collaborative Conversation: Partner, students discuss their key details to distinguish between more important ideas and less important ideas in order to decide on the main topic.
• In Unit 6, Week 1, Day 2, Shared Reading, students read the text, “The Best Idea” and make connections to understand the text. Students have collaborative conversations to better understand the story. Students answer the following questions, “What is the difference between Young Mouse and Old Mouse? Have you ever had an idea to fix something that seemed good at first, but then turned out to be more difficult to complete? What are some things that this story can teach us?”
• In Unit 8, Week 2, Day 2, Extended Read 1 Mini-Lesson, “Earth’s Changes,” tasks students with identifying the main idea of a text. Students answer the following questions, ““How Does Water Change Earth?” and “How Does Wind Change Earth?” Tell them to annotate the section “How Does Water Change the Earth?” in order to answer the questions, students underline the key details in the text that supports the main idea.
• In Unit 10, Week 3, Day 3, Extended Read 2 Mini-Lesson, students identify real-life connections between words and their uses. The teacher models how to make real-life connections to the author’s words and descriptions. During Guided Practice, students focus on mountain, sculpture, attraction, government officials and make connections to the words. During Show Your Knowledge, students write a sentence that explains the real-life connection that helps them understand the phrase, “climb hundreds of stairs.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Benchmark Grade 2 meet the criteria that materials include a cohesive, year-long plan for students to interact with and build key academic vocabulary words in and across texts.

The vocabulary instruction for Grade 2 provides opportunities for students to learn academic vocabulary in Shared, Mentor, and Extended Texts. Additionally, vocabulary is reinforced through activities completed in the Grammar, Spelling and Vocabulary Workbook. Throughout each unit, students read, write, illustrate, manipulate and complete fill-in the blank prompts for practice and to gain competency with learned vocabulary words. Materials provide teacher guidance on the unit opener page for each unit. Routines, procedures, and lessons guide the appropriate use of vocabulary used in each unit. Vocabulary is repeated in contexts and across multiple texts. Attention is given to essential vocabulary supporting students comprehension of texts. Students are supported to accelerate vocabulary learning with vocabulary in their reading, speaking, and writing tasks.

Vocabulary lessons highlight the most relevant vocabulary words aimed at building knowledge of the unit topic and support comprehension. To support students’ understanding of complex texts, the following vocabulary words and mini-lessons are targeted. Opportunities to interact and build vocabulary include:

• In Unit 1, Week 1, Day 2, students build vocabulary through determining the meaning of words and phrases in the passage “Smoke Jumpers.” Terms discussed from the text are smoke jumpers, rough terrain, parachute, and gear. Students use context clues from the text to help determine what the words mean.
• In Unit 2, Week 2, Day 3, students distinguish shades of meaning among related verbs. The vocabulary they work with in this unit are giggle and cackle. During the guided practice portion of the lesson, the students work with the story, “Billy Goats Gruff,” in order to find other verbs that are similar to determine what the meaning of the words are.
• In Unit 3, Week 2, Day 3, students fill out a word meaning chart based on the text, “Habitats Around the World.” The teacher begins by modeling how to note the meaning of the word “habitat” in the text. After reading the sentence which gives the definition of habitat in the text, the teacher is directed to use a dictionary to check the meaning of the word. Guided practice is done to find the meaning of the words: grasslands, prairie, savanna, blubber, and tundra. Students find the “definition for the word coral in paragraph 10 and explain how knowing the meaning helps them understand what a coral reef is.”
• In Unit 4, Week 1, Day 2 students read the story, “The Blind Man and the Elephant.” The key vocabulary words during this story are proclaimed, announced, exclaimed, and declared. Students work with these key vocabulary words in order to identify and create a story of the characters point of view from the story.
• In Unit 6, students analyze text for key vocabulary words, re-read to find supporting details and plan a writing event about the key details in a story. Each one of these tasks is built around the following key vocabulary words, “new, soon, book, look, crook, bitter and refreshing. Students read the story, “On One Wheel,” during Week 3, Day 3 and use a dictionary to define the words, pummeled and dismounted.
• In Unit 7, Week 3, the vocabulary instruction for Build Vocabulary includes great from “Buffalo Dusk,” great from “The Oregon Trail,” and great from “Helen Keller: Words through Touch,” wonderful from “In the British Museum,” and good from “Primary Sources.” Students distinguish meaning among related adjectives.
• In Unit 8, students read stories about weather and how it impacts us. The vocabulary words that students work with are, damage, pollution, formal and informal. Students compare formal and informal uses of the text during the story, “Waters Awesome Wonder.”
• In Unit 9, Week 3, Day 3, the Build Vocabulary task is predicting the meaning of compound words. Words reviewed are newspapers, homework, whiteboard, overnight, classroom, footprint, snowman, and birdhouse. The words snowman and birdhouse are used to introduce the topic and the remaining words come from the text “The Paper Dinosaurs.”

The instructional materials reviewed from Benchmark Grade 2 meet the criteria that materials contain a year long, cohesive plan of writing instruction and tasks which support students in building and communicating substantive understanding of topics and texts.

The Benchmark materials include support for Grade 2 students’ writing instruction for a whole year’s worth of instruction engaging students with the grade level writing standards. Writing lessons, tasks, and projects authentically integrate with reading, speaking, listening, and language. Writing tasks and projects are varied and include learning, practice, and application of writing skills. The teacher materials provide models, protocols, and plans to support implementation of the writing tasks, projects, and supports as well as guidance or support for pacing of writing over shorter and extended periods of time appropriate to the grade level.Examples of materials containing a year long, cohesive plan of writing include but are not limited to:

• In Unit 1, Week 1, Day 3, students write a few sentences in the margin of the text that recount the key events of the story, using the text, “Can You Sew a Flag, Betsy Ross?” The teacher models how to annotate the text “by underlining and writing any questions in the margin.” Guided practice is completed using paragraphs 5-12 of the story. The writing practice happens during Show Your Knowledge.
• In Unit 4, Week 1, Day 3, the students and the teacher develop an opinion essay in response to the prompt, “Is ‘The Blind Men and the Elephant’ a story you would recommend to your friends? Why or why not? State your opinion in an essay. Supply reasons, based on details from the story, to support your opinion.” The teacher tells students that they will respond to a quick write prompt, “How does a notetaking form help you organize your thoughts to write an opinion essay? “ The teacher begins by modeling for students using his/her own notes collected using the opinion essay notes from a source text. With a peer, students practice taking notes by providing facts from the reading to support their explanations/reasons. After this, students and the teacher come together for whole group sharing of their notetaking. Using information and supporting evidence students provide, the teacher adds to an anchor chart previously created. Support for teachers as they guide students is provided in the Integrated ELD. Discussion, sentence frames and a combination of both are included to aid students’ understanding of appropriate notetaking.

• In Unit 7, Week 3, Day 1, students “write a few sentences that explain how the photographs in a journal can help readers figure out the main topics of journal entries” in the Share Your Knowledge part of the lesson. Students use the text, “A Dinosaur Named Sue” to identify the main topic of the text. Students annotate the journal entry as they read it, noting “the main topic of each journal entry.” Students compare their annotations with a partner. “Students work together to use the important details they underlined to determine the main topic of each journal entry.” During the Share portion of the activity, “Call on different students to share the key ideas for each journal entry and the main topics they formed. Ask other students to listen carefully to determine if the key details support the main topic. Revisit the text as needed to find each key detail and determine if the main topic in each entry was stated or unstated.” Once this is completed, students will then complete the writing to respond to the prompt.
• In Unit 8, Week 2, Day 2, students write the body to an informative essay on how water and wind can quickly change earth. The teacher models this writing using the Informative Essay Planning Guide included in teacher resources. After teacher modeling, students work with a peer to develop the second main idea using the teacher completed Informative Essay Planning Guide. Students and the teacher gather in whole group so that peer groups can share writing. Students independently write the body paragraphs using specific details from the Informative Essay Planning Guide. Confer and monitor prompts help teachers aid students’ progress through directive feedback, self-monitoring, reflection, validating, and confirming. An Integrated ELD is also provided in the teacher resource for students at varying need for support, light, moderate, or substantial.
• In Unit 10, students write about the acrostic poetry form. Students evaluate and narrow the focus and develop ideas through freewriting. At the end of the unit, students share the poem with their peers.

The instructional materials reviewed for Benchmark Grade 2 meet the criteria that materials include a progression of focused, shared research and writing projects to encourage students to develop knowledge and understanding of a topic using texts and other source materials.

Benchmark Materials include shared research and writing projects to encourage students to develop knowledge and understanding of a topic using texts and other source materials. In the core materials, students have opportunities to participate in writing tasks that develop students’ knowledge on a topic via provided resources. Shared research is found in the Connect Across Disciplines Inquiry Projects section. The teacher will have to provide the resources for research in Connect Across Disciplines Inquiry Projects. Research skills requires students to focus on a routine of investigation, creating, presentation, reflection and responding. Each unit includes three connect across disciplines inquiry projects. Most require a week to complete, and some extend beyond a week’s time. Over the course of a year, tasks within the inquiry project routines increase in the depth and difficulty of assigned tasks. Teachers must use supplemental resources, such as websites, books, and pictures that are not provided. A recommended trade books tab gives teachers additional books to potentially use and incorporate throughout the specific unit of study. Materials also provide opportunities for students to apply reading, writing, speaking & listening in addition to language skills for students to synthesize and analyze grade level readings.

• In Unit 2, Connect Across Disciplines Inquiry Projects, students learn about a challenge an ancestor might have faced and begin an inquiry project called “Retell a Family Story.” Students retell a story about a family member and label a map with information about that family member. Teachers provide an outline of a map and colored pencils. Teachers refer back to the unit's reading as a review of how characters from these texts overcame different kinds of problems. Students engage in conversations about the readings. Students conduct interviews of family members who faced difficulties and ask how the situations were overcome. Students are encouraged to interview family members that may have moved to the United States as key interviewees. Notes are to be taken that include what, where and when events occurred. From these notes, students create and retell their family member’s story. Likewise, students locate on the map where the events occurred. Once completed, students present their stories and maps in a whole group setting. Students also use their skills to ask appropriate questions of their peers after presenting. Reflection includes a discussion of similarities and differences noticed between all presentations.
• In Unit 3, students answer a prompt and write an informative report. During the first week, students write to a prompt, “Write an informative report that describes how emperor penguins survive Antarctica's harsh winters. Support your ideas with facts and definitions from “The Coldest Place on Earth” and information from ‘Adapting to Survive.’” In Weeks 2 and 3, the prompt is “In an informative report, describe grasslands and the plants and animals that live in them. Support ideas with facts and definitions from ‘Habitats Around the World’ and information from ‘Plant Life of the Australian Savanna.”
• In Unit 5, students “will develop and draft an essay in which they express an opinion about the focus of this unit: technology.” Each day, students will be focusing on different aspects of the assignment. As noted on the Unit Writing and Vocabulary link: “In Week 1, teachers guide students through an analysis of a Mentor Opinion Essay and the pre-writing steps in the writing process: brainstorm, evaluate ideas, and plan. In Week 2, teachers guide students through the drafting steps in the writing process. In Week 3, teachers guide students through the revising, editing, and publishing steps in the writing process.” In each week thereafter, the teacher models the expectations and students write independently.
• In Unit 6, Connect Across Disciplines Inquiry Projects in which a plant experiment is performed to achieve the following objectives: 1) Conduct an experiment about the effects of sunlight on plants. 2) Make observations and record them. 3) Use my findings to draw a conclusion about the connection between sunlight and plant growth. Teachers provide small plants with green leaves, art supplies, tape, paper clips, and paper to record findings. Students and teacher refer back to the reading, “A Foxy Garden” to draw upon prior experience regarding how characters in the story planted and watered seeds to make a garden grow. Students engage in discussion about how to conduct an experiment for growing a seed into a garden and develop a plan to carry out an experiment. Students conduct experiments and are sure to include varying degrees of sunlight. Observations are done and noted on an observation record. Students participate in a discussion to develop a conclusion about findings. Presentations include showing plants, displaying observations, and sharing final conclusions about the experiment. Students are encouraged to listen carefully to their peers, speak in complete sentences, and discuss findings with peers. Final reflections tasks students to review the effectiveness of the experiments and potential changes if the same experiment were to be repeated. The inquiry project closes with posing the question, “What happens when plants don’t get enough sunlight?”
• In Unit 9, students complete a multimedia presentation over the course of three weeks. As noted on the Unit Writing and Vocabulary link, “In Week 1, teachers guide students through an analysis of a Mentor Multimedia Presentation and introduce the pre-writing steps in the writing process. In Week 2, teachers guide students through the drafting steps in the writing process. In Week 3, teachers guide students through the revising and editing steps in the writing process. After the teacher has modeled each step in the process, students write independently. Students rehearse presentations and share final presentations with the class.”

The instructional materials reviewed for Benchmark Grade 2 meet the criteria that materials provide a design, including accountability, for how students will regularly engage in a volume of independent reading either in or outside of class.

Benchmark materials provide the opportunity for students to read independently throughout the school year. The materials include a resource in Program Support titled, “Managing Your Independent Reading Program,” which details the expectations for teachers and students to be reading both in class and independently at home. The “Managing Your Independent Reading Program” includes: resources for organizing independent reading, the classroom library, room arrangement, anchor charts, mini-lessons for promoting independent reading, reading response journals and logs, discussion groups and book recommendations, guidance for conferring with students, and information on growing your classroom library. According to Benchmark materials, “Students should also be encouraged to develop a routine of reading daily at home for a minimum of 20 minutes, either independently or with a parent.” In the independent reading stage, students are required to self-select and to read materials at their own ‘just-right’ levels.” The Three-Finger Method is recommended for Emergent and Early Readers, which includes:

1. Choose a book that you would like to read.
2. Turn to any page and begin reading.
3. If there are three words that you can’t pronounce or that you don’t understand, the book is too difficult for you.
4. Repeat the process until you find a “just-right” book.

For Fluent Readers, the Five-Finger Method is recommended for book selection:

1. Choose a book that you would like to read.
2. Turn to any page and begin reading.
3. If there are five words you can’t pronounce or that you don’t understand, the book is too difficult for you.
4. Repeat the process until you find a “just-right” book.

A tracking system is recommended in the “Managing Your Independent Reading Program” to track students’ independent reading in the form of a reading log and reading response journal. Reading response journals are kept by students and used to record personal responses to texts they have read or will read. Teachers demonstrate proper techniques, provide mini-lessons on how to respond to literature, and model several prompts by listing them on chart paper, and hang the paper on the wall. The reading log is also suggested as an independent reading tracking tool. In reading logs, students keep a record of what they have read by writing the book title, author, illustrator, genre, and date read.

There is sufficient teacher guidance to foster independence for all readers and procedures are organized for independent reading included in the lessons. For example, as stated in the text, “Within Benchmark Advance, students may participate in daily independent reading during the Independent and Collaborative Activity block, while the teacher meets with small groups of students to conduct differentiated small-group reading instruction, model fluency skills through reader’s theater, or reteach skills and strategies.” Students complete a variety of reading activities in the reading block. Students have shared reading and mentor read-alouds each week. There are also a set of small group texts that will be used in small group time. Each set of texts is leveled according to Guided Reading levels. Student independent reading materials span a wide volume of texts at grade levels. These texts titles are included as a teacher resource, Recommended Trade Books.