2nd Grade Report Overview

The materials for Grade 2  partially meet the expectations for alignment to research-based practices and standards for foundational skills instruction.

The materials do not contain elements of instruction that are based on the three-cueing system for teaching decoding. The materials include a clearly delineated scope and sequence with a cohesive, intentional sequence of phonics instruction that builds from simpler to more complex skills while also building towards the application of skills. However, the materials have a limited evidence-based explanation for the order of the phonics sequence. The materials include reasonable pacing of newly taught phonics skills. The Instructional Time Guide includes information for the pacing of daily lessons. The Bridge to Reading foundational skills lessons include 8-12 minutes of phonemic awareness instruction and 20-30 minutes of phonics instruction. The timing of the phonemic awareness and phonics components is indicated in the header of the lesson plans.

The materials provide students with frequent opportunities to decode phonetically spelled words through guided practice in the We Do portion of the lesson. Independent practice is provided during the I Do part of the lesson. Lessons provide students with frequent opportunities to encode phonetically spelled words through activities found in the student READ workbook. Lessons include student guided practice and independent practice of blending words using the sound-spelling pattern(s) in an instructional sequence through the use of Word Construction Cards, Spell Tabs, and the Finger Blending Strategy. Materials provide opportunities for students to engage in decoding practice focused on accuracy and automaticity. Teachers introduce spelling rules and generalizations in regular instructional routines in a sequence aligned to the phonics Scope and Sequence. Beginning in Week 3, the materials include regular use of Word Construction Cards for modeling and Spell Tabs for recurring student practice applying spelling rules and generalizations. The materials include decodable texts aligned to the phonics Scope and Sequence. Decodable passages are included in the READ book for each week. The lesson plans include opportunities for two reads of each passage, but lesson plans to support repeated reading lack detail beyond brief teacher reminders of the week’s phonics focus and Red Words. The program also includes a Decodables Library. While these texts are briefly mentioned in the lesson plans, there are no lesson plans for these texts; the materials indicate that these texts are intended to support small group or independent reading practice without clear guidance for use and implementation. The materials include weekly formative assessments in the form of Weekly Checks. These checks include encoding words in isolation and in the context of a sentence. The Weekly Checks do not include decoding tasks.

The materials include consistent instructional routines to introduce high-frequency words, beginning in Week 1, with four weeks of dedicated review at the end of the year. Materials include teacher modeling of the spelling and reading of high-frequency words that includes connecting the phonemes to the graphemes. The materials provide consistent opportunities for students to engage in practice reading high-frequency words in isolation and in the context of sentences and decodable passages. The READ book also includes weekly recurring routines in which students write high-frequency words in sentences. The materials include instruction and student practice in the area of syllabication and morpheme analysis. Lessons include explicit instruction in syllable patterns and affixes, and students have frequent opportunities to apply word analysis skills to decode unfamiliar words. The materials include a Weekly Check during which students write some of the week’s Red Words in isolation or in the context of a sentence. The materials do not include assessments of word recognition or word analysis.

The materials include limited opportunities for explicit, systematic instruction in oral reading fluency. Teachers use weekly stories from sound posters to give general information about the habits of fluent readers and to model fluent reading. The materials provide limited opportunities for students to engage in supported practice to gain automaticity and prosody. Students practice fluent reading independently using word lists, sentences, and decodable text passages. Teachers provide general reminders about fluent reading strategies before students read the passage. While the materials include some guidance and corrective feedback related to accuracy, there is no guidance for teachers to support prosody and rate. Materials include limited assessment opportunities over the course of the year for students to demonstrate progress toward mastery and independence of oral reading fluency. The materials include a Fluency Checklist for the teacher to use to assess fluency weekly using the Day 4 decodable reader.